this post was submitted on 20 Jun 2023
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Even though they're bigger, Generation 2 Starlinks are fainter than Gen1 (phys.org)
submitted 1 year ago by fred@beehaw.org to c/space@beehaw.org
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[โ€“] zhunk@beehaw.org 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

but commendable that they're making efforts to minimize the impact as much as possible.

Yeah, as far as I know, they aren't required in any way to try the sun shields and dark paint. It seems like they're doing it out of a mix of good will and probably trying to avoid causing new regulations. It'll be interesting to see if future Kuiper and OneWeb sats do the same.

[โ€“] 15Redstones@feddit.de 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

SpaceX wants new regulations regarding satellite brightness.

Their own satellites (at least the second generation ones) fulfill the requirements set by the astronomers at the Rubin Observatory, +7 mag (10x darker than the original ones). Meanwhile the satellites of the competitors OneWeb and Amazon can't fulfill them without major design changes, because the altitude the satellites orbit at makes a significant difference.

If the recommendations of the Rubin Observatory report were turned into regulations now, Starlink would barely be affected (they'd just have to stop the gen1 sat production a little early) while the competition would be set back several years.