OneWeb launches 34 more internet satellites and worries the astronomical community

As if the controversy involving SpaceX’s Starlink satellites – which, even though still far from completing the constellation of up to 42,000 units, are already negatively affecting some astronomical observations due to their reflexivity -, OneWeb’s turn to continue its similar project, which aims to position a large number of satellites in Earth orbit to provide high-speed internet to the entire world.

On Thursday (6), the company launched the second batch of its project, sending 34 more satellites to the planet’s orbit. The first batch was launched in February last year with only six units. The first phase of the project includes a constellation of about 650 satellites, with the final project considering a total of up to 2,000. The company expects to start offering the service on a trial basis later this year, planning to be fully operational by 2021.

However, such a large number of objects around our planet, sent in such short intervals of time, has the potential to ruin space studies made from terrestrial telescopes – and not abandoning such equipment and using only space telescopes is not the solution.

Several astronomers have been warning and even showing evidence that SpaceX satellites have already started to hinder their work even with a total of 240 units in orbit – and, therefore, the Elon Musk is testing a dark coating that, if it works, can reduce the reflectivity of the satellites, minimizing the problem caused to the astronomical community. However, this solution has not yet proved effective, and the new launch of OneWeb only adds even more fuel to this fire.

If OneWeb and Starlink succeed, we will have almost five times more satellites in orbit in the next decade than all the satellites ever launched since the first in history – the Soviet Sputnik 1, in 1957. And, in addition to reflecting sunlight, hindering observations of the night sky with such brightness, these constellations also affect radio astronomy, as they interrupt radio frequencies used to study deep space.

How OneWeb can harm radio astronomy

Large radio telescopes have been built in recent years, capable of studying space objects that emit little visible light but emit radio waves – captured by these antennas. We are talking about distant planets and galaxies, as well as clouds of gas and dust where stars form. In fact, the first real image of a black hole, released last year, was made possible thanks to the work of a set of radio telescopes around the world, which acted together as if they were a gigantic virtual telescope, the size of the Earth.

In other words: if satellite constellations really hinder radio astronomy, great advances in terms of our understanding of the universe are at risk. Certain radio frequencies, used for these space searches, are protected by federal regulations in the United States, but the problem is that both the SpaceX –––––– – –––––––– as for OneWeb they plan to transmit signals very close to one of those bands used by science – and astronomers consider this potentially dangerous.

OneWeb Sattelite

(Image: OneWeb)

Jordan Gerth, a meteorologist at the University of Wisconsin, makes the following analogy: “It’s a lot like when you have two apartments next to each other. To some extent, the sound in one unit is confined, but if it gets too loud, it leaks”. For this reason, the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) demanded that SpaceX and OneWeb work together with radio astronomers, listening to what the scientific community has to warn and thus preventing a setback.

Both had been talking to the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), a government-funded research center, and also to the National Science Foundation (NSF), an independent government agency that promotes scientific research. However, NRAO representatives said they had not received any contact from OneWeb for more than two years. “It seemed to me that they were neglecting their responsibility,” said Harvey Liszt of NRAO last year when he called the FCC, which in turn made OneWeb resume talks with scientists. However, the company did not even sign an operational agreement in a formal way, which would guarantee that it would not use the bands dedicated to science.

And, for Tony Beasley, director of NRAO, the impact that OneWeb satellites can cause in radio astronomy may be greater than the damage that SpaceX satellites are already causing in night sky observations. Because the Starlink project will have many units to provide global coverage, the rays sent back to Earth by satellites are just under 48 km wide, but OneWeb plans a smaller constellation with a different design and, therefore, its beams are larger, more than 1,120 km wide. This means that the company is less able to temporarily shut down satellites that are passing over radio astronomy facilities, because its customers would lose their connection to the internet. In the case of SpaceX, it is even possible to give this “way” without harming the signal.

Astronomers recently expressed their concerns about SpaceX and OneWeb through a committee formed by the American Astronomical Society (AAS). Both companies have been receptive to criticism, even though a solution, in fact, has not yet been proposed. But Ruth Pritchard-Kelly, vice president of regulatory affairs at OneWeb, said the company is committed to this.

Source: With information from NY Times

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

We use cookies for providing you with the best-possible user experience. By using PrivacySavvy, you accept our privacy policy.
Cookies settings
Accept
Privacy & Cookie policy
Privacy & Cookies policy
Cookie name Active

Privacy Policy

What information do we collect?

We collect information from you when you register on our site or place an order. When ordering or registering on our site, as appropriate, you may be asked to enter your: name, e-mail address or mailing address.

What do we use your information for?

Any of the information we collect from you may be used in one of the following ways: To personalize your experience (your information helps us to better respond to your individual needs) To improve our website (we continually strive to improve our website offerings based on the information and feedback we receive from you) To improve customer service (your information helps us to more effectively respond to your customer service requests and support needs) To process transactions Your information, whether public or private, will not be sold, exchanged, transferred, or given to any other company for any reason whatsoever, without your consent, other than for the express purpose of delivering the purchased product or service requested. To administer a contest, promotion, survey or other site feature To send periodic emails The email address you provide for order processing, will only be used to send you information and updates pertaining to your order.

How do we protect your information?

We implement a variety of security measures to maintain the safety of your personal information when you place an order or enter, submit, or access your personal information. We offer the use of a secure server. All supplied sensitive/credit information is transmitted via Secure Socket Layer (SSL) technology and then encrypted into our Payment gateway providers database only to be accessible by those authorized with special access rights to such systems, and are required to?keep the information confidential. After a transaction, your private information (credit cards, social security numbers, financials, etc.) will not be kept on file for more than 60 days.

Do we use cookies?

Yes (Cookies are small files that a site or its service provider transfers to your computers hard drive through your Web browser (if you allow) that enables the sites or service providers systems to recognize your browser and capture and remember certain information We use cookies to help us remember and process the items in your shopping cart, understand and save your preferences for future visits, keep track of advertisements and compile aggregate data about site traffic and site interaction so that we can offer better site experiences and tools in the future. We may contract with third-party service providers to assist us in better understanding our site visitors. These service providers are not permitted to use the information collected on our behalf except to help us conduct and improve our business. If you prefer, you can choose to have your computer warn you each time a cookie is being sent, or you can choose to turn off all cookies via your browser settings. Like most websites, if you turn your cookies off, some of our services may not function properly. However, you can still place orders by contacting customer service. Google Analytics We use Google Analytics on our sites for anonymous reporting of site usage and for advertising on the site. If you would like to opt-out of Google Analytics monitoring your behaviour on our sites please use this link (https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout/)

Do we disclose any information to outside parties?

We do not sell, trade, or otherwise transfer to outside parties your personally identifiable information. This does not include trusted third parties who assist us in operating our website, conducting our business, or servicing you, so long as those parties agree to keep this information confidential. We may also release your information when we believe release is appropriate to comply with the law, enforce our site policies, or protect ours or others rights, property, or safety. However, non-personally identifiable visitor information may be provided to other parties for marketing, advertising, or other uses.

Registration

The minimum information we need to register you is your name, email address and a password. We will ask you more questions for different services, including sales promotions. Unless we say otherwise, you have to answer all the registration questions. We may also ask some other, voluntary questions during registration for certain services (for example, professional networks) so we can gain a clearer understanding of who you are. This also allows us to personalise services for you. To assist us in our marketing, in addition to the data that you provide to us if you register, we may also obtain data from trusted third parties to help us understand what you might be interested in. This ‘profiling’ information is produced from a variety of sources, including publicly available data (such as the electoral roll) or from sources such as surveys and polls where you have given your permission for your data to be shared. You can choose not to have such data shared with the Guardian from these sources by logging into your account and changing the settings in the privacy section. After you have registered, and with your permission, we may send you emails we think may interest you. Newsletters may be personalised based on what you have been reading on theguardian.com. At any time you can decide not to receive these emails and will be able to ‘unsubscribe’. Logging in using social networking credentials If you log-in to our sites using a Facebook log-in, you are granting permission to Facebook to share your user details with us. This will include your name, email address, date of birth and location which will then be used to form a Guardian identity. You can also use your picture from Facebook as part of your profile. This will also allow us and Facebook to share your, networks, user ID and any other information you choose to share according to your Facebook account settings. If you remove the Guardian app from your Facebook settings, we will no longer have access to this information. If you log-in to our sites using a Google log-in, you grant permission to Google to share your user details with us. This will include your name, email address, date of birth, sex and location which we will then use to form a Guardian identity. You may use your picture from Google as part of your profile. This also allows us to share your networks, user ID and any other information you choose to share according to your Google account settings. If you remove the Guardian from your Google settings, we will no longer have access to this information. If you log-in to our sites using a twitter log-in, we receive your avatar (the small picture that appears next to your tweets) and twitter username.

Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act Compliance

We are in compliance with the requirements of COPPA (Childrens Online Privacy Protection Act), we do not collect any information from anyone under 13 years of age. Our website, products and services are all directed to people who are at least 13 years old or older.

Updating your personal information

We offer a ‘My details’ page (also known as Dashboard), where you can update your personal information at any time, and change your marketing preferences. You can get to this page from most pages on the site – simply click on the ‘My details’ link at the top of the screen when you are signed in.

Online Privacy Policy Only

This online privacy policy applies only to information collected through our website and not to information collected offline.

Your Consent

By using our site, you consent to our privacy policy.

Changes to our Privacy Policy

If we decide to change our privacy policy, we will post those changes on this page.
Save settings
Cookies settings