Fri. Mar 29th, 2024
VisorSat: the solution to the excessively bright unmodified Starlink satellites.The VisorSat. Credit: SpaceX

SpaceX is all set to launch its next batch of Starlink broadband satellites aboard the Falcon 9 rocket into their deployment point in low-Earth orbit on 19th May, Tuesday, 03:10 AM EDT from the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida. This batch will consist of 60 satellites among which some will be fitted with the VisorSat system which will reduce the brightness of the controversial satellites.

The VisorSat system is a hardware component made of radio-transparent foam that works like a sun visor in a car; it flips out and blocks the sun to prevent reflections. Before this the company had tested a DarkSat to reduce the brightness of its Starlink satellites. The DarkSat model involved darkening techniques like the use of materials to cover the shiny surface of the satellites. This was marginally successful as it was found in a study that the DarkSat was 0.88 magnitudes or 55% darker than the untreated Starlink satellites.  However, astronomers were not happy with this figure.

Why are the Starlink missions being criticsed?

The Starlink missions face criticism mainly from astronomers who feel the stark brightness of the satellites will greatly affect their observations of the night sky and cause inaccuracies in their data. This will particularly affect telescopes with wide fields of view as the Starlink megaconstellation will be visible in most of the images taken each night. The bright satellites will cause “non-linear crosstalk” in the observatory’s camera. “We would be left with all of these fake trails, fake galaxies, etc., in our data, damaging the science,” said Tony Tyson, chief scientist of the upcoming Vera Rubin Observatory in Chile.

SpaceX has permission from the Federal Communications Commission to launch over 12,000 Starlink satellites in total and the aim of this mission is to provide low-latency, high-broadband bandwidth to customers. A 1000 satellites are to be deployed by the end of this year and the unmodified, brighter, old generation satellites will be deorbited in 3-4 years’ time and replaced with satellites fitted with the VisorSat system.

SpaceX’s Chief Executive, Elon Musk says their main goal is to “make the satellites invisible to the naked eye within a week, and to minimize the impact on astronomy,”.

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