A Million New SpaceX Satellites Will Destroy the Night Sky – For Everyone on Earth

toronto: There are currently more than 10,000 Starlink satellites in Earth orbit. No matter how remote our location, we see them crawling across the dark sky and passing through images from survey telescopes.

SpaceX recently announced that it wants to launch a million more of these satellites as orbital data centers for AI computing power.

A few years ago, we wrote an article predicting what the night sky would look like with 65,000 satellites from four planned mega-constellations: SpaceX’s Starlink, Amazon’s Kuiper (now Leo), the UK’s OneWeb, and China’s Guowang.

We calibrated our models against observations of real Starlink satellites and came up with a surprising prediction: One in 15 visible points in the night sky will be a satellite, not a star.

A million satellites would be much worse.

The human eye can see fewer than 4,500 stars in an unpolluted night sky. If we allow SpaceX to launch these satellites, we will see more satellites than stars around the world throughout most of the night and year. This will seriously damage the night sky for everyone on Earth.

SpaceX’s proposal also completely fails to take into account atmospheric pollution, collision risk, or how to develop the technology needed to dissipate waste heat from orbital data centers.

predicting the night sky

SpaceX has submitted its million satellite proposal to the United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and has so far provided only basic information about these new satellites.

We know that the proposed constellation would have satellites in much higher orbits, allowing these satellites to be visible for longer periods of the night.

We decided to create an updated simulation using astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell’s website. This includes a set of orbits consistent with the limited information in SpaceX’s dossier.

We used the observed brightness of Starlink satellites as a reference; We scaled the luminosity model to account for size jumps between Starlink V1, V2, and V3 predictions and assuming even higher complexity and power requirements.

There are many factors we know nothing about, so there is some uncertainty in the brightness we estimate.

In the figure above, each gray circle shows a simulation of the full night sky as seen from 50 degrees north latitude at midnight on the summer solstice.

The circle on the left shows the night sky with SpaceX’s on-orbit data centers (SXODC), while the circle on the right shows the night sky with 42,000 Starlink satellites for comparison.

Colored dots indicate the positions and brightness of satellites in the sky; Blue is the dimmest and yellow is the brightest. Below each all-sky simulation, we list the number of sunny satellites in the sky (Ntot) and the number of satellites visible to the naked eye (Nvis); Tens of thousands of predictions are predicted for SXODC.

Each of our simulations shows that there will be more visible satellites than stars throughout most of the night and year.

It is difficult to exaggerate this: if a million new satellites are launched in the proposed orbits and sizes, the stars we can see at night will be completely drowned out by artificial satellites around the world.

This doesn’t even take into account additional large satellite system proposals submitted to the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) by numerous national governments in recent years.

A satellite crematorium

SpaceX’s proposal is for these new satellites to operate as orbital data centers.

Data centers in the field have come under increasing criticism for the large amounts of water and electricity they use. In an impressive feat of greenwashing, SpaceX argues that placing data centers in orbit is better for the environment. This is only true if you ignore all the consequences of the satellite launch, orbital operations, and reentry.

We can measure atmospheric pollution from “reentrants” when satellites fall back to Earth. We know that multiple satellites crash every day, sending debris to the ground that risks injury and death if they do not burn completely upon re-entry.

The increasing density of satellites also increases the risk of collisions in orbit. Using the atmosphere as a satellite crematorium changes the atmosphere in ways we don’t yet understand.

Practically speaking, it is not at all clear whether the proposed orbital data centers will be feasible in the near future. To run data centers in orbit, they will need to dissipate large amounts of waste heat. Despite the greenwashing, this is actually very difficult to do in space as they would have to manage intense radiation from the sun while cooling the satellite with radiation.

SpaceX should know this well: One of the first brightness reductions they tested for Starlink was a “darksat,” a Starlink satellite they painted black. The satellite overheated and the electronics burned out.

A slap in the face to astronomers

SpaceX has done a lot of engineering work to make Starlink satellites dimmer. They’re still too bright for astronomy research, but thanks to the new coatings, their brightness hasn’t increased dramatically even as SpaceX launches increasingly larger satellites.

SpaceX’s proposal for one million AI data center satellites with massive power requirements does not include any discussion of the dark, quiet-skies coordination agreement required by the FCC.

After years of many astronomers working with SpaceX on ways to mitigate the Starlink megaconstellation and save the night sky, this feels like a slap in the face.

Orbital space is a limited resource

SpaceX’s application does not include exact orbits, the size or shape of satellites, or the risk of loss from deorbiting (other than a vague promise that it won’t exceed 0.01 percent per satellite). There isn’t even any information about how the company plans to develop technology that doesn’t currently exist but is necessary for this plan to work.

Despite SpaceX providing surprisingly little information, the FCC accepted SpaceX’s application and opened the comment period within four days. Astronomers and dark-sky advocates around the world scrambled to write and submit comments in the four short weeks that the comment period was open.

The scientific process is slow and careful, and it often takes months or years for a peer-reviewed result to be published. Companies like SpaceX have repeatedly stated that their method is to “move fast and break things.” They are now very close to tearing apart the atmosphere, the night sky, everything on the ground or in space that satellites and rockets fall on or hit.

Earth’s orbital space is a limited resource. There is an emerging set of international guidelines for operating in space, based on a set of high-level international rules. However, these rules and guidelines are insufficient.

A company based in a single country should not be allowed to ruin orbit, the night sky, and the atmosphere for everyone on Earth.