> perhaps will miss the most important discoveries of the universe because of such programs
Unlikely for a number of reasons.
Satellite trajectories are predictable from published ephemerides. It’s trivial for telescope operators to exclude the small fraction of pixels in a frame occupied by a satellite. They already do this.
Satellite operators are also careful not to transmit towards radio telescope exclusion areas.
Furthermore, the same technology that makes it economical to put millions of satellites into LEO (e.g. Starship) also makes it cheaper to build larger telescopes in space where they’re unaffected by the earth’s atmosphere (and satellites in LEO)
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[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 20.0 ms ] threadUnlikely for a number of reasons.
Satellite trajectories are predictable from published ephemerides. It’s trivial for telescope operators to exclude the small fraction of pixels in a frame occupied by a satellite. They already do this.
Satellite operators are also careful not to transmit towards radio telescope exclusion areas.
Furthermore, the same technology that makes it economical to put millions of satellites into LEO (e.g. Starship) also makes it cheaper to build larger telescopes in space where they’re unaffected by the earth’s atmosphere (and satellites in LEO)