SpaceX Starlink satellites
Why astronomers are rightfully angry about the launches
There’s something to be said for working together — and although Elon Musk creates more real innovation than most in Silicon Valley, he’s not always a team player.
That causes problems. Musk’s SpaceX is launching 42,000 of its Starlink satellites into the sky to build a sky-high network for broadband to reach unserved areas; a noble goal. So far, only 120 have been hurled into space, but they’re already angering astronomers.
Clarae Martínez-Vázquez, from the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO) in Chile, said a train of 19 Starlink satellites ruined exposures on the dark energy camera she was working with for five minutes. “Rather depressing,” she tweeted. “This is not cool!” Another astronomer, Simon Porter at the Southwest Research Institute, said that despite Musk’s green credentials for pushing forward electric cars, his “lasting environmental legacy will be as the man who polluted the heavens.”
In some cases, the light streaks captured in the images can be algorithmically removed, but another fix could be simply painting the satellites. They’re made from a highly reflective material, which is exacerbating the light pollution they cause. Musk would surely know that if he’d bothered to check with astronomers first.
But there are further problems. Of the 60 satellites already floating around the world, three are already non-responsive. It’s one thing to interrupt research for a good cause, it’s another to do it with space junk.
Nor is Musk the only billionaire with such plans: Amazon is planning its own broadband constellation. Hopefully Jeff Bezos is more amenable to input from the researchers, but we shouldn’t have to count on it.
Musk and other tech billionaires do not own space, even if they do have permission from NASA to fill the skies with his satellites. These problems could have been avoided with low-level communication with the astronomy community, but we evidently can’t expect Silicon Valley to moderate its own behaviour. NASA needs to do a better job protecting space from these untrustworthy entrepreneurs th an on-the-ground regulators have so far, lest we be left with a sky full of space junk.