[HN Gopher] Nearly 1 in 3 Starlink satellites detected within th...
___________________________________________________________________
Nearly 1 in 3 Starlink satellites detected within the SKA-Low
frequency band
Author : aragilar
Score : 173 points
Date : 2025-08-13 08:12 UTC (14 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (astrobites.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (astrobites.org)
| jillesvangurp wrote:
| Mitigation is going to be the name of the game. Whether they like
| it or not, low earth orbit (LEO) is becoming a very busy place
| and it's not just SpaceX launching lots of little satellites
| there. The Chinese are very busy launching their own satellites
| into LEO. And there are other companies and countries doing or
| considering the same. Spacex and Star link get most of the
| attention; but the Chinese are doing a decent job to keep up with
| them in number of launches. And there are a growing number of
| companies with LEO launch capability.
|
| Mitigation might have to involve some sacrifices. I don't see how
| policy is going to be able to mitigate much here. And of course
| the Chinese are under no obligation to listen to US policy
| makers. They might have their own debates domestically around
| this topic and they might be reasonable about the topic
| internationally even. But building international consensus; or
| even enforcing what little there is on that front could be
| challenging.
|
| A more practical approach might be accepting that earth based
| observations are inevitably going to suffer a bit as the number
| of satellites grows from thousands to tens of thousands and
| eventually well beyond that. Luckily we now are able to launch
| stuff into orbit a lot cheaper. Including astronomy related
| hardware. That's already happening of course. And otherwise,
| astronomy is very interesting and cool but mostly it concerns
| observations about things that are really really far away and not
| directly relevant to a lot of things on earth. Unless of course
| the thing under observation is on a collision course with us.
| squigz wrote:
| Why do we _have_ to launch tens of thousands or even more
| satellites?
| mlindner wrote:
| "We" don't have to launch anything at all. SpaceX needs to
| launch enough satellites to satisfy customer demand for their
| constellation. In general the trend actually is that SpaceX
| is launching fewer but larger satellites (initially they were
| doing 60 satellites per launch, but they made them larger and
| now launch 24-28 satellites depending on the orbit
| inclination.
| JonChesterfield wrote:
| This internet fad seems to be hanging around and bandwidth is
| probably linear in satellite count.
| jocaal wrote:
| Why do we need radio telescopes. Satellite communications are
| infinitely more useful for people on earth than some research
| papers about things light-years away
| kevindamm wrote:
| Ironically, those satellites would not be able to
| communicate effectively without the understanding of
| relativity that was obtained by looking at things light-
| years away.
| jocaal wrote:
| Einstein developed relativity from mathematical
| reasoning. A major influence was the michaelson morley
| experiment, which was solely done on earth. Relativity
| was developed in the early 1900's and the first radio
| telescope was made in the 1930's. Also, orbital mechanics
| uses mostly Newtonian mechanics and the communication of
| satellites is radio waves which were understood way
| before einstein. There is no relativity involved.
| Literally everything you said is factually incorrect.
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| Einstein developed a theory that includes General
| relativity and special relativity. Experimental results
| confirms both of them, with special relativity being the
| easiest one to understand the consequences of. Without
| experimental confirmation, neither theory would be
| valuable.
| kevindamm wrote:
| Satellites experience time dilation because of their
| orbital velocity and gravitational field being
| significantly different at their altitude. Without
| accounting for this, the clock drift would become
| unmanageable and Newtonian models are insufficient to
| correct for it.
|
| You're right that the majority of Einstein's theories
| were ultimately thought experiments but getting the
| parameters correct involved a lot of measurements and
| experimenting, to get to where tech like GPS and StarLink
| can be accurate. We were also looking at far away stars
| for centuries before Einstein so that he could have the
| environment for his ideas to be discussed, which I was
| including in my phrasing "looking at things light-years
| away."
|
| I wasn't saying it to start an argument, though. I wanted
| to counter the rather dismal view of "why do we need
| radio telescopes."
| madeforhnyo wrote:
| Communication requires accurate timing. Time dilation
| occurs between Earth and satellites, a phenomenon that
| isn't part of Newton mechanics, so relativity is indeed
| involved.
| voxlax wrote:
| Yes, but if it hadn't been for the efforts of visionary
| scientists at NASA trying to reach the stars, there would
| be no means of putting those satellites into orbit.
| brookst wrote:
| This is the but I don't see the relevance. Is there an
| argument / position there or just an observation?
| flufluflufluffy wrote:
| The point is basic science (e.g. radio astronomy) is, if
| not necessary, then highly desirable, because it can lead
| to unimaginable advancements in humanity (or in a
| country's technological and military capabilities if
| that's how you think).
| brookst wrote:
| Sure, and industry is also valuable and contributes to
| progress. I don't think it's useful to say one must
| always take priority over the other regardless of
| specifics.
| dylan604 wrote:
| > Why do we need radio telescopes.
|
| Because they provide data that other types of telescopes do
| not. We have X-ray telescopes. We have infrared telescopes.
| We have optical telescopes. Also as a bonus, for ground
| based radio telescopes, we can use them 24/7 instead of
| waiting for nighttime.
| jillesvangurp wrote:
| There is no royal "we" that "has to" do anything. There's
| just groups of people and countries making use of a shared
| resource, LEO.
|
| Your underlying question as to why some of those are
| launching satellites is much easier. They are apparently
| quite useful for things like communication, providing
| internet, etc. And people are willing to pay for that kind of
| stuff. It's not more complicated than that.
| XorNot wrote:
| If you think the internet is a big deal, you haven't run into
| how happy the military is to have high bandwidth low-latency
| communications anywhere on the planet.
|
| Starlink is nothing compared to the value Starshield
| provides, and the civilian product drives costs down.
|
| With drone warfare being the next thing, the US probably
| can't afford to _not_ have a company running a major LEO ISP.
| throwaway290 wrote:
| If we had a trusted powerful peacekeeper with a track record
| then we wouldn't need to. But now that masks are off
| everybody is busy launching dual purpose sats and whoever
| launches the least can literally get nuked from orbit if they
| don't do whatever the guy with more sats wants.
|
| Then whoever has the most sats will say "that's it guys, LEO
| is full and you need our approval to launch more" and if
| someone raises a stink you guessed it, they can get nuked
| from orbit
| myrmidon wrote:
| There are no kinetic NOR nuclear orbital strike
| capabilities for _anyone_ right now, nor is anyone really
| working on it either, because it just makes zero sense
| (primarily because suborbital launches achieve the exact
| same outcome for a tiny fraction of the cost).
| galangalalgol wrote:
| Wouldn't having them already up give a lot less warning
| in a first strike situation? Also redundancy if all your
| subs, silos, and bomber bases got hit first by their
| satellites. It doesn't even have to be rational though,
| combinations of graft and brinkmanship would be enough.
| It seems really optimistic to think they haven't all
| already done this.
| myrmidon wrote:
| > Wouldn't having them already up give a lot less warning
| in a first strike situation?
|
| Improved first strike capability is worthless if it isn't
| crippling, and "devastating enough" first strike
| capability from orbit is completely unaffordable, and
| impossible to build up unobserved.
|
| Being in orbit is a hindrance more than anything, really,
| because maintenance becomes ruinously expensive,
| everything is trivially observable for all your
| adversaries and you have to align the orbit with your
| target beforehand, too (which, again, everyone can
| observe).
|
| > It doesn't even have to be rational though,
| combinations of graft and brinkmanship would be enough.
|
| Enough for what? Threatening to nuke some satellites?
| Because anything else you can do easier, cheaper and on a
| larger scale from the ground. Why would you bother with
| nuclear warheads in space when you can just
| build/maintain like 10 ICBM silos for the same cost?
| notahacker wrote:
| > Wouldn't having them already up give a lot less warning
| in a first strike situation
|
| No. Your missiles have further to fly from geostationary
| orbit than a missile silo on the ground, not to mention
| the additional complexity of designing your ICBM for
| reentry
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Wouldn 't having them already up give a lot less
| warning in a first strike situation?_
|
| From GEO, no. From LEO, still probably no.
|
| There may be a bird positioned just right so a small
| deorbit burn pots Moscow quicker than an ICBM could. But
| the moment you start burning, you're caught. (Same as an
| ICBM.) And unless you have a really obvious orbital
| configuration that bunches a bunch of birds in a way
| useful for practically nothing but such a strike, you
| only get one or two such "early" shots before a wall of
| ICBMs would have landed.
|
| Nukes in space aren't about nuking the ground from space.
| It's about space area denial through EMP.
| axus wrote:
| Here's a fun snippet from Wikipedia's anti-satellite
| weapon page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-
| satellite_weapon#Soviet_U...
|
| "Elements within the Soviet space industry convinced
| Leonid Brezhnev that the Shuttle was a single-orbit
| weapon that would be launched from Vandenberg Air Force
| Base, manoeuvre to avoid existing anti-ballistic missile
| sites, bomb Moscow in a first strike, and then land.
| Although the Soviet military was aware these claims were
| false, Brezhnev believed them and ordered a resumption of
| [satellite destroyer] testing along with a Shuttle of
| their own."
| m4rtink wrote:
| The exact claim might have been false, but at least i
| theory it could do this maneuver from orbit - e.g. during
| a regular space hab or satellite lunch mission it could
| dipp into the atmosphere, do a rapid oebit inclination
| chang using its wings, then boost back to orbit using the
| OMS. Next thing it would deliver the "totally science
| experiments" on the way to their targets once comming
| over the horizon. Maybe it could then even do the
| manuever again to either regain the old orbit parameters
| ir at least reach a more surivable random other one.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _at least i theory it could do this maneuver from
| orbit_
|
| Nukes from LEO aren't impossible. They're just impossible
| to do better than the current triad. Any breakthrough in
| propulsion that would make a plane change easier or less
| visible confers the same advantages to an ICBM. There is
| a narrow window in which orbital nuking can outperform,
| and that's almost entirely taken care of--and exceeded,
| in stealth--by SLBMs.
| TimorousBestie wrote:
| "nuked from orbit" is an ancient meme from Aliens (1986);
| it's not meant to be taken literally.
|
| https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=nuke+it+f
| rom...
| throwaway290 wrote:
| It's a figure of speech, sats have been used many times
| to intercept missiles, for spy purposes etc
| m4rtink wrote:
| You could have ballistic missile interceptors in orbit,
| standing by:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brilliant_Pebbles
| literalAardvark wrote:
| As others have said, because it's a key military capability.
|
| Humanity is what humanity is, not what we wish it'd be, so
| key military capabilities need to be developed or you get
| razed by the guy who did develop them. Doubly so now that
| we've rediscovered that culture is much more resilient than
| we'd thought, and that different people want Earth to look in
| different ways.
|
| Do we all wish we'd stop ecological collapse instead? Yeah.
| But it's not going to happen so it's irrelevant.
| sneak wrote:
| Because the speed of light is slow and orbital mechanics
| can't be changed.
|
| To have internet everywhere you need to either accept bad
| latency (300-500ms round trip) or have closer satellites,
| which means they're moving faster, which means you need more
| of them.
| wang_li wrote:
| You should also ask why do we have to do this particular
| research? Both parties are impacting this particular band of
| the spectrum. One by excluding others and the other by
| radiating in those frequencies.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Excluding others only in a way that is not dissimilar to
| you locking your doors/windows to exclude others from
| freely entering your house.
|
| Yes, some of the premiere radio observatories have radio
| transmission exclusion zones around them, but they are also
| typically away from that exclusion zone impacting as few as
| possible. Starlink on the other hand is not attempting to
| do anything of the sort. It would be interesting of
| Starlink could respect a geofence kind of idea so that they
| stop broadcasting when over certain areas, especially since
| they do this over geopolitically exclusion zones.
| aragilar wrote:
| A bit, it's 5 orders of magnitude over the required SNR?! From
| the article: "The authors estimate a lower limit of 93 Jy per
| beam in the frequency averaged images containing Starlink
| emission. Considering just 1 mJy of radio frequency
| interference could mess up an EoR power spectrum integration,
| this could severely affect SKA-Low EoR science."
| jillesvangurp wrote:
| > the required SNR
|
| Require by who and on what authority?
|
| My point here was not to contest that but make the point that
| the cat is out of the bag and that it is indeed impacting
| SKA-Low EoR science and the people involved with that have to
| deal with that.
|
| Getting the cat a little bit back in the bag via policy and
| other means is maybe worth trying (good luck) but I don't
| give it a very high chance of success.
| 1dom wrote:
| This makes me want to say "is nothing sacred?!" I get your
| point from a pragmatic: this is the world we live in, work
| with it, not against it.
|
| I think you need to scope this approach when suggesting it
| though, since it's effectively "a policy has been broken by
| a company, but we can't undo it, so lets just accept it and
| let them get on with it" which doesn't seem like it'll lead
| to a better world.
|
| I do agree with your point that the people who suffer from
| the policy breach have to be pragmatic in their handling.
| But ultimately, let's not let pragmatism and stoicism lead
| to businesses spectacularly breaking policies in hopes of
| being told "well the cats out the bag now, the victims can
| deal with it, you might has well continue".
| rickdeckard wrote:
| > I do agree with your point that the people who suffer
| from the policy breach have to be pragmatic in their
| handling. But ultimately, let's not let pragmatism and
| stoicism lead to businesses spectacularly breaking
| policies in hopes of being told "well the cats out the
| bag now, the victims can deal with it, you might has well
| continue".
|
| I fully agree, and that's IMO the core-issue here: This
| strong-arm approach of just forcing the problem to be
| solved in your favor by scaling as fast as possible and
| then pleading how uneconomic it would be for you to
| change course, insisting that the other side should be
| pragmatic about this.
|
| I don't remember this was a working strategy in the past
| (imagine a car-company just accelerating sales of a
| faulty car to scale THEIR issue and avoid having to do a
| recall), but nowadays it could even be turned into a
| geopolitical topic...
| lazide wrote:
| It's the definition of 'too big to fail', and it's been a
| viable and effective strategy... for ever? Near as I can
| tell. He'll, the Fed even got created because of the time
| the whole US economy cratered in the early 20th century
| and one man was the one whole bailed out _the whole
| country_.
| rickdeckard wrote:
| 'Too big to fail' is only said about companies that
| didn't collapse yet though.
|
| But such companies also failed already. Enron, Arthur
| Andersen, WorldCom comes to mind. Even Blockbuster could
| be on that list...
| lazide wrote:
| The take away is they weren't big enough to have enough
| leverage eh?
| rickdeckard wrote:
| > The take away is they weren't big enough to have enough
| leverage eh?
|
| This reasoning has some parallels to "everything that
| can't be explained by science must be god". It stays
| valid even when proven wrong...
| lazide wrote:
| Eh, if they died and everything didn't actually break in
| a terrible unsolvable way, then....
|
| It's essentially a form of market extortion though, so
| perception of 'survivable' matters as much as actually
| survivable eh?
| 1dom wrote:
| I instinctively want to agree with you here and bemoan
| the state and directions of the world. But if I really
| think about it, it's been happening my entire life. I'm
| mid 30's now. I assume someone older than me would have
| had the same experience of it happening their entire
| life.
|
| You're right though, it's crappy and merits a lot of
| geopolitical reflection. But I suspect it goes back
| millenia and is a manifestation of basic evolutionary
| biology with the business world, rather than anything
| that can be solved/fixed.
|
| And we've gone full circle about the balance of working
| for/against humanity in the name of progress.
| thfuran wrote:
| The EPA is only two decades older than you, and it
| enforced a bunch of brand new regulation on all the
| existing companies. There used to be a willingness to
| actually govern rather than cede everything to corporate
| interest.
| rickdeckard wrote:
| I'm a bit older now, and while there has always been
| corporate meddling in public decision-making (which is
| unavoidable and also somewhat needed to help steer the
| boat a bit in some situations), the economic effort a
| company has to invest rectify wrongdoing mainly shaped
| the amount of spending for legal counseling and lobbying,
| but it didn't directly shape a ruling.
|
| Today, environmental/privacy/safety laws are suddenly not
| that strict anymore, because now we naturally need to
| also take economic interests of the violating company
| into account.
|
| So you might end up in a situation where an official body
| will officially rule that the harmed party may be right,
| but needs to be pragmatic about its needs just because of
| the increased inconvenience it would create for the
| opposing party if _THEY_ would have to change their way.
|
| In my experience, this was not the case 15 years ago.
| Teever wrote:
| Given that the offending entity is owned by the world's
| richest man certainly their 'pleading how uneconomic it
| would be for you to change course' should be dismissed
| instantly without a second thought.
| uv-depression wrote:
| > the cat is out of the bag
|
| Someone, if we stretch that metaphor, intentionally opened
| the bag for profit. We can and should hold them
| accountable.
|
| > the people involved with that have to deal with that
|
| Yep, and they should hold the people who caused this
| accountable.
|
| > is maybe worth trying (good luck) but I don't give it a
| very high chance of success
|
| You may be correct that it has a low chance of success.
| However, people who think like you are exactly the cause.
| People who value Musk's net worth more than science, people
| who fetishise "progress at all costs," regardless of
| whether or not the progress actually helps people or is
| what makes sense (municipal internet, folks!).
| Understanding physics is also critically important
| progress, but it doesn't make money next quarter so you
| don't care.
|
| So you'll forgive me if I don't take your advice on the
| situation.
| perihelions wrote:
| > _" The Chinese are very busy launching their own satellites
| into LEO."_
|
| The Chinese (correctly) view these satellite constellations as
| a key military capability, and have gone all-in on creating
| their own version. (I mean, I don't see how that's even
| debatable at this point--having seen the influence of Starlink
| in Ukraine. Future conflicts will only amplify the gap between
| the haves and have-nots).
|
| They haven't yet launched a large number (~120); they don't now
| have the launch volume for large-scale satellite
| constellations. Their race is to first catch up in launch
| capability. They have dozen private startups--heavily
| subsidized and favored by the state--in the race to build a
| viable, reusable launcher comparable to Falcon 9, that they
| would then use to launch Starlink-like constellations at the
| same cadence.
|
| Some starting points:
|
| https://www.wsj.com/world/china/chinas-own-elon-musks-are-ra...
| ( https://archive.is/Ukmoa ) ( _" China's Own Elon Musks Are
| Racing to Catch Up to SpaceX / Private sector takes bigger role
| in building reusable rockets, advancing Beijing's goal of
| independence from Western technology"_)
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/07/23/world/asia/st...
| ( _" This Was Supposed to Be the Year China Started Catching Up
| With SpaceX / It's looking unlikely. Here's why"_)
| velox wrote:
| > Including astronomy related hardware
|
| Can't feasibly do VLBI or other radio astronomy at useful scale
| in space even if launches were free. Look up the scale of SKA
| or the EHT.
| perihelions wrote:
| I'm not clear why not. The scale of the completed SKA-low
| (512*256 = 131,072 antennas, 1.8 meter lengths) is the same
| as that of Starlink itself. It's even less mass; the antenna
| parts alone, they are wire dipoles, they say they only weigh
| 1.6 kg each.
|
| https://arxiv.org/abs/2301.06708
|
| Why _can 't_ humanity launch 2^17 small antennas into deep
| space, as a free-floating constellation?
| galangalalgol wrote:
| Geosynchronous satellites could give us even longer baselines
| couldn't they? Or even at l4 and l5. They don't get shielded
| by the earth like l2, but the station keeping would be
| easier. That would be a massive baseline
| velox wrote:
| Baselines are one thing, you need a huge collecting area to
| get useful sensitivity, which there is barely budget for to
| build on earth, let alone in space
| geraneum wrote:
| > But building international consensus; or even enforcing what
| little there is on that front could be challenging.
|
| No kidding! If something is worthwhile, people should and
| sometimes do go to the trouble!
|
| Just roll over is not good advice here!
| sneak wrote:
| > _Spacex and Star link get most of the attention; but the
| Chinese are doing a decent job to keep up with them in number
| of launches._
|
| Nobody anywhere is anywhere near SpaceX's launch cadence,
| reusable or non.
| elcritch wrote:
| > Luckily we now are able to launch stuff into orbit a lot
| cheaper. Including astronomy related hardware. That's already
| happening of course.
|
| Seems more effective for astronomers to embrace it. Perhaps by
| getting SpaceX to add a few dozen hundred satellites kitted out
| for radio astronomy. Link them together and it could be amazing
| for radio astronomy!
| barbazoo wrote:
| > Luckily we now are able to launch stuff into orbit a lot
| cheaper.
|
| "We" as in the select few countries that have the launch
| capability and the space tech.
|
| Again a public good is being commoditized and being sold to the
| highest bidder.
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| This seems circular... since the lack of a worldwide
| authority, that can decide the value of X public good is
| worth more than zero, is the issue in the first place.
| Mathnerd314 wrote:
| I thought that was the whole idea of spectrum auctions.
| blackguardx wrote:
| The RF spectrum is a public good in the US and there are
| requirements placed on the winners of those auctions to
| demonstrate it provides some public benefit. A company
| can't just buy spectrum and sit on it, for example. They
| must use start to use it in a certain timeframe.
| ggreer wrote:
| The RF spectrum is a common good, not a public good.
| Public goods are non-excludable and non-rivalrous. The RF
| spectrum is non-excludable (anyone can transmit on any
| frequency, given the right equipment) but rivalrous
| (transmitting on one frequency prevents others from using
| that frequency).
|
| Requiring the winner of a spectrum auction to use it is a
| way to prevent anti-competitive tactics (since the
| government is granting a monopoly to the winner). The
| goal is to incentivize productive use of limited
| resources, not necessarily to benefit everyone. In
| theory, the winner could use the spectrum for entirely
| internal purposes. Though in real world spectrum
| auctions, the government usually has stipulations such as
| requiring interoperability or using open standards. This
| reduces the value that the government captures, but
| likely increases the value that is created overall.
|
| Before spectrum auctions, the government simply mandated
| what frequency bands were used for what, and by whom.
| Getting access usually meant lobbying and back room
| deals. Sometimes the FCC used lotteries, which caused
| speculators to enter lotteries and then license access
| (basically capturing revenue that would have gone to the
| government had the spectrum been auctioned). In practice,
| auctions are the worst form of spectrum allocation,
| except for all the others.
| specialist wrote:
| > _a public good is being commoditized_
|
| Just like the inclosure movement, right?
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inclosure_act
|
| With privatization, the public is paid _something_. Whereas
| StarLink 's use of LEO is a taking. They're denying others
| open access usage. Without any possibility or threat of
| consequences.
|
| "Use" is such an inadequate term, but I couldn't think of
| another. Commandeering?
| creer wrote:
| > "We" as in the select few countries that have the launch
| capability and the space tech.
|
| There has never been more access to space-based imagery and
| other sensing. With multiple companies selling this stuff
| ever cheaper. Every news outlet can now afford to buy images.
| And that's because of cheap launches.
| jacquesm wrote:
| A _global_ public good is being commoditized and being sold
| to the highest local bidder.
| uv-depression wrote:
| Ah, the techbro defence. "We already started doing it, so I
| guess you're just going to have to let us".
|
| > Whether they like it or not,
|
| A swarm of LEO satellites because in the current political
| climate it's easier to massively pollute orbits and prevent
| astronomy than do municipal internet is not, in fact, a law of
| nature; nor is it inevitable.
|
| > But building international consensus; or even enforcing what
| little there is on that front could be challenging.
|
| Ah, a challenge! Let's all give up immediately; this could make
| some rich people a lot of money, after all!
|
| > Luckily we now are able to launch stuff into orbit a lot
| cheaper. Including astronomy related hardware.
|
| Would you like to pay for launching Vera C. Rubin (8.4m, nearly
| 20,000kg for just the camera and mirrors) into space? How about
| the TMT (30m, expected ~2.6 million kg)? Truly spoken like
| someone who knows nothing about astronomy.
|
| > And otherwise, astronomy is very interesting and cool but
| mostly it concerns observations about things that are really
| really far away and not directly relevant to a lot of things on
| earth.
|
| Apparently fundamental physics is not very relevant to us here
| on Earth! This is one of the most small-minded statements I've
| ever read.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| How do the various LEO constellations mitigate band
| interference issues? Does the US/China have some agreement as
| to which bands their respective countries' companies will use?
| butlike wrote:
| You just made me realize that the younger generation is never
| going to be able to reliably "wish upon a <shooting> star" ever
| again.
| stronglikedan wrote:
| We're fucked once they have the ability to launch payloads that
| are too big and/or beefy to fully burn up on reentry.
| willis936 wrote:
| When an individual transmits on a band they shouldn't the FCC
| issues a fine. When a company transmits on a band they shouldn't
| the FCC gives them the band.
|
| https://www.pcmag.com/news/despite-spacex-protests-fcc-clear...
|
| Comment period ended in July.
|
| https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs/search/search-filings/results?q=(pr...
| perihelions wrote:
| > _" When a company transmits on a band they shouldn't"_
|
| The source article is quite clear there's no regulatory
| violations here.
|
| > _" Although this IEMR abides by ITU-R guidelines, these
| intensities are large compared to the strongest astronomical
| radio sources in the sky and will therefore have the potential
| to disrupt astronomical observations at SKA-Low frequencies;"_
|
| > _" The detected IEMR and UEMR are outside of the frequency
| bands protected for radio astronomy, but are at frequencies of
| great interest for key experiments for the SKA-Low facility,
| and at frequencies where RQZ protections at the SKA-Low site
| are in place;"_
| rickdeckard wrote:
| The source states that the UEMR SpaceX causes in this
| spectrum is currently not regulated but interferes with
| astronomical observations.
|
| The claim stands whether a regulation will be put in place
| which will require SpaceX to fix or switch off their
| (thousands) of satellites polluting the spectrum or the band
| will simply be handed to SpaceX.
|
| _" This UEMR is not currently regulated by the International
| Telecommunications Union (ITU), the organization responsible
| for managing and allocating the radio spectrum for various
| uses"_
| lazide wrote:
| Within the system the FCC is (putatively) operating under,
| they cannot fine someone for something they have no
| regulatory jurisdiction over. Congress could fix that
| pretty quickly if they wanted to, of course.
|
| How is the whole Musk/Trump love affair going today?
| zamadatix wrote:
| Well, sure, but "regulatory bodies update spectrum
| regulations for the common good" is a lot less charged a
| claim. It was the other specifics (breaking current
| regulation, treatment based on whether you are an
| individual or a company) that were contentious, not the
| resulting assignment itself, and at least half of that was
| clearly false.
| trothamel wrote:
| Lots of things interfere with astronomical observations -
| if someone builds a house, it'll interfere with their
| neighbors observing a star close to the horizon.
|
| Especially since the observations appear to be outside the
| protected spectrum, the answer is "that's probably okay".
| There's balancing that needs to be done - does the safety
| benefit of a world in which nobody can be out of contact of
| emergency services, and the economic benefit of having
| reasonably high speed internet available everywhere,
| outweigh the loss of radio astronomy potential.
|
| I think it probably does.
| TimorousBestie wrote:
| > There's balancing that needs to be done - does the
| safety benefit of a world in which nobody can be out of
| contact of emergency services, and the economic benefit
| of having reasonably high speed internet available
| everywhere, outweigh the loss of radio astronomy
| potential.
|
| If this balancing argument is merely based on short-term
| economics, then of course the corporation always wins.
| Every commons becomes a tragedy in that world.
| rickdeckard wrote:
| Exactly, thank you!
|
| There is also a huge safety benefit in killing all wild
| animals, and companies are even happy to build taxable
| businesses for that if allowed.
|
| This needs to be evaluated and balanced against the
| economic benefit of having wild animals roam the planet
| free of charge...
|
| /s
| zamadatix wrote:
| There are existing regulated bands for astronomy, which
| already shows the regulatory bodies don't just consider
| short term gains. The person you quoted weighs it against
| outweighing the loss of radio astronomy potential, saying
| much of the same. Who is this note about needing to
| compete with short term economic gains responding to?
| perihelions wrote:
| The long-term balancing is whether humanity can take over
| Earth's orbit and build out advanced technology there, or
| not. I think in the long run, radio astronomy is the one
| that will have to bend. If your receiver is so sensitive
| it's intolerant of stray EMI from a circuit board in
| outer space, there's no reasonable way to adapt to that--
| it's unreasonable to ask an entire planet to turn into a
| radio-quiet zone over its entire orbital shell.
| Intentional broadcasts are one thing--that's what
| spectrum licensing regulations are for. Minor EMI is a
| bridge too far.
|
| Further context: the signal strengths they're talking
| about are equivalents of isotropic emitters in the
| *milliwatt* power range, detectable down to the
| microwatts--detectable at ranges of thousands of
| kilometers,
|
| https://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/full_html/2023/10/aa476
| 54-... ( _" Detection of intended and unintended
| emissions from Starlink satellites in the SKA-Low
| frequency range, at the SKA-Low site, with an SKA-Low
| station analogue"_)
|
| > _" The flashes reach a maximum intensity of
| approximately 10^6 Jy beam^-1 at ranges of ~500 km (EIRP
| ~ 30 mW) and a minimum intensity of approximately 2000 Jy
| beam^-1 at ranges of ~2000 km (EIRP ~ 1 mW)"_
|
| Further context: part of the EMI isn't a fixable circuit
| design issue--it's (I understand) EMI from normal
| operation of ion thrusters,
|
| > _" The authors have been in communication with SpaceX
| (who owns, builds, and operates the Starlink
| constellation), who explains that this radiation is
| likely due to the satellites' propulsion or avionics
| system and is likely over 50-200 MHz (SpaceX 2023, priv.
| comm.) The propulsion system is actively engaged during
| the time this train is detected. This radiation is
| therefore in the class of UEMR."_
| rickdeckard wrote:
| > If your receiver is so sensitive it's intolerant of
| stray EMI from a circuit board in outer space [...]
|
| Well, that's what is required to receive a weak signal
| from beyond that circuit board, from outer space.
|
| > there's no reasonable way to adapt to that
|
| You'd be surprised what becomes reasonable and possible
| once a requirement is set.
|
| > it's unreasonable to ask an entire planet to turn into
| a radio-quiet zone.
|
| Noone is asking that.
|
| It's reasonable to require radio interference of a device
| to stay within defined boundaries. This is the case in
| all other industries as well, why shouldn't it suddenly
| apply for a fleet of satellites which blast radio signals
| from outer space to earth?
| perihelions wrote:
| > _" This is the case in all other industries as well,"_
|
| No; it really isn't. There's no industry on the planet
| where "must accept" regulations are set by the world's
| most sensitive physics experiments.
|
| Do we set acoustic noise regulations by what a LIGO
| interferometer can measure? Of course not. We'd have to
| outlaw the mechanical engine were it so. Regress to a
| medieval society of horse people (very _small_ horses
| with noise-absorbing horseshoes).
|
| Do we regulate nuclear power by what astrophysical
| neutrino detectors perceive? Also, no. Even though they
| see fission reactors on the other side of the planet, and
| it is noise to them.
|
| The prior art is we that set noise regulations by what
| interferes with actual humans in their actual day-to-day
| functioning; and we set RF regulations by what interferes
| with the functioning of other circuits useful to humans.
| Not exotic physics experiments. This is a new thing to
| ask; and it is bold.
| rickdeckard wrote:
| > There's no industry on the planet where "must accept"
| regulations are set by the world's most sensitive physics
| experiments.
|
| The criteria is not industry vs. "world's most sensitive
| physics experiments", it's industry vs. "agreed activity
| for public/societal benefit". And there are many examples
| for it.
|
| We regulate light/noise and other pollution in
| consideration of wildlife and plants, we regulate nuclear
| waste disposal considering our responsibilities to the
| greater public good.
|
| We could also not regulate anything with regards to
| wildlife and plants, there is no immediate economic
| benefit to preserve all variants of rhinos, tigers,
| reptiles etc., we could kill all plants except the most
| resilient one, it's much more economic to maintain them
| in long-term then.
|
| We could also globally agree to dispose all nuclear waste
| in one place on earth and just never go there again.
|
| Actually we could disband entities like the EPA, because
| we can figure out solutions to each environmental impact
| on-demand if there's enough incentive for it.
|
| But we don't, because there is (or used to be) consensus
| that there are also goals beyond short-term economic
| growth. Areas of interest for greater society, for
| mankind if you will.
| generalizations wrote:
| > You'd be surprised what becomes reasonable and possible
| once a requirement is set.
|
| In that case, I'm not sure why you're concerned. Let's
| flip this around: set up our regulations to loosen our
| EMI radiation restrictions & facilitate our satellites
| and space exploration. According to your logic, that
| should be perfectly reasonable to astronomers, if that's
| what the regulations say, and it should be possible for
| them to adapt to that.
|
| If that's not what you meant, then astronomy needs to
| make some concessions.
| rickdeckard wrote:
| Sure, that's also a solution. The public then needs to
| provide more taxpayer funding to perform such research in
| orbit of earth. Whatever is preferable in the larger
| picture of public/corporate interest...
| generalizations wrote:
| That's a very different proposal- unless you're intending
| to amend your previous statement to:
|
| "You'd be surprised what becomes reasonable and possible
| once a requirement is set [and additional funding is
| allocated to overcome the negative consequences of said
| requirement]"
| rickdeckard wrote:
| No need to amend, it's the same, the required funding is
| a factor to determine how reasonable an investment is.
| For both parties.
|
| It is then up to the taxpayer to define whether the path
| of performing astronomy research in orbit of earth to
| preserve a for-profit business-model is more reasonable
| than defining regulation which allows such research to be
| performed on earth for a fraction of the cost (but may
| require for-profit companies to further invest in R&D to
| comply or re-evaluate their business model).
|
| It's that simple. Astronomy won't be able to provide
| immediate ROI or a sales-plan of increased revenue to
| offset the cost-increase when researching in orbit. So if
| that's the only criteria, then such research is a futile
| activity and will be stopped.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Even this assumes the rest of the world agrees to what is
| essentially a US centric thing.
| rickdeckard wrote:
| Yeah, but hear me out: What is "US-centric" here?
|
| Astronomy research?, Radio spectrum?, LOE?, Starlink
| operations?
|
| All of this is global. In the end it'll be about
| geopolitics, although it should be a field that urgently
| requires global governance and consensus.
|
| Next time it could be interference between Starlink vs. a
| Chinese for-profit. It would be good if there's a
| commonly agreed way of handling such matters in place...
| generalizations wrote:
| If astronomy is not able to cope with additional
| regulation without additional funding, then for-profit
| companies should not be expected to do so either. It's
| that simple.
|
| > Astronomy won't be able to provide immediate ROI or a
| sales-plan of increased revenue to offset the cost-
| increase when researching in orbit.
|
| That's too bad. I was under the impression that "You'd be
| surprised what becomes reasonable and possible once a
| requirement is set."
| rickdeckard wrote:
| > If astronomy is not able to cope with additional
| regulation without additional funding, then for-profit
| companies should not be expected to do so either. It's
| that simple
|
| So your belief is that for-profit companies should not be
| required to comply to regulation put in place after they
| start business in any field.
|
| And for-profit companies who later join to compete with
| them? They should, because it's not "additional"? Or also
| not, to ensure a competitive market?
|
| So basically no regulation of any kind shall happen,
| because companies should not be expected to cope with new
| regulation if it incurs additional effort for them.
|
| Congrats.
| generalizations wrote:
| > So your belief is that for-profit companies should not
| be required to comply to regulation put in place after
| they start business in any field.
|
| Interesting that was your takeaway, when all I actually
| said was "no double standards pls".
|
| (i.e., hold astronomy and for-profits to the same
| standard, insofar that they have to just 'deal with it'
| when new regulation shows up - or not.)
| carefulfungi wrote:
| Progress is always the argument for pollution.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Humanity doesn't own SpaceX. If humanity would have a
| vote on this I'd be happy to agree with you but it is
| just one US corporation that does this and they don't get
| to decide for all of us. If they just did their thing
| above the USA that would be another matter entirely but
| that's not how this works, as you well know. So you slip
| in the 'for the greater good' argument that does not
| necessarily hold and besides which isn't up to SpaceX to
| decide, especially not unilaterally.
| perihelions wrote:
| > _" but it is just one US corporation that does this and
| they don't get to decide for all of us"_
|
| I don't understand your comment on so many levels. The
| ITU treaties do exist, and they do protect observational
| astronomy bands, and everything here is *in compliance
| with* extant ITU regs. As I quoted above. I can turn your
| words on your head: who are astronomers to make arbitrary
| choices for rest of the human species? Or, who are HN to?
| People _do_ want their gadgets to work. They value that
| more highly than many things, things more important than
| mere astronomy experiments--more highly than human
| rights, for example (to contemplate all the slave labor
| in the modern electronics supply chains).
|
| On another level: you say it's just one one company, but
| that company is obviously just an early-adopter, leading-
| edge of a great horde of space companies going in for the
| gold rush. There will be many others, and then there will
| be the Chinese military, and--do you think there will be
| more favorable outcomes negotiating with the PLA, filing
| complaints to the PLA over the RFI of their prized
| military assets? Yeah; no. In 5-10 years the landscape
| will certainly be utterly unrecognizable, and it will not
| be a SpaceX hegemony any longer. You will be opposed to a
| hundred adversaries of many nations--not just that one.
|
| And following after that, there will be humans and human
| tourists going up, pretty soon I'd bet; by the thousands;
| and they'll be bringing their electronics gadgets up to
| visit, and later inhabit, Earth orbit. Have you
| internalized the numbers we're discussing here? This
| telescope array can detect the equivalent of a short-
| range wireless Bluetooth gadget at 2,000 kilometers range
| --and they're _complaining_ about it, they want that
| banned. (Literally--if it weren 't for the earth in
| between us, my wireless mouse right here could be
| radiating greater signal power through your body, dear
| reader, no matter where you are right now on the planet,
| than these satellites flashes we're discussing here.
| _Click, click_.) No way is that compatible with a future
| of humans inhabiting space. The space RF environment is,
| incomprehensibly pristine as it stands... but that won 't
| last, can't last, there's _no way_ humanity moving to the
| stars will preserve that pristine silence, you might us
| well give up right away. Fighting it is futile, foolish,
| misguided, and more than a little misanthropic.
| mlindner wrote:
| That's about AST Spacemobile, not SpaceX.
| willis936 wrote:
| Which is exactly why I shared it. There is a clear pattern of
| corporate interference on public bands and a pattern of FCC
| enforcement being applied to individual interferers.
| axus wrote:
| Wise of them to launch FM1 on an Indian rocket, then.
| pdabbadabba wrote:
| If they want to serve the U.S. market, which they do, they
| still have to deal with the FCC and comply with U.S.
| regulations, regardless of the launching country.
| axus wrote:
| The wisdom was not launching a satellite on their
| competitor's rocket.
| lenerdenator wrote:
| They obviously haven't encountered an angry retired man with a
| ham radio license, transceiver, and nothing but time on his
| hands.
|
| They'd be begging for the FCC after that.
| eulers_secret wrote:
| The FCC doesn't enforce very strongly, mudduck and others like
| him have been killing CB channel 6 (and sometimes 19) for like
| 2 decades and nothing has been done nor will be done.
| mlindner wrote:
| I'm not sure why they're complaining when the SKA isn't even
| active yet. Once it's active Starlink will do just like they have
| for other radio telescopes, avoid transmitting while they're in
| the boresight and in general don't transmit toward the antenna.
| This is a well practiced interaction at this point with
| scientific agencies in multiple countries.
|
| The only thing that they can't stop would be things like
| reflected unrelated ground communications off of the satellite,
| but that would be very weak.
| aragilar wrote:
| Uh, given there's been radio telescopes there for longer than
| starlink has existed, I'm not sure why they haven't stopped
| broadcasting in that area then.
| mlindner wrote:
| It's possible they haven't requested it yet. I've only heard
| SKA complaining loudly in the media while American radio
| telescopes have very obvious blackouts visible on SpaceX's
| map because they've requested them.
| aragilar wrote:
| So everyone needs to go beg every single satellite provider
| to respect the well known existing radio quiet zones? I
| suspect it's more likely Starlink is ignoring all other
| regulators and regulations other than the FCC, hence why
| the US-based observatories are considered.
| mlindner wrote:
| There's several blackout holes in Europe as well. Two in
| Germany, one in Spain and one in Sweden.
| rickdeckard wrote:
| > avoid transmitting while they're in the boresight and in
| general don't transmit toward the antenna
|
| Not sure this will help against the mentioned unintentional
| electromagnetic radiation (UEMR) likely caused by the
| electronics of the satellites themselves.
|
| _" This radio emission at lower frequencies from Starlink
| isn't their downlink frequency, but instead unintentional
| electromagnetic radiation (UEMR), thought to be caused by the
| onboard electronics of the satellite."_
| perihelions wrote:
| One interesting complication is that it seems the propulsion,
| the electromagnetic ion thrusters, are one of the sources of
| unintended emissions,
|
| > _" Communication with SpaceX engineers suggested the UEMR
| originated from the propulsion/avionics system of the
| satellites as they were orbit-raising at the time of
| detection."_
| notahacker wrote:
| That's quite a big deal actually, if the propulsion system is
| the major source of interference. Firstly the propulsion
| system's operation is infrequent (at least at individual
| satellite level, although if you've got a constellation as
| big as SpaceX's you'll have satellites doing orbital transfer
| _somewhere_ a lot of the time). Secondly it isn 't a critical
| part of SpaceX's tech, and other solutions exist for future
| Starlink generations which wouldn't compromise its service
| offering at all. Of course interference from a propulsion
| system is also less directional and tweakable...
| m4rtink wrote:
| They use a high efficiency low thrust hall effect engine -
| for those kinds of thrusters you might have to run it
| continuously, possibly continuously to ballance out the
| atmospheric drag at low altitude. For normal chemical
| thrusters you indeed use the for just a bit very
| occasionally (or else you run out of propellant very
| quickly).
|
| Still I agree it is fixeable - they can tune the hall
| effect thruster on newer sats to not radiate in this band &
| avoid running the thrusters when in the field of view of
| that one radio telescope at the times it is operating.
| notahacker wrote:
| They're not running thrusters continuously except during
| orbital transfer. Otherwise they'd run out of propellant
| pretty quickly even with a HET, and operating smallsats
| at 559km doesn't require _that_ much orbital correction.
| They probably fire them far more often for conjunction
| avoidance than station keeping, but again that 's a
| reported 300 total manoeuvres per day across 8k
| satellites, which gives them a bit of scope to time them
| for when they're unlikely to upset regulators
| m4rtink wrote:
| Interesting - yeah, that way they should have sufficient
| margin to plan the manuevers to avoid the radio
| telescopes. :)
| nothankyou777 wrote:
| Google says their 8,094 satellites use phased arrays. I wonder
| what would happen if you directed a few hundred of these phased
| arrays at a single target?
| ben_w wrote:
| Less than you may expect:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thinned-array_curse
| IshKebab wrote:
| Not relevant. That's talking about if you just _move_ the
| array elements, not if you add more.
|
| However the answer is still that nothing will happen. The
| power level on the ground is extremely weak.
| msgodel wrote:
| I think most people assume the individual satellites aren't
| synchronized well enough to produce a mutually coherent
| signal so the power from each of them will just be normally
| superimposed.
|
| IE they're thinking of the individual phased arrays as just
| highly directional antennas for the satellites. The idea that
| they _could_ be coherent actually means there could be more
| power than we might expect.
| londons_explore wrote:
| With any kind of feedback from the ground (to compensate
| for atmospheric effects), I think these could easily be
| coherent. One just needs timing accurate to 100 picoseconds
| within one 20 millisecond round trip - which is 5 ppb and
| the cheapest atomic clocks can do that.
|
| Even so, my guess is you aren't going to be frying an egg
| 500 km away even with the whole starlink constellation at
| full power!
| philipwhiuk wrote:
| I mean they can't - the Earth is in the way for most of them.
| m4rtink wrote:
| Only a fraction of the satellites have a single point in view.
| nothankyou777 wrote:
| A fraction of 8,094 is still quite a few.
| brcmthrowaway wrote:
| Similarly, what if each satellite used a laser link, what if
| each laser was pointed to the same spot - could it act like a
| Death Star?
| butlike wrote:
| "You may fire, when ready."
| literalAardvark wrote:
| Well, you could use it a kind of active, reverse GPS, for one.
| Track anything with the faintest (within reason, we have a lot
| of noise in the direction of earth) em signature.
| butlike wrote:
| The mind likes to wander to "what if death ray?" but the real,
| boring answer is probably that money === yams, and those who
| have the yams have the power. The array provides paying
| customers who bolster the war chest, and maybe down the road
| the satellite array could be used form something, but if they
| all burn out or otherwise become junk over time, at least the
| paying customers have galvanized the bank account.
|
| Then with the bank account, you can do whatever else needs to
| be done at a later date
| cryptoshadow wrote:
| Good
| fidotron wrote:
| There are several related things I find odd about Starlink, with
| the ongoing defense of the impact it has on scientific research
| being one of them.
|
| Having used it it is genuinely impressive, but it will inevitably
| lead to everyone wanting their own independent LEO constellation
| for military purposes (communication and observation), which will
| then lead to a big interest in anti-satellite weapons since these
| will become major targets in a hot war.
|
| The end result here is going to be huge quantities of space junk
| and investment in defense over-the-horizon ground radios (again)
| which to some degree is already happening.
| flufluflufluffy wrote:
| I agree. The sky is gonna be so full of sh*t in the future
| TMWNN wrote:
| >which will then lead to a big interest in anti-satellite
| weapons since these will become major targets in a hot war
|
| If anything, the other way around. Were Starlink a traditional
| satellite constellation, with a few in geosynchronous orbit,
| they would be very appealing targets. But there are thousands,
| and soon tens of thousands, of Starlink satellites, which makes
| any sort of weapon against them other than maybe a laser
| impractical.
|
| >The end result here is going to be huge quantities of space
| junk
|
| ... the Starlink portion of which naturally falls back to earth
| within five years.
| theultdev wrote:
| It's impossible for VLEO constellations to create space junk.
|
| They naturally fall out of orbit after a few years.
|
| And no they can't be "blown into" GEO orbit.
| maxglute wrote:
| Big % of mega constellations will be be >500km where deorbit
| is decades to centuries. Unless regulatory changes, VLEO will
| be minority because orbit slots is limited.
| theultdev wrote:
| Care to share where you're pulling that information?
|
| 1. The amount of "orbit slots" is vast. There is plenty of
| room.
|
| 2. I'm unaware of any mega constellations planned >500km.
| Latency would be worse and doesn't make sense for an
| aspiring Starlink competitor to do that.
| maxglute wrote:
| 1. UN/ITU regulates orbit slots/shells (really frequency
| assignments that effectively limits orbit slots), high
| decay V/LEO, as in ~500km was basically exhausted by
| starlink. Big reason PRC announced multiple 10-20k mega
| constellations a few years ago (without reusable for to
| put-up payload) was to sign up for next closes shell
| which is 500+. At those distances orbit decay is
| decades/centuries. So regulatorily, the fast decay orbit
| slots are legally mostly gone.
|
| 2. All mega constellations including starlink has layers
| from 500-1500km. Every 100km is like 0.3ms latency but
| trade off is cheaper station (longer life time) keeping
| and wider coverage per satellite, but cost more to get
| there.
|
| Related to 1&2 is this is byproduct of UN/ITU
| regulations... they can open up more <500km slots,
| increase congestion, confliction and chance of
| recoverable Kessler... but that would mean SpaceX (read
| US military) would... have to share strategic orbits with
| PRC and whoever comes next.
|
| E: extrapolate to future of cheap space launch, if
| multiple blocs or even countries want their own mega
| constellations, and no changes to regulations, then they
| would have to start occupying higher orbit shells
| (assuming they follow ITU). Also geometrically, the shell
| lowest/closest to earth has the least volume / capacity.
| 93po wrote:
| this is what we call a slippery slope fallacy
|
| there is no evidence that there will be a hot war, that it will
| involve destroying satellites, or the process of destroying the
| satellite would result in space junk that didn't naturally
| deorbit within a few years
|
| if we have a hot war with a country capable of launch rockets
| into space to destroy satellites, then we're super fucked
| anyway, because that's also a nuclear country. satellites would
| be the last of my concerns, i would be digging a bunker in my
| backyard
| philipallstar wrote:
| > This radio emission at lower frequencies from Starlink isn't
| their downlink frequency, but instead unintentional
| electromagnetic radiation (UEMR), thought to be caused by the
| onboard electronics of the satellite. This UEMR is not currently
| regulated by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU),
| the organization responsible for managing and allocating the
| radio spectrum for various uses.
|
| Feels like this is regulatory UB, and therefore allowed.
| rickdeckard wrote:
| I'm curious to see how this will play out.
|
| I don't see big potential for the current US government to value
| scientific interests higher than the interests of SpaceX.
|
| Wouldn't be surprised if SpaceX just continues to launch such
| satellites causing unintentional interference, to then claim in
| case of escalation how uneconomic it will be for them to correct
| this issue now and how the financial impact to SpaceX needs to be
| valued higher than scientific needs.
|
| This LEO Direct-to-cellular strategy seems to play out similarly,
| with SpaceX launching massive amounts of satellites which are
| technically not capable to prevent interference on private
| spectrum while crossing country-borders, so ITU/FCC/CEPT now need
| to find a solution to deal with this situation.
| throw0101a wrote:
| > _I don 't see big potential for the current US government to
| value scientific interests higher than the interests of
| SpaceX._
|
| Do not underestimate the motivating factor of spite in the
| current US administration.
| burkaman wrote:
| Spite about what? Elon hasn't done a single thing to harm the
| administration. The bill he claimed to dislike passed easily,
| he stopped talking about Epstein as soon as it seemed like it
| might cause actual problems for the president, and in the
| past couple days he's expressed very vocal support for the
| Texas gerrymandering effort and domestic deployment of the
| military in DC. He continues to be the administration's most
| powerful and influential supporter in the world.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Elon hasn 't done a single thing to harm the
| administration_
|
| Literally reignited the Epstein drama.
| iAMkenough wrote:
| They've made up since, with a plan to use the drama and
| outrage to disparage and prosecute political opponents of
| the President. Congress and Trump-appointed judges seem
| to be acting in support of that approach so far.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _They 've made up since_
|
| That may be true. But it's definitely a hot take.
|
| Musk and Trump have agreed a detente. We have no signs of
| them helping each other. Where Musk has made up is with
| the GOP machine, particularly in the House. That looks
| less like alliance than positioning.
| burkaman wrote:
| I consider stuff like this to be helping Trump:
| https://xcancel.com/elonmusk/status/1952836498971344926,
| https://xcancel.com/elonmusk/status/1954857646420369890,
| https://xcancel.com/elonmusk/status/1955036144909029873
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| That's a detente. None of those tweets actually do
| anything.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > Wouldn't be surprised if SpaceX just continues to launch such
| satellites causing unintentional interference, to then claim in
| case of escalation how uneconomic it will be for them to
| correct this issue now and how the financial impact to SpaceX
| needs to be valued higher than scientific needs.
|
| At least Starlink satellites need to be replaced every few
| years anyway due to their low orbit. That is a natural ceiling
| for economical questions - ITU et al take _years_ anyway until
| anything is actually enforceable, so SpaceX has ample time to
| prepare should there be a relevant movement in ITU.
| crest wrote:
| If Starlink / SpaceX interferes ground based scientific
| observations they should be required to pay in kind and launch
| orbital observatories as compensation.
| fidotron wrote:
| The other NRO telescope would be a nice start:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_National_Reconnaissance_O...
| 93po wrote:
| i'm positive spacex would be thrilled to launch something like
| a JWST and get to write off the $150-$220 million launch
| "value", which is what the Ariane 5 ECA costs. since it'd only
| cost them as low as $10 million with reuse. the tax write-off
| would benefit them immensely
| pfdietz wrote:
| If it's unintended emission this seems like something that can be
| reduced by refinement of the satellite design.
| Catbert59 wrote:
| That's weird.
|
| The company I'm working for has its own EMC chamber (maintaining
| that huge room fully calibrated and standardized is ultra
| expensive... just looking at these EMC test receivers that go up
| to 40GHz my me cry in $$$$) and we invested giant engineering
| effort into our products to be far below every radiation limit
| norm in the world.
|
| Shouldn't satellite companies have even better stuff and more
| strict regulations or are these unintended effects maybe caused
| by the harsh environment?
| inemesitaffia wrote:
| They did. These are sub 1 Ghz bands and the issue is from the
| engines and (maybe power supply)
| financetechbro wrote:
| I'm certain that SpaceX does not care about regulations
| parsimo2010 wrote:
| Most communications satellites (which is all Starlink really
| is) are heavily focused on their operating bands and any
| specific bands they are told not to interfere with so they can
| get launch approval. There's no benefit to doing anything
| extra. And not only do they have to be told which specific
| bands they can't interfere with, the government actually has to
| require delivery of test results or else that is the same as
| giving permission to interfere.
|
| Most companies won't spend a penny, take a second of time, or
| add a gram to a satellite if it doesn't affect their mission or
| chance of approval. Especially not one as cost-optimized as
| SpaceX. They won't change a thing unless the US government
| forces them to do so, or if they think that a government order
| is imminent so they come to some voluntary agreement ahead of
| time to avoid what would probably be a more constraining
| official regulation in the future.
|
| The actual issue is probably caused by switch-mode power
| supplies or some digital signal on the satellite that isn't
| fully shielded, possibly one that does digital control of a
| motor or thruster. It probably isn't the communication radios
| since they operate at a much higher frequency. You can fix the
| issue by adding filtering and/or shielding, but that takes
| extra components (meaning extra cost and weight) and requires
| testing (meaning time). Plus you have to identify the offending
| system, which means you have to start with testing and
| detective work. This interference was only detected on some
| Starlink satellites, so you have to do detective work to find
| out if it is a particular operating mode or generation of
| satellite that is offending, do testing to confirm it, and then
| work on a fix.
| nn3 wrote:
| This is actually not correct for Starlink. They did a lot of
| work to lower their albedo based on astronomer complaints,
| even though there wasn't any government regulation in this
| area.
|
| It might apply to some of the emerging Starlink competitors
| however, especially the Chinese ones and AST.
| macinjosh wrote:
| The function these satellites serve is 1000x more valuable than
| the cost of inconveniencing a few astronomers.
|
| Rural communities are being enriched all over the world through
| high speed internet access.
| emushack wrote:
| I think I have a different idea of "valuable". Rural
| communities need connectivity for sure - but we also need
| reliable radio astronomy for a whole host of reasons - space
| weather forcasting, terrestrial weather forecasting, scientific
| advancement.... without radio astronomy, there wouldn't even be
| satellites to put cat videos on!
| trothamel wrote:
| Huh? How does radio astronomy affect space or terrestrial
| weather forecasting?
| emushack wrote:
| https://public.nrao.edu/ask/can-radio-telescopes-be-used-
| in-...
| uv-depression wrote:
| Launching tens of thousands of satellites is better than
| municipal internet, which would serve the same purpose, be
| cheaper, and not interfere with critical scientific research?
| This solution is better only for the private internet
| oligopolies. I would say astronomical research is orders of
| magnitude more important than that.
| aurizon wrote:
| I have often wondered if a a very small Ion thruster, used
| intermittently, gravitationally stabilised, could be used to
| offset the variable atmospheric drag caused by
| inflation/deflation of the tenuous upper atmosphere to extend
| satellite life. It would add a little weight at launch but could
| extend orbital life by many years. It would need fractions of a
| gram of thrust, run off the current solar electricity budget, and
| could easily make them endure for 10+ years. When the satellite
| had failed or aged out, it could be used for improved de-orbiting
| at end of life. I also suspect that a mobile stream at a lower
| frequency could be added that would provide intermittent stream
| down loads of news directly to the Russian people via recently
| tested cell phone comms ability
| vardump wrote:
| > I have often wondered if a a very small Ion thruster, used
| intermittently, gravitationally stabilised, could be used to
| offset the variable atmospheric drag caused by
| inflation/deflation of the tenuous upper atmosphere to extend
| satellite life.
|
| Isn't that exactly what Starlink is doing?
| brcmthrowaway wrote:
| starlink sats have thrusters?
| MarkusQ wrote:
| Yes.
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/11cnh0w/star
| l...
| aurizon wrote:
| Yes, I see, dated 2018 using rarified air as ion source.
| Totally solves the reaction mass needs and the
| electricity is solar
| literalAardvark wrote:
| All sats have thrusters.
|
| Station-keeping must be active for very many reasons, and
| sats with broken thrusters fall down fairly quickly.
| mlindner wrote:
| Not all sats in general have thrusters. There's many
| types of satellites, especially smaller ones, that use
| magnetorquers, and somtimes reaction wheels as well, to
| maintain orientation but have no propulsion.
|
| There's also satellites with no active attitude control
| at all and use passive means to maintain a somewhat
| static orientation. That can permanent magnets causing a
| tumbling linked to Earth's magnetic field, passive
| aerodynamic stabilization, or using Earth's gravity
| gradient to align the satellite.
| numpad0 wrote:
| ESA GOCE and JAXA SLATS did that. SLATS went as low as
| 167km(104mi). Neither was air breathing.
| mwachs wrote:
| These rudeboys better pick it up, pick it up!
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2025-08-13 23:02 UTC)