Elon Musk’s dream of an earth surrounded by cooperating clouds of satellites with a low earth orbit, a project known as Starlink, happens to be just a nightmare for astronomers and amateur astronomers. A new report on the many challenges Starlink poses suggests that astronomers’ best-case scenario is for SpaceX to leave the project.
The Satellite Constellations 1, as Satcon1 workshop brought together 250 astronomers, engineers, commercial satellite operators and other stakeholders and was organized by the National Science Foundation’s NOIRLab and the American Astronomical Society. The mission of Satcon1 was to investigate issues with, you guessed it, all Satellite constellations, namely the Starlink project.
Satellite constellations are satellites that work together to provide continuous coverage to a particular part of the earth. The Global Positioning System works this way. Starlink started as a network of 60 satellites, a little over a year ago it is now 538 units strong, according to TechCrunch. Their goal, once upon a time, will be to provide high speed internet to everyone on the planet. The company says it needs to get at least 800 satellites to be operational, but plan at least 12,000.
The American Astronomical Society writes out what’s at stake press release about the workshop:
When SpaceX launched in May 2019 the first batch of 60 Starlink communications satellites and people all over the world saw them in the air, astronomers responded with alarm. Not only were the Starlink satellites brighter than anyone expected, but there could be tens of thousands more like them. As they pass through Rubin’s camera field, they will affect the 8.4-meter (27.6-foot) telescope view of the faint celestial objects that astronomers hope to study.
“The Rubin Observatory and the giant 30-meter telescopes that will go online in the coming decades will substantially improve the understanding of the human being in the cosmos,” said SATCON1 co-chair Jeff Hall Lowell Observatory and chair of the AAS Commission on Light Pollution, Radio Interference, and Space Debris. “For reasons of cost, maintenance and instrumentation, such facilities cannot be operated from space. Ground-based astronomy is, and will remain, vital and relevant. ”
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Astronomer Julien Giard of the Space Telescope Science Institute highlighted an image created by astrophotographer Daniel López that shows how intrusive the satellites can be:
The workshop findings were difficult. While scientists are the first people to agree that widespread access to high-speed Internet is a worthy goal, they have found that such valuable scientific activities as “… searching for asteroids and comets threatening Earth, objects of the solar system and visibly illuminating counterparts of volatile sources of gravitational waves. ”Here are her six solutions to the problem:
- Start less than no LEOsats. As impractical as it is unlikely, this is the only identified option that can achieve zero astronomical impact.
- Insert satellites at orbital altitudes not exceeding ~ 600 km.
- Darker satellites are used as sunshades to shade their reflecting surfaces.
- Check the orientation of each satellite in space to reflect less sunlight to Earth.
- Minimize if eventually can eliminate the effect of satellite paths when processing astronomical images.
- Make more accurate orbital information available to satellites so that observers can avoid aiming telescopes at them.
Currently, SpaceX is experimenting with solar fibers that would dim the unusually bright objects, although the fibers only need to be deployed on 58 of the more than 500 currently in orbit. A Satcon2 is planned for mid-2021 to hammer out possible policy and regulatory recommendations. NOIRLab director Patrick McCarthy said in the press release that hopefully science and industry can work together:
“I hope that the collegiality and spirit of partnership between astronomers and commercial satellite operators will expand to include more members of both communities and that it will remain useful and productive. I also hope that the findings and recommendations in the SATCON1 report as guidelines will serve observatories and satellite operators as we work toward a more detailed understanding of the effects and mitigations and we learn to share the sky, one of nature’s precious treasures. ”
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