On the weekend SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket launched a giant satellite into space.
Called BlueWalker 3, it’s a prototype by American company AST SpaceMobile, which is to create a space-based mobile broadband network. This is only one of multiple satellites planned for the SpaceMobile constellation – some even bigger than BlueWalker 3.
“The reason why our satellite is large is because in order to communicate with a low-power, low internal strength phone, you just need a large antenna on one side with a lot of power, and so that’s a critical part of our infrastructure,” AST SpaceMobile Chief Strategy Officer Scott Wisniewski told Space.com.
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With plans for a number of these huge satellites, ground based optical telescopes may struggle to image the night sky without disturbance.
This is a continuation of worries from a few years ago, where SpaceX’s own satellite megaconstellation Starlink began to affect astronomers’ work.
The Falcon 9 rocket also included new Starlink satellites, which brings the numbers over 2,200 active satellites – which is about half the number of satellites SpaceX wants in orbit. It’s also worth pointing out that around half of the satellites currently in orbit are Starlink’s.
Radio astronomers are also nervous. As Alan Duffy at the time told ScienceAlert “a full constellation of Starlink satellites will likely mean the end of Earth-based microwave-radio telescopes able to scan the heavens for faint radio objects.”
R&I – FS
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Article URL : https://cosmosmagazine.com/technology/bluewalker-launched-spacex-largest-satellite-astronomers/