During a panel discussion held at the 240th meeting of the American Astronomical Society, scientists discussed the scientific impact of the Starlink satellite constellations, demonstrating concern that the last 53 satellites launched are brighter than the previous ones and that the second ones. generation will be significantly larger and potentially brighter.
While from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center launch pad 39A on Friday, June 17, SpaceX put another 53 Starlink satellites into orbit – bringing the total number of Starlink satellites in orbit to over 2450 – on the other side of the United States of America. , in Pasadena, astronomers had devoted a round table of the 240th meeting of the American Astronomical Society just a few days earlier to discuss the scientific impact of these constellations of satellites.
Scientists fear that Elon Musk’s company decides to pull the oars in the boat in an effort to reduce the brightness of its satellites. The fear is dictated by the fact that they found that the last 53 satellites are different from the previous ones. In fact, this is version 1.5, in which the visors present in the satellites launched in 2020 have not been installed to prevent sunlight from reaching reflective surfaces and therefore reduce their brightness from the ground. The decision to remove the visors was dictated by the fact that they were not compatible with the laser inter-satellite links installed on version 1.5.
An increase of more than 1 visual magnitude because of the remove of the “visor” in the visorsat configuration.
Our comment:
We could only reiterate that Starlink has always given a damn about astronomers and has only done what was convenient for him to avoid hitches, revocation of authorizations, etc. Today with the war we have understood (we hope so) that that fleet of satellites is certainly not used for commercial purposes. And … Consequently, the problem will not be solved by the IAU or the AAS or RAS… , but Russia will solve it by triggering a chain reaction by destroying those that are in effect spy satellites.
It is a total fail of the Astronomical world wide institutions and it could be represent the end of astronomical ground based observation…
But only mad people (and children) could believe to lobbysts!
Other References:
https://gizmodo.com/starlink-spacex-satellites-astronomy-1849076758
SpaceX and similar companues should be shut down forthwith. End of.
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The companies cannot think, it’s the owners who are the danger. The owners are hailed and praised in the Big Media, where is a so low intelligence that not any journalist is able /allowed to warn the audience by writing that Musk is a psychopath.
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