The US National Science Foundation has announced that it has made arrangements with SpaceX so that the aerospace company’s fleet of satellites does not disturb scientists (too much).
The NSF had publicly expressed its concern about the proliferation of satellites in low orbit in our skies. The excessive luminosity of the latter complicates the work of astronomers, and the number of private companies wishing to create their own megaconstellations of communication satellites is ever increasing. According to UNOOSA (United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs), as of January 1, 2022, 4852 artificial satellites were in low orbit around the Earth. Once all of their launch programs have been completed, SpaceX, Amazon, OneWeb and China’s StarNet/GW satellite network will have placed more than 65,000 satellites in the sky altogether.
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The visual pollution created by these constellations is bothersome as it jeopardizes scientists’ mission to observe the universe. The reflection of sunlight off the surface of Starlink satellites is a particularly visible phenomenon in nighttime photographs taken by various observatories in North America. These latter present streaks of light that make images unusable for scientific purposes.
SpaceX pledges to take steps to inconvenience astronomers as little as possible
SpaceX and the NSF have worked together to minimize the hassle caused by satellites of communication and to promote the cohabitation of aerospace companies with astronomers. Elon Musk’s company will start by painting its devices with a darker and less reflective color. She will install a umbrella on every space object. Finally, she will reorient each device so that it reflects the sun’s rays as little as possible.
That said, the pollution problem is not only visual. Radio astronomy, the branch of astronomy dealing with the observation of the sky in the field of radio waves is also greatly hampered by the waves emitted by satellites. In this area, SpaceX undertakes not to emit anything in the radio band from 10.6 to 10.7 GHz when one of its devices flies over a radio station.
Source : Digital Trends
