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SpaceX working on fix for Starlink satellites so they don’t disrupt astronomy

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Re: SpaceX working on fix for Starlink satellites so they don’t disrupt astronomy

#171

Post by mrandish »

wpietri wrote: post #156
mstipetic wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well let's figure out a way to assemble them in space. Hubble is thirty years old, and is being used now as a reference. I don't understand all this negativity. Had we had this mindset, Hubble would not have been there

Part of the negativity is who benefits from the problem versus who has to pay to fix it. If SpaceX were causing a problem for astronomers while also for free launching radically better space-based tools, it wouldn't be nearly as big a deal. But instead SpaceX hopes to pocket a lot of money, while the harms are falling on other people.

> SpaceX hopes to pocket a lot of money

True but to their credit SpaceX's launch prices are substantially lower than pre-existing options and they have been a leader in a step change in competitive launch options coming to market.

Re: SpaceX working on fix for Starlink satellites so they don’t disrupt astronomy

#172

Post by ErikCorry »

I'm not an expert, so take this with a grain of salt, but isn't this fixable with mirrors and angles?

For a satellite in LEO most of the light is coming from the sun and a much smaller amount is coming from earthshine and perhaps the moon. If your solar panels are on an articulated arm it should be possible to place them so they reflect the light upwards and the satellite's body is in the shadow of the panels. Now the only light on the satellite (and the back of the panels) will be the earthshine, and you can perhaps combat that by painting the satellite black. If it's always in the shadow of the solar panels then heating shouldn't be a problem, right?

As I say I'm not an expert and there are probably multiple reasons this won't work.

Re: SpaceX working on fix for Starlink satellites so they don’t disrupt astronomy

#173

Post by mstipetic »

kbenson wrote: post #157
mstipetic wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well let's figure out a way to assemble them in space. Hubble is thirty years old, and is being used now as a reference. I don't understand all this negativity. Had we had this mindset, Hubble would not have been there

Hubble's mirror is 8 feet in diameter, and you aren't going to be assembling something as high precision as that in space, at least not from a few components. If we had the manufacturing capability to make it from scratch in space, maybe, but that's a much larger enterprise. There is a question of whether 100 a foot diameter telescopes can work as well or better than one 8 foot one. Or 500. If it's about photons hitt…

Well let's make the manufacturing capability to do so. It's as if the "manufacturing capability" is some limited rare earth metal. What is the actual limited resource other that ingenuity and engineering?

Re: SpaceX working on fix for Starlink satellites so they don’t disrupt astronomy

#174

Post by mlyle »

rrss wrote: post #145
dylan604 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The fact that they didn't would indicate nobody connected the dots. Or that nobody knew who/where to contact someone to raise their concerns. A lot of people will think that if I just had this thought, then it must be pretty obvious so that others will have the same thought as well. No need for further action. Others will just not feel the need to spend their time/effort trying to look up the complaints department.…

> nobody knew who/where to contact someone to raise their concerns SpaceX had to get approval from the FCC to launch these satellites. There was a comment period intended to provide an opportunity to voice these concerns. I looked into this the last time it was in the news (late May?), and could not find any petitions that raised concerns about reflecting light. There were several from other satellite companies reque…

FCC isn't going to reject a radio license based on reflection of unregulated frequencies (light).

But IAU publicly decried satellite constellations in January, months before May-- and this public statement followed literally years of IAU discussions and discussions with SpaceX, etc.

Despite that, years later, SpaceX is only just getting around to taking small mitigation measures now, after two launches.

Re: SpaceX working on fix for Starlink satellites so they don’t disrupt astronomy

#175

Post by nradov »

buboard wrote: post #87
downrightmike wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Software should be able to account for this. If photoshop can remove people from photos, why can't astronomy software remove satellites? Orbit is already pretty cluttered and we can't remove much that gets stuck up there already.

since starlinks may change positions autonomously it's impossible to predict their positions. and they are so damn many

Starlink satellites are too small to do much orbital maneuvering. They only carry a small supply of krypton gas for their station keeping thrusters.

Re: SpaceX working on fix for Starlink satellites so they don’t disrupt astronomy

#176

Post by rrss »

mlyle wrote: post #174
rrss wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> nobody knew who/where to contact someone to raise their concerns SpaceX had to get approval from the FCC to launch these satellites. There was a comment period intended to provide an opportunity to voice these concerns. I looked into this the last time it was in the news (late May?), and could not find any petitions that raised concerns about reflecting light. There were several from other satellite companies reque…

FCC isn't going to reject a radio license based on reflection of unregulated frequencies (light). But IAU publicly decried satellite constellations in January, months before May-- and this public statement followed literally years of IAU discussions and discussions with SpaceX, etc. Despite that, years later, SpaceX is only just getting around to taking small mitigation measures now, after two launches.

It wasn't a "radio license." It was an authorization to "construct, deploy, and operate a proposed non-geostationary orbit (NGSO) satellite system comprising 4,425 satellites for the provision of fixed-satellite service (FSS) around the world."

I don't see why the FCC wouldn't consider impact to visual astronomy, when they did consider increased collision risk (also unrelated to any regulated frequencies).

> IAU publicly decried satellite constellations in January, months before May

Can you link to information about this public statement from January? When I google "IAU satellite constellations," I find only https://www.iau.org/news/announcements/detail/ann19035/ from June.

Re: SpaceX working on fix for Starlink satellites so they don’t disrupt astronomy

#177

Post by mstipetic »

ixf wrote: post #162
mstipetic wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

JWST is a great project and a type of project we should strive for. I'm personally just annoyed why the conversation is so defensive and negative. I don't know much about astronomy, but from what I understand the Earth's atmosphere is hard to deal with, why aren't we talking more about what can be done with this new tech, and not how it makes current things more difficult

Earth's atmosphere is annoying, yes, but for huge swathes of observational science it's not a deal-breaker. Not having massive telescopes on the ground where you can fiddle with your instrumentation and take advantage of apertures and construction techniques simply not possible in space _is_ a deal-breaker. The required precision for construction of telescopes is incredible, and doesn't translate to space well, espec…

I live in a very large city in Europe. I think the number of stars you can see is less than 20. Ground based pollution is horrible, I don't know how you can compare those two.

Re: SpaceX working on fix for Starlink satellites so they don’t disrupt astronomy

#178

Post by ryan93 »

mstipetic wrote: post #173
kbenson wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hubble's mirror is 8 feet in diameter, and you aren't going to be assembling something as high precision as that in space, at least not from a few components. If we had the manufacturing capability to make it from scratch in space, maybe, but that's a much larger enterprise. There is a question of whether 100 a foot diameter telescopes can work as well or better than one 8 foot one. Or 500. If it's about photons hitt…

Well let's make the manufacturing capability to do so. It's as if the "manufacturing capability" is some limited rare earth metal. What is the actual limited resource other that ingenuity and engineering?

You can’t manufacture complicated objects in space

Re: SpaceX working on fix for Starlink satellites so they don’t disrupt astronomy

#179

Post by mlyle »

rrss wrote: post #176
mlyle wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FCC isn't going to reject a radio license based on reflection of unregulated frequencies (light). But IAU publicly decried satellite constellations in January, months before May-- and this public statement followed literally years of IAU discussions and discussions with SpaceX, etc. Despite that, years later, SpaceX is only just getting around to taking small mitigation measures now, after two launches.

It wasn't a "radio license." It was an authorization to "construct, deploy, and operate a proposed non-geostationary orbit (NGSO) satellite system comprising 4,425 satellites for the provision of fixed-satellite service (FSS) around the world." I don't see why the FCC wouldn't consider impact to visual astronomy, when they did consider increased collision risk (also unrelated to any regulated frequencies). > IAU publ…

> It wasn't a "radio license."

It's fundamentally a radio license:

https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/47/25.114

> when they did consider increased collision risk

Yup, they are supposed to evaluate orbital debris and collision risk, too, 47 CFR 25.114(d)(14). That, and equitable service (for some services) to Alaska/Hawaii are the only non-radio concerns they are permitted by regulation to consider.

Re: SpaceX working on fix for Starlink satellites so they don’t disrupt astronomy

#180

Post by shaklee3 »

ericd wrote: post #163
shaklee3 wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm well aware of the scale of starlink, but the speeds delivered by starlink won't be any faster than the existing GEO satellites at the time, not will it be cheaper. The OP talked about high speed internet, which, in most cases, the latency doesn't matter. Every cost estimate made by people in this industry say it will be much higher than geo to deliver a bit. If you have a source that says otherwise, please post i…

Can you point to some of those cost estimates? Latency absolutely matters for "high speed internet". Once you have reasonable bandwidth, that's the dominant factor in the user experience.

No, it's not. Streaming media is by far the largest consumer of bandwidth on the internet today. Latency doesn't matter at all for those.

Please see this blog for approximate cost estimates, or the MIT study comparing leo constellations.

http://tmfassociates.com/blog/category/operators/spacex/

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