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.
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?
No , regulation. That’s what is necessary for cars, planes etc , otherwise the competition would lead to low emission cars . Plus the space debris creation , which is also unregulated , but threatening humanity - for profit
> Luckily we now are able to launch stuff into orbit a lot cheaper. Including astronomy related hardware.
Honestly once Starship is operational SpaceX should subsidize launches of non-commercial astronomy hardware. Could build some goodwill to offset the negatives.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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
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.
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
> 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.
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.
If Starlink / SpaceX interferes ground based scientific observations they should be required to pay in kind and launch orbital observatories as compensation.
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
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?
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.
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
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[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 62.4 ms ] threadMitigation 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.
Honestly once Starship is operational SpaceX should subsidize launches of non-commercial astronomy hardware. Could build some goodwill to offset the negatives.
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...
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.
Then with the bank account, you can do whatever else needs to be done at a later date
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.
They naturally fall out of orbit after a few years.
And no they can't be "blown into" GEO orbit.
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
Feels like this is regulatory UB, and therefore allowed.
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.
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?
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.
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