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SpaceX Starlink satellites designed to connect directly to smartphones shine almost five times brighter in the sky than traditional Starlinks, according to recent research.
SpaceX formulating plans what does he call “a cell phone tower in space” with thousands of direct-to-cell (DTC) satellites around Earth that offer direct service to unmodified smartphones “anywhere you can see the sky.” The higher luminosity of these DTCs compared to regular Starlinks is partly because they circle the Earth at just 217 miles (350 kilometers) above the surface, which is lower than conventional. Constellation internet satellites, whose height is 340 miles (550 kilometers), the study reported.
In January 2024, just a week after the first batch of six Starlink DTC satellites were put into orbit, SpaceX used one of them to launch text messages. In May, the demo company succeeded video call, and said it is working with T-Mobile to roll out such cellular service to customers later this year. Over 100 DTC satellites are now in place low earth orbit, including 13 launched last week. After successfully testing the first batch of DTCs, in March SpaceX asked for an amendment their license with the US Federal Communications Commission which would allow them to operate up to 7,500 DTCs in LEO.
At the time the study was conducted, SpaceX had not yet applied its standard glare mitigation techniques to the DTCs, such as adjusting their chassis and solar panels to reduce the portion of the spacecraft illuminated by the sun. decline, said study lead author Anthony Mallama of the IAU Centre. for Protecting Dark and Quiet Skies from Intersecting Satellite Constellations (IAU-CPS) by Space.com.
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Kate Tice, SpaceX’s senior manager of quality systems engineering, acknowledged during the launch webcast in January that DTC satellites will be brighter than conventional Starlinks, and said the company plans to work with astronomers to consider the impact on their views before making hardware adjustments that would make hardware adjustments. reduce the DTCs, SpaceNews reported.
SpaceX began applying brightness mitigation techniques to regular Starlinks in 2020, after astronomers showed serious concern about the paths of the satellites streak across telescope images, making them unusable. Before launch, the company applies a dielectric mirror surface to the underside of each Starlink chassis, to help reflect sunlight into space rather than scatter it toward it. World. After launch, the company adjusts the spacecraft chassis and solar panels to further reduce the luminosity. Together, these techniques are very effective, reducing the brightness of Starlink satellites by a factor of 10, Mallama said.
If SpaceX applies these dimming techniques to the DTCs, which are almost the same as the regular Starlinks, the DTCs would still be 2.6 times brighter than their traditional counterparts, Mallama and his colleagues reported in the a recent studyreviewed internally by IAU-CPS and posted to the arXiv preprint server last month.
However, although DTCs are brighter objects, they move at an apparent faster rate and spend more time in the Earth’s shadow than regular Starlinks, which would contribute to some of their negative impact on astronomical observations, the study noted. noticed.
“I see it as a change in parameters rather than an overall better/worse situation,” John Barentine, principal consultant at Arizona-based Dark Sky Consulting who was not involved in the new study, told Space.com.
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Barentine suspected that radio emissions could be beamed by the DTCs’ antennas interfering with astronomy protected radio bandsbecause the satellites communicate with Earth through radio signals but do not have a dedicated spectrum to do so.
While scientists agree that providing connectivity to remote regions of the world is a worthy goal, the speed at which satellites are launched into orbit worries many – and not just because of the brightness that separates the images. Over a million satellites Space around Earth already crowded with thousands of derelict spacecraft, spent rocket bodies and millions of millimeter-sized pieces of junk zipping past us at high speeds may soon be entered. This debris population threatens satellites that provide internet service, navigation and weather monitoring, and sometimes even astronauts aboard the International Space Station.
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Even if we can avoid an orbital disaster by responsibly de-orbiting abandoned satellites, many scientists are concerned that the amount of material surrounding our planet could still be harmful: When de-orbited, they could deposit a significant flux of metal that could change the orbit. the chemical composition of the Earth’s atmosphere.
“The effects on astronomy are just the tip of the iceberg,” said Barentine, who says we may be rapidly approaching a tipping point where tragedy is imminent, either in space due to a collision or on Earth. from falling debris. “Space policy-making is far too slow to deal effectively with all of this.”
“At the moment, there is not much to look forward to positively,” he said. “If the New Space Age ends up going badly, history will not look favorably on it.”
