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A total of 420 Elon Musk Starlink satellites are now in low Earth orbit, promising new Internet services from space, but leaving many astronomers horrified.
Aim your eyes at the night sky in these pollution-free times here in Europe and you may well see a satellite train crossing the stars.
They are visible without any special equipment, a clear succession of lights against darkness. These objects are the beginnings of the Starlink constellation, a private company of Elon Musk’s SpaceX company that promises to offer high-quality Internet connections from space.
The last launch, on April 22, saw 60 satellites put into orbit by a Falcon 9 rocket, bringing the total to 420, enough to start implementing basic services. It is not entirely clear how many Starlink satellites will launch, although it could exceed 12,000, enough for astronomers to see red.
Self-destruct button?
German amateur astrophotographer Marcel Nowaczyk told Euronews: “From my point of view, it is frustrating to have to remove 25 percent of your images during an imaging session. I am a little scared of our future view of the night sky when there is 10,000 of them in orbit. “
Nowaczyk tweeted that he wanted the satellites to have some kind of “self-destruction inside.” Long-exposure photography is the daily bread of astrophotographers, and Starlink tends to leave large white lines in its images. Some are enjoying the show, others not.
‘Brighter than all the stars in the sky’
Professor Mark McCaughrean, Senior Advisor for Science and Exploration at the European Space Agency (ESA), told Euronews: “I have to admit that I am personally nauseous. They keep coming for many minutes, crossing the sky non-stop, attracting attention. attention, and occasionally shining brighter than every star in the sky to boot. “
Starlink needs so many satellites because the system provides connectivity between spacecraft as they fly overhead, which means faster speeds for customers on the ground.
The first phase will see around 1,600 satellites flying at 550 kilometers of altitude. Compare that to the less numerous geostationary satellites that send television signals to Earth from one point 36,000 kilometers away; it’s certainly not something you can easily spot with your binoculars at night.
Musk’s firm is also not alone in this emerging market. A similar plan by tech billionaire Jeff Bezos involves more than 3,200 internet satellites from space under the name of the Kuiper Project.
SpaceX is aware of astronomers’ concerns and says it is addressing them with anti-reflective surfaces on the newer satellites – in short, it will paint them black, and what is described as an ‘umbrella’ to reduce reflection from satellites in the future.
Astronomer Jonathan McDowell of the Center for Astrophysics (Harvard and Smithsonian) said he was “concerned about the potential that large numbers of bright satellites could ruin professional observations and affect the appearance of the night sky.”
However, he told us he was “encouraged by the steps SpaceX is now taking to reduce that impact; they have clearly been listening to our concerns.”
Taking away ‘the birthright of all who live on this planet’
Other prominent astronomers take it more personally and are not afraid to say it.
Euronews came to Carolyn Porco, a former imaging team leader on the NASA / ESA Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn and a visiting scholar at the University of California at Berkeley,
“These developments and what could follow will ruin the night sky … not only for those involved in the scientific study of the cosmos but also for those of us who find in its glory the comfort, perspective, and meaning of one’s life. .
It is the only spectacle to behold that is 13.8 billion years old. You steal that from us, you have taken away the birthright of all who live on this planet, “he wrote.
The risk of collision in orbit
In the long term, the reflectivity issue that now makes Starlink so easy to detect may be partially overcome, but experts, including Porco, are still concerned about the collision risk posed by a privately-run massive constellation in an orbital zone. so busy.
The ‘final frontier’ of space is not so empty these days, at least close to Earth, with around 1,500 active satellites, 2,200 deceased satellites and, according to ESA, millions of tiny fragments of space debris in orbit.
Adding tens of thousands of new satellites to crowded orbital routes is considered a serious danger in the future, especially given that the space sector is largely self-regulating and some pieces of space junk have been abandoned to spin out of control.
Porco said “there are insufficient plans on what to do in the event of a collision, or in the event that one of the owners goes bankrupt and can no longer manage their many assets.”
It is a concern shared by the Dutch space debris expert Dr. Marco Langbroek, who sent a message to say he is concerned about space security as the future launch of Starlink looms.
“The sight of those who spend in the archive for a time interval of ~ 20 minutes, 5-8 of them visible at the same time, almost seems like science fiction: the mothership unloading the invasion fleet,” he joked.
