Every August, many of us take to the skies to count shooting stars. While the exercise is as easy as it is charming, astronomers find it difficult to observe the stars accurately. The reason: the 12,000 or so satellites that Elon Musk is currently deploying in the stratosphere.
The ebullient creator of Tesla electric cars is also the proud owner of SpaceX, one of the world’s busiest rocket manufacturers. For some time now, the Californian company has been sending groups of communications satellites, in batches of 60, to altitudes of between 300 and 1,000 km.
High-speed Internet
The aim of Elon Musk’s teams is to create the largest network of small telecom satellites orbiting the planet. An essential tool for providing high-speed Internet access to as many people as possible. This Starlink network could also be used to geolocate the autonomous cars that the South African-Canadian billionaire is planning to build.
The several hundred SpaceX satellites are not without their problems. The arrival of each satellite in the earth’s inner suburbs generates space waste (launch vehicle debris), which can damage other satellites as it travels at high speed. Some of the International Space Station’s windows are riddled with shrapnel. Space debris damaged one of its solar panels. The cosmonauts had to intervene.
Space and hazardous waste
To provide the entire planet with a network, the Starlink galaxy will need several tens of thousands of satellites. The David Bowie fan plans to send 12,000 into orbit by 2025. Eventually, the number will triple. And that’s where the trouble begins. Because, around the planet, especially in low orbit, space is not infinite.
Since Sputnik 1 (in 1957), Russian, European, American, Chinese, Japanese and Indian space agencies have launched 9,000 spacecraft, many of which are still spinning, if not active. In some regions of the sky, particularly in the immediate vicinity of the globe, we’re verging on a traffic jam. And the arrival of the Musk babies doesn’t help matters.
In September 2019, its operators had to modify the trajectory of the European satellite Aeolus to avoid it being hit by an out-of-service Starlink satellite. The phenomenon is likely to happen again. According to calculations by three Italian astrophysicists, the deployment of Starlink will triple the amount of space junk littering our nearby space.
Low orbit
This estimate is not well received in high circles. The military are particularly fond of low-earth orbits for their spy satellites and, in recent years, their spy satellite killers. Scientific and space agencies reserve a few locations for their earth monitoring platforms.
Tomorrow, greenhouse gas emissions from factories and fields will be monitored from space. In short, everyone is vying for the best spots. But no one can stop the father of X Æ A-12 from putting his technological marvels where he wants. Especially not the Space Treaty of 1967.
And that’s got astronomers worried. Scientists fear that the light pollution caused by the Starlink-branded spacecraft could disrupt their observations of the sky. A risk taken into account by the American company. The company has sent a black-painted satellite above our heads. It’s just as bright as its little comrades.
