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On Wednesday, April 22, a SpaceX rocket launched 60 satellites into space, to join Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite constellation.
While everyone is primarily focused on the coronavirus pandemic, the innovation continues. SpaceX has just launched 60 additional satellites into orbit as part of Elon Musk’s Starlink program. This program is designed to bring high-speed Internet to the world starting this year.
Last week an extraordinary show took place in the skies of Western Europe. On Wednesday, April 22, a SpaceX rocket launched 60 satellites into space, to join Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite constellation. For several nights, people had the opportunity to observe a train of satellites following each other at a constant speed, moving towards the SpaceX Starlink mega-constellation, as shown in this video.
High-speed, low-cost Internet
The Starlink broadband constellation is intended to offer low-cost, high-speed Internet access. Around 360 satellites have already been launched since May 2019 and this latest launch was the seventh batch. The constellation now has 422 mini satellites (each satellite weighs around 260 kg) that orbit Earth at an altitude of 550 km. SpaceX says the entire constellation will stretch up to 1,200 km.
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has already been cleared to deploy 12,000 of them from US authorities and has submitted a frequency request for an additional 30,000 satellites. This ambitious Internet program will first cover the northern United States and Canada in 2020, before expanding to the rest of the world in 2021. However, there are still obstacles to overcome. Starlink needs regulatory approval from each covered country, and Canada, for example, does not yet consider it as an “Internet Service Provider”.
A brilliant problem
A photograph has especially worried the scientific community. It was taken by the telescope at the Lowell Observatory in Arizona while trying to observe the galaxy NGC 5353/4.
Furthermore, the future Starlink satellite network is not without concern for astronomers, astrophysicists and meteorologists. They fear that the quality of scientific research will be affected by the presence of these satellites that appear as bright lights in the night sky, as happened last week. Some of them have already expressed concern on social media, such as Alex Parker and Jonathan McDowell.
SpaceNews also reported that Tony Tyson, chief scientist at the Rubin Observatory, warned that the brightness of Starlink satellites causes “non-linear crosstalk” and severe imaging artifacts in optical equipment.
“We would be left with all these false traces, false galaxies, etc., in our data, damaging the science.”
A photograph has especially worried the scientific community. It was taken by the telescope at the Lowell Observatory in Arizona while trying to observe the galaxy NGC 5353/4. We can see the light trails left by Elon Musk’s 25 satellites, making photography impossible to work with.
American website CelesTrak Provides spatial data and a map showing Starlink satellites, as well as all other satellites in orbit in real time. This already shows how crowded the low orbit of Earth is.
Experimental sun visor to reduce glare
VisorSat will use sun visors to prevent incoming sunlight from hitting the spacecraft’s reflective antennas so they don’t reflect light back to Earth (Credit: SpaceX)
On Monday, to reassure the community, Elon Musk announced that Starlink would test a “visor” to reduce the brightness of its satellites in the next launch. An experimental “VisorSat”, along with a new way to orient satellites as they orbit higher, could provide a solution. VisorSat will use sun visors to prevent incoming sunlight from hitting the spacecraft’s reflective antennas so they don’t reflect light back to Earth. According to Musk:
“Our goals, overall, are to make satellites invisible to the naked eye within a week and minimize the impact on astronomy, especially not to saturate the observatory’s detectors and inhibit discoveries.”
Two new launches of 60 satellites are expected in May. However, Musk did not give any information on how many satellites would be equipped with the parasol. Also, satellites that are already in orbit will not be equipped with VisorSat.
Where’s Starlink right now? You can follow the journey of the satellites on a live map available here.
