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How satellite ‘megaconstellations’ will photobomb astronomy images

nature.com

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Re: How satellite ‘megaconstellations’ will photobomb astronomy images

#201

Post by Robotbeat »

DoingIsLearning wrote: post #76
reitzensteinm wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I personally believe that pervasive high speed internet even in remote locations will do more for humanity than the scientific cost of these satellites. However, this conversation has basically been skipped over. Maybe you're right and I'm wrong. The constellations are being launched, and there's zero chance of shutting them down once they're serving a commercial role. Considering the abundant red tape in the modern…

On top of the points made by q3k, about this being a US centric issue, being projected as a global issue, why do you believe this implementation will be able to deliver global pervasive internet? The obejective is noble but can you provide any realistic data or estimates of how this infrastructure can scale to more than a few million users and _still_ be high bandwith. Beyond that your bandwith will go down as you ad…

This (it’s only for rich people) is silly. North Carolina officials are already planning for Starlink terminals to provide rural internet hotspots to help with folks who need good internet due to COVID-19 school closures.

Actual rich people can afford to put in fiber or line of site wherever they are. $100,000 or whatever, doesn’t matter. This is for the regular people in rural areas.

Seriously, has no one making these claims ever talked to someone whose best internet is geosynchronous satellite? Do they think only the very rich live in rural areas?

Re: How satellite ‘megaconstellations’ will photobomb astronomy images

#202

Post by kanox »

thdrdt wrote: post #26

Could a country (or a continent) in theory remove satellites hanging above their area? What if countries decide to extend the airspace to the aerospace?

There is absolutely no way to do this.

These are low-orbit satellites and they will eventually "fly over" every point on the Earth up to their maximum inclination. Only geo-stationary satellites are "hanging above an area" and suffer from high latency because of the speed of light.

Legally speaking "airspace" does not extend beyond the atmosphere. There are treaties for this, otherwise almost all satellites would need approvals from almost all governments.

Re: How satellite ‘megaconstellations’ will photobomb astronomy images

#203

Post by badwolf »

knolax wrote: post #118
pfdietz wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We can judge the value humanity places on astronomy by looking at how much money is allocated for it. I suspect it will come out less valuable, to humanity, than the service Starlink will provide.

Elon Musk and some investors don't represent humanity. Hell I doubt even SpaceX values Starlink all that much, most employees I know say that it exists mostly as a filler payload during launches.

The fact that they are doing tens of dedicated launches solely for Starlink says otherwise.

Starlink is looking to be a multi-billion dollar business by itself.

Re: How satellite ‘megaconstellations’ will photobomb astronomy images

#204

Post by kanox »

kome wrote: post #5

"SpaceX, an aerospace company in Hawthorne, California, has already launched more than 650 of a planned 12,000 Starlink satellites. Other operators include the London-based OneWeb, which has launched 74 of what it hopes will be a gigantic fleet of 48,000 satellites, and Amazon, which last month received US government approval to launch 3,236 satellites for its planned Kuiper service." We need to do something about mi…

No.

Providing satellite internet access is a very good thing, and imposing costs on astronomy is acceptable.

Re: How satellite ‘megaconstellations’ will photobomb astronomy images

#205

Post by xwdv »

reitzensteinm wrote: post #42
verytrivial wrote: post #15

The article covers the mitigations already in place and how they only partially resolve the issue. These satellites are low, bright (at dawn/dusk) and very soon to be incredibly numerous. Yes, it is possible for data workflows to post-process these streaks away, but not all configurations allow this, and whereas previous intrusions were somewhat rare and could be ignored that simply won't be the case due to three com…

I personally believe that pervasive high speed internet even in remote locations will do more for humanity than the scientific cost of these satellites. However, this conversation has basically been skipped over. Maybe you're right and I'm wrong. The constellations are being launched, and there's zero chance of shutting them down once they're serving a commercial role. Considering the abundant red tape in the modern…

> I personally believe that pervasive high speed internet even in remote locations will do more for humanity than the scientific cost of these satellites.

If the internet was simply a wellspring from which one could obtain knowledge you may be correct.

But most likely, the internet will instead be used to proliferate bigoted and intolerant opinions, while spreading lies and misinformation in the form of crude memes. As the last of human populations without high speed internet comes online, they will expand their capacity to inflict harm at speeds never before seen.

Weep for the clear skies we have lost. Forever.

Re: How satellite ‘megaconstellations’ will photobomb astronomy images

#206

Post by valuearb »

vanderZwan wrote: post #124
0-_-0 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems to be around 1-2%, which I would say is trivial. This can be further reduced if you use multiple exposures because then only 1 contains the streak. Getting satellite data from SpaceX about satellite positions and turning off the receiver for a few seconds would also mitigate the issue. I don't understand how this is treated as a problem that's worth halting satellite launches over.

> which I would say is trivial I'm frankly amazed at the arrogance on display here. Do you honestly think you know better then the entire field of astronomy?

If the entire field of astronomy is so educated on the subject, why do most not know Starlink was never visible except at dawn or dusk, and it’s already implemented successful mitigations for those tones with visors?

Re: How satellite ‘megaconstellations’ will photobomb astronomy images

#207

Post by fock »

m4rtink wrote: post #170
fock wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that's actually a fascinating idea. think about how humanity solves the environment problems and fusion works out, bringing global peace and prosperity for once. Now a smallish rock comes from space. We don't see it, because of "we go to mars, bro"-elon making ground based astronomoy infeasible and debris from crashes from his great internet satellites making 9/10 new launches fail. so, even if we saw it, we couldn't…

Space based observation of objects on potential collision course with Earth is far superior to earth observatio. For example you can't really observe anything coming from the direction of the sun. Look up NEOCam project that aims to have a near Earth asteroid telescope in solar orbit.

how many space-based telescopes are there? And how many will where be, once 9/10 launches fail?

Re: How satellite ‘megaconstellations’ will photobomb astronomy images

#208

Post by gus_massa »

pvaldes wrote: post #94

Perhaps putting a camera at the outer side of each satelite and a screen at the facing-to-earth side transmitting what the camera sees could help. Plus google advertising benefits, of course.

The amount of light blocked by the satellite is too small. The problem is that the satellite reflects a lot of light from the sun.

Re: How satellite ‘megaconstellations’ will photobomb astronomy images

#209

Post by valuearb »

simion314 wrote: post #45
dr_dshiv wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't the solution more satellites for astronomy? In fact, couldn't the constellation of commercial satellites be used to make a massive distributed hubble telescope?

Will those american billionaires pay say for more European satellites to compensate? What if this were Chinese satellites would you have the same opinion? It would be great if this billionaires would also launch scientific satellites payed from their pocket to compensate, then I would change my mind.

Elon has already cut the cost of putting scientific payloads in space by nearly 80%, what else do you want him to do?

Re: How satellite ‘megaconstellations’ will photobomb astronomy images

#210

Post by valuearb »

liability wrote: post #196
purple-again wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spacex is subject to the same OFAC sanctions as every other US business. They are free to do business with most of China, however there are a number of exceptions usually having to do with the company participating in construction in the South China Sea. Doesn’t mean new sanctions can’t be levied and certainty China seems a likely target for future increased sanctions.

I wasn't thinking of OFAC, I was thinking of this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_exclusion_policy_of_NA... If NASA is forbidden from working with organizations affiliated with China, it seems to me that SpaceX working with China might imperil their collaboration with NASA. Then again maybe not, I don't know the answer.

Answer is no. SpaceX is not NASA.
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