Here comes a thread on light pollution from satellites, with a concrete action that you all can take to help push for regulation of satellites in orbit!
Astronomers have been worried about light pollution from satellites (if you've been following me for more than 24 hours, you've perhaps heard a bit about this). Astronomers spent SO much time and effort begging and pleading with Starlink to make their satellites fainter, with mixed results.
Then, seemingly out of nowhere, AST Mobile launched a GIGANTIC direct-to-cell satellite that is as bright as the brightest stars in the sky (this is paywalled, sorry, the next link is not): https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06672-7
This is an opinion piece I wrote about this article a few months ago (which required much back-and-forth with multiple Nature editors, plus their lawyers...sigh): https://rdcu.be/drQOU
These direct-to-cell satellites require large antennae that are super reflective. They are also HORRIBLE for radio astronomy. Cell phones are designed to pick up very strong signals from close to your horizon. Satellites have their strongest signals make it to the ground when they're directly overhead, sending signals over the shortest distance and through the smallest column of atmosphere.
I have no idea how these direct-to-cell satellites will work, but I'd guess it will require extremely strong radio broadcasts.
Radio astronomers who have been following this are terrified: they go to great pains to make radio-quiet zones, and if giant satellites blasting super strong radio signals fly over all the time, it will destroy these radio-quiet zones.
I ran a simulation of 400 of these satellites as seen from Toronto. From light-polluted downtown Toronto, in the night sky you would be able to see the Moon, Venus, and a bunch of stupidly bright satellites all night long on the summer solstice.
A group of concerned astronomers, artists, and policy experts have come together and formed Kessler Rebellion. Our goal is to educate the public about what's happening in orbit and advocate for regulatory changes that will avoid Kessler Syndrome, which would destroy our ability to use satellites in Low Earth Orbit for decades to centuries.
@sundogplanets You do realize, that within .. an hour or so of WW3, that all the space-capable militaries in the world are going to have blown to smithereens all of their enemy's satellites, enforcing kessler-syndrome, right?
That once that has happened, nothing can undo it.
That WW3 has to unfold as a war-of-attrition without satnav, without spy-satellites, without weather-satellites, without communications-satellites...
and there is nothing that can prevent the beginning of WW3 from enforcing kessler-syndrome.
It may be avoidable until the dominant-players in BRICS decide that the West is damaged-enough for WW3,
but once that tipping-point is crossed, NOTHING can prevent it..
Therefore, unless your group has some means of preventing inevitable geopolitical-deterioration, during #ClimatePunctuation, and the food-insecurity, the political-tantrum, the religious-tantrum, etc, from crossing that tipping-point, then .. kessler-syndrome isn't evadeable.
Right now the FCC has an official comment period open, until MAY 30. I have no idea if it will help for them to receive many letters from the general public, but we've written up instructions on how to do this here: https://www.kesslerrebellion.com/take-action
You can submit a comment even if you don't live in the US.
I know there are SO many things to fight against right now. But if you have any energy left, and you love the night sky, this is a relatively easy action. Thank you!
@sundogplanets "BlueWalker 3, was launched last year and is one of the brightest objects in the night sky. AST SpaceMobile alone plans to launch 400 of these, meaning that even in a light-polluted city, you would always see bright satellites in your night sky anytime they are sunlit. These bright satellites will be devastating for cultural and recreational stargazing and research astronomy alike. "
@sundogplanets Thank you for making the submission easy. I just submitted a comment using an uploaded letter in .pdf form requesting regulation of the light pollution for the direct-to-cell satellites.
🙏🏽
@sundogplanets thank you for doing this! But yikes, read some of the space company letters and they’re all like, “please don’t implement any new debris or environmental regulations so we can continue to do whatever we want without taking any responsibility whatsoever!” Wow, just wow.
The FCC comment period is still open for direct-to-cell gigantic satellites. And people who pay attention to the FCC are noticing that loads of private individuals are submitting comments on this!
A sincere thank you to everyone who's already submitted, and there's still 1 week left to submit your own comments if you have energy for it
Will it make a difference? No one really knows. The FCC is a black box. But this is pretty much the only way to tell them what you think, so worth a try!
Last reminder from me: the FCC is taking comments on their new rule allowing freaking huge direct-to-cell satellites until tomorrow. Instructions to submit your own comment are posted here: https://www.kesslerrebellion.com/take-action
Again, I have no idea if this will help. But I do know that the people who pay attention to FCC filings and write about them have noticed! There are now almost 200 submitted comments!! (The last comment period for Starlink had like 25). This is awesome, thank you all so much!
@sundogplanets Whipped out the (wrong field, not at all relevant to the topic) PhD for any weight that might add. Ideally they'd listen to everyone even without the fancy letters, but I'll use them for a good cause since I have them.
@sundogplanets thank you for sharing all this information and give an oportunity to people who are not in the field be able to do something even if maybe is small. I also submited a comment and hope it helps.
Apart from the comment for this bright satellite, there is anything else possible to do about the kessler syndrome? I saw the video in the homepage and now it worries me that maybe there is no regulation in the launches and of course, maybe every country makes their rules and not care to much about the debris falling on earth or even on people.
The worry also comes because I had a job offer to work with cubesats and as far as I got to understand, looks like it is a trend to launch a lot of these because they are cheap. This looks like a fast track to space junkyard in orbit, which I was not aware of it.
@loko Cubesats are not the problem - they are tiny. The latests Starlink satellites are the size of Ford F150s, and the direct-to-cell satellites will have footprints the size of a tennis court. So, while launching hundreds of cubesats isn't great, it's nowhere near the disaster in collisions and pollution that Starlink is.
The best thing to do might be to advocate for better rural and remote ground-based infrastructure at all levels of government, so that people don't need Starlink!
@sundogplanets Ugh. Who the heck is asking for these satellites? Or is it rich people who are another chance to capture a market without paying for ground-based infrastructure?
@tehstu@sundogplanets As someone in Search and Rescue there's huge safety benefits in making communications accessible in even the most remote locations. Not that I'm an advocate for destroying our skies to do it, but that conceptually is a big benefit
@cory_foy@tehstu But you don't need say...Zoom calls or streaming movies from remote locations for this, right? An Iridium phone is fine? Which uses a network of just a few sats at higher altitude orbits. So, we already have this.
@sundogplanets no, not necessarily; on downlink, multi-satellite beamforming becomes feasible, and on the uplink, data rates are typically relatively benign, so that you don't need a terrible high SNR at the satellite.
@sundogplanets and FCC regulation does usually (and pretty certainly) try to respect quiet zones; it's not in the interest of the satellite operators to emit power somewhere where there's no phones, anyways, as that's power not available for reaching actual subscribers. Not sure whether I shared this with you before:
Satellite Constellations and Radio Astronomy; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9iZyk2e5T9U
as director of the nat. radio astronomy observatory, the speaker might not be fully unbiased, but he sure is …
@sundogplanets
The FCC has no clue about astronomy and what these satellites do to it. They also don't understand Kessler, or the Carrington event. They're used to dealing with telephone and television and radio. They aren't qualified to handle satellites at all.
@sundogplanets Starlink doesn't care about science. If they did, they'd have a scientist in charge, or at least on permanent payroll. Starlink only hires scientists long enough to push a half-finished project out, because a finished one would mean someone is smarter than Elon (not a hard task). The only thing Elon will listen to is a) I'm divorcing you and b) physical harm to himself.
Unless he i on one of those satellites, you would have a better chance at convincing he satellites.
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