Starlink, rowers and navigation – what exactly is happening in our night sky?

We’ve had five years to brace for the impact of SpaceX’s Starlink internet-satellite megaconstellation, but the first few batches of the spacecraft still managed to catch astronomers, and potentially rowers, off guard.

SpaceX founder and CEO, Elon Musk, announced the Starlink concept in January 2015, explaining that the company intended to launch about 4,000 broadband satellites to low Earth orbit to provide low-cost internet service to people around the world, according to space.com.

Shortly after deployment, the Starlink craft looked like a bright string of pearls as they raced together across the sky. (This formation disbanded as the 500 lb satellites dispersed and climbed to their final operational altitude about 340 miles above Earth’s surface — but the individual spacecraft remain visible to the naked eye.)

Nearly 200 Starlink craft are already circling Earth. SpaceX lofted the first batch of 60 satellites last May and performed similar launches in November and earlier in January (with, according to vox.com, another 60 planned every two weeks).

“What surprised everyone — the astronomy community and SpaceX — was how bright their satellites are,” says Patrick Seitzer, an Emeritus Professor of Astronomy at the University of Michigan.

Tom Cunliffe

Tom Cunliffe, sailor and author, is not worried.

“While this is in many ways alarming,” Cunliffe says, “particularly looking into the future and contemplating the growing orbit of junk, communication satellites won’t affect celestial navigation in any practical sense that I can see. We navigators know which stars we are looking for and where they are, either by observation or pre-computing. A moving satellite is unlikely to be mistaken for a relatively stationary star.”

But the surprising brightness has many astronomers worried about the huge number of coming Starlink satellites — SpaceX plans to launch nearly 1,600 more by the end of this year, according to Seitzer — as SpaceX works to its goal of Starlink satellites forming into a constellation that will provide internet access, for a price, to remote areas of Earth.

In all, the company has approval from the Federal Communications Commission to launch 12,000 satellites, and Musk is seeking approval to launch 30,000 more, says vox.com.

And it’s hardly the only company in this market. OneWeb, a UK-based company that also wants to beam internet access from space, is seeking to launch 650 satellites, beginning this January. Amazon wants to launch 3,200 satellites, in a constellation called Kuiper, also with the goal of selling internet access. In the near future, there could be 50,000 or more small satellites encircling the Earth, and for purposes other than delivering internet, says vox.com.

These new satellites are small, mass-produced, and orbit very closely to the Earth to ensure the internet connection they provide is speedy. But that closeness also makes them more visible, and brighter in the night sky. When there are 50,000 satellites in the sky, “you’ll see the sky crawling,” says Tony Tyson, a University of California Davis astronomer and physicist. “Every square degree will have something crawling in it.”

In a recent interview with Sky News, Ollie Palmer, one of the winning team on the Talisker Atlantic Whisky Challenge spoke of the memories he’d made. “With all that time on the ocean, you definitely realise what’s important to you,” he said. “The most amazing thing I saw was this incredible array of stars – all moving along in a line in a train – there must have been 200 or 300 stars.” Who wants to tell him that it may have been Starlink?

What do you think? Do you welcome the technology, or wonder if your children, and grandchildren, will ever get to experience the beauty of a clear night sky?

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