2y ago

SpaceX Satellites Are Ruining Observations With "Unintended" Radiation

futurism.com SpaceX Satellites Are Ruining Observations With "Unintended" Radiation

SpaceX's Starlink satellites are emanating low-frequency waves from their onboard electronics, messing with astronomical equipment.

A new study published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics suggests the satellites are emitting "unintended" radiation from the electronics onboard the satellites.

These low-frequency radio waves, are being picked up by telescopes designed to scan that frequency range. That's because this range also happens to be instrumental to deep space observations.

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25 comments

Hopefully they are as quick to fix this as they were when astronomers complained that the satellites were too bright.
- Did they ever satisfactorily resolve that issue, or did the media just stop covering it as aggressively? Last I heard they were trying to add solar shields to the satellites to reduce their albedo.
  
  They do also use an antireflective coating/paint on the satellites now, which had helped quite a lot.
  
  I haven't been able to find any info past that update. I guess it isn't being covered at all anymore.
  
  Media doesn't care when SpaceX/Starlink fixes issues. They only care when problems are discovered, and act like it's some malevolent act rather than an unforeseen issue. The albedo problem is fixed on all new launches for quite some time and the sats only have a 5 year service life before deorbit so the problem ones will be cleared out in short order. I expect this frequency issue to get ironed out in a similar fashion.
  SpaceX and SL have a very good track record so far of working with scientists and authorities on minimizing impact of their sat constellations. Mind you, I don't think this pure altruism, they just want to keep the government from locking down on them and jacking up costs.
  
  There were articles a while back stating that the target albedo had been met with the newer satellites.
  I don't recall the specific details, though.

25 comments