Recently a strange string of lights has been spotted speeding across our West Auckland skies.
No, they are not aliens riding space wagons in a convoy, but the start of the Starlink Satellite Internet Access system being developed by Elon Musk’s Space X. The US$10 billion dollar project is racing ahead to meet its licensing deadline of deploying at least half of its 12,000 satellites within six years. While designed for internet access it could be possible to also use them for 5G.
With other operators like Oneweb and Amazon also working on building their own constellations, there is growing concern that every night sky will have satellites passing through it. For example if these mega constellations reach 25,000 satellites, over 1500 would be above the horizon at any one time, resulting in possibly hundreds being visible.
The brightness of Starlink has surprised everybody including SpaceX. They are now experimenting with less reflective coatings. The Starlink strings are most visible soon after launch and they get less visible over following weeks as they are raised into their final orbits.
At this early stage, no-one knows what the effects will eventually be. However, many are concerned about the prospect of going from a night sky where you have to search for satellites to a night sky where you can’t escape seeing them constantly passing.