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> SpaceX voluntarily has initiated brightness reduction in response to concerns from the astronomical community. SpaceX knew their satellites would cause issue

> SpaceX voluntarily has initiated brightness reduction in response to concerns from the astronomical community. SpaceX knew their satellites would cause issues and didn't do anything with the early starlink satellites. After extensive outrage they claimed they had "fixed" things but the reductions were trivial and have done little to address the problem. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/spacexs-dark-satellites-are-still-too-bright-for-astronomers/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/spacexs-dark-sate... https://www.astronomy.com/science/starlink-satellites-disrupt-cosmic-studies/ https://www.astronomy.com/science/starlink-satellites-disrup...

schiffern 3y ago
Those links don't say what you claim they say. Big red flag alert! Your first link is ancient (September 2020) so it doesn't reflect any of the latest-and-greatest brightness mitigations. The study just looked at VisorSat, and SpaceX never claimed VisorSat "fixed" the issue completely. Your second link has nothing to do with visible light reflections, and is actually about the same RF emissions as the current article (emissions which SpaceX is already in the process of mitigating[0] btw). You're not even lying with statistics here. You're just lying with.... lying. :-\ >SpaceX knew their satellites would cause issues Citation needed. I'm also 100% sure you can't provide one. All the reports from SpaceX and from the astronomical community alike both say the impact was surprising and unexpected. Do you have a (reliable, documented, and critically non-misrepresented) source that says otherwise? No? [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38863424 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38863424
- Robotbeat 3y ago
  Par for the course, unfortunately.
- aragilar 3y ago
  I'm totally fine believing SpaceX/Starlink did not expect it, the astronomical community on the other hand as far as I'm aware expected this and has been raising issues with SpaceX/Starlink the whole time (source: am an astronomer). As for things getting significantly better, that'd be news for me as well (https://arxiv.org/pdf/2309.14152.pdf https://arxiv.org/pdf/2309.14152.pdf seems to be the latest review I found on the issue, with Post-VisorSat being worse than VisorSat, and worries about Gen 2 sats).
  - Robotbeat 3y ago
    The astronomical community, in fact, did not expect it. (Go ahead and do an internet search before the first large Starlink batch was deployed... there was no outcry; in fact, there's a public comment period for such things, and if there HAD been concerns, they would've been raised there, but they were not. After the first launch, it was a shock to the astronomy community... And SpaceX was also surprised.) The astronomical community was just as surprised as SpaceX. SpaceX acted remarkably quickly in inventing several different brightness mitigations and deploying them within months. As far as your claim that the latest sats, are worse, that contradicts what your link says in the abstract: "The first of these [new V2 satellites], called Minis, are dimmer than Gen 1 Starlinks despite their greater size. Photometric observations verify that brightness mitigation efforts employed by SpaceX reduce spacecraft luminosity substantially"
  - schiffern 3y ago
    > the astronomical community on the other hand as far as I'm aware expected this Huh I didn't realize that. Do you have a source handy? I couldn't find it in my brief literature search.[0] I found a couple references to Starlink brightness from 2019, but they're all after the first operational launch. > https://arxiv.org/pdf/2309.14152.pdf https://arxiv.org/pdf/2309.14152.pdf seems to be the latest review I found on the issue, with Post-VisorSat being worse than VisorSat Yes SpaceX needed to delete the visors to add laser hardware, so they developed a novel space-rated dielectric mirror as the new mitigation method. That was their first generation mirror, with the current second-gen mirror having better optical performance. As far as I know they haven't been characterized yet. Iterative development takes time, it's true. It also takes money, which is why Starlink competitors are investing essentially zero resources in dark sky stewardship and R&D. Why bother? They know skywatchers will call anything and everything Starlink, so Bad Billionaire will soak up the blame regardless of who really caused it. The competitors are astronomy's real 'enemy at the gate,' but most folks are too distracted by the shiny Elon Musk bouble to notice. [0] for example https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=megaconstellations+brightness&as_sdt=0%2C33&as_ylo=1999&as_yhi=2019 https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=megaconstellations+brig... and https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=starlink+brightness&as_sdt=0%2C33&as_ylo=1999&as_yhi=2019 https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=starlink+brightness&as_...

schiffern 3y ago

Those links don't say what you claim they say. Big red flag alert! Your first link is ancient (September 2020) so it doesn't reflect any of the latest-and-greatest brightness mitigations. The study just looked at VisorSat, and SpaceX never claimed VisorSat "fixed" the issue completely. Your second link has nothing to do with visible light reflections, and is actually about the same RF emissions as the current article (emissions which SpaceX is already in the process of mitigating[0] btw). You're not even lying with statistics here. You're just lying with.... lying. :-\ >SpaceX knew their satellites would cause issues Citation needed. I'm also 100% sure you can't provide one. All the reports from SpaceX and from the astronomical community alike both say the impact was surprising and unexpected. Do you have a (reliable, documented, and critically non-misrepresented) source that says otherwise? No? [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38863424 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38863424

Robotbeat 3y ago
Par for the course, unfortunately.
aragilar 3y ago
I'm totally fine believing SpaceX/Starlink did not expect it, the astronomical community on the other hand as far as I'm aware expected this and has been raising issues with SpaceX/Starlink the whole time (source: am an astronomer). As for things getting significantly better, that'd be news for me as well (https://arxiv.org/pdf/2309.14152.pdf https://arxiv.org/pdf/2309.14152.pdf seems to be the latest review I found on the issue, with Post-VisorSat being worse than VisorSat, and worries about Gen 2 sats).
- Robotbeat 3y ago
  The astronomical community, in fact, did not expect it. (Go ahead and do an internet search before the first large Starlink batch was deployed... there was no outcry; in fact, there's a public comment period for such things, and if there HAD been concerns, they would've been raised there, but they were not. After the first launch, it was a shock to the astronomy community... And SpaceX was also surprised.) The astronomical community was just as surprised as SpaceX. SpaceX acted remarkably quickly in inventing several different brightness mitigations and deploying them within months. As far as your claim that the latest sats, are worse, that contradicts what your link says in the abstract: "The first of these [new V2 satellites], called Minis, are dimmer than Gen 1 Starlinks despite their greater size. Photometric observations verify that brightness mitigation efforts employed by SpaceX reduce spacecraft luminosity substantially"
- schiffern 3y ago
  > the astronomical community on the other hand as far as I'm aware expected this Huh I didn't realize that. Do you have a source handy? I couldn't find it in my brief literature search.[0] I found a couple references to Starlink brightness from 2019, but they're all after the first operational launch. > https://arxiv.org/pdf/2309.14152.pdf https://arxiv.org/pdf/2309.14152.pdf seems to be the latest review I found on the issue, with Post-VisorSat being worse than VisorSat Yes SpaceX needed to delete the visors to add laser hardware, so they developed a novel space-rated dielectric mirror as the new mitigation method. That was their first generation mirror, with the current second-gen mirror having better optical performance. As far as I know they haven't been characterized yet. Iterative development takes time, it's true. It also takes money, which is why Starlink competitors are investing essentially zero resources in dark sky stewardship and R&D. Why bother? They know skywatchers will call anything and everything Starlink, so Bad Billionaire will soak up the blame regardless of who really caused it. The competitors are astronomy's real 'enemy at the gate,' but most folks are too distracted by the shiny Elon Musk bouble to notice. [0] for example https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=megaconstellations+brightness&as_sdt=0%2C33&as_ylo=1999&as_yhi=2019 https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=megaconstellations+brig... and https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=starlink+brightness&as_sdt=0%2C33&as_ylo=1999&as_yhi=2019 https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=starlink+brightness&as_...