Elain Brown Science 02.10.2022 19:Feb PM EST

NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and its Asteroid Detection Ability Will Be Hampered by Starlink Gen2

SpaceX's Starlink Gen2 satellite has recently submitted an application to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to deploy 30,000 Starlink Gen2 satellites.

However, NASA sent a letter to the FCC stating that it encourages the agency to do more research and careful deployment of these satellites.

NASA added that the Hubble space telescope might be affected by the deployment of the plethora of satellites since eight percent of Hubble telescope images are impacted by satellites captured during exposures.

Starlink Gen2 Obscures Hubble Space Telescope

NASA expressed that the license Starlink seeks approval for states 10,000 satellites that are positioned in or above the orbital range of Hubble.

In this case, this would double the number of Hubble's degraded images.

NASA added that it estimates that the presence of a Starlink satellite will be spotted in every single asteroid image captured by the Hubble telescope.

The agency does not take it lightly as this would mean a difficulty of detecting asteroids that might further cause harm towards the planet, the satellites, and NASA's space missions. This might also go as far as having numerous image renders that are unusable.

As reported by Ars Technica, NASA wants "additional information including spacecraft and laser specifications including deployed dimensions, communications plan, ground segment expansion, orbital spacing, and deployment schedule."

"This will inform a thorough analysis of risks and impacts to NASA's missions and enable a mitigation strategy," the report adds.

NASA's Concern For Crowded Orbit and Safety

The letter that NASA sent to the FCC does not discourage the agency from rejecting the application of SpaceX Starlink Gen2. Rather, it pushes for the meticulous overseeing of the project to guarantee safe spaceflight in future missions and a long-term sustainable space environment.

It has been reported that NASA has legally expressed its concern regarding the significant increase of space satellites that might possibly cause collisions with other crewed spacecraft missions.

Space traffic might further endanger space exploration due to a possible crowded orbit.

According to Space.com, due to the five-fold increase of satellites in space, NASA expressed its concern about whether or not SpaceX's automated collision avoidance system would be capable of handling an enormous amount of traffic.

The conjunction that may possibly happen between satellites and other space crafts will likely have an effect on both crewed and uncrewed space missions since there will be more objects in close proximity.

SpaceX Starlink Claims Zero Risk

Due to the resurfacing concern, SpaceX claims that there is zero risk in Starlink satellites colliding with other spacecraft in orbit.

As reported previously here on iTechPost, NASA told the FCC that "the assumption of zero risk from a system-level standpoint lacks statistical substantiation"

In addition, they added that with "the potential for multiple constellations with thousands and tens of thousands of spacecraft, it is not recommended to assume propulsion systems, ground detection systems, and software are 100% reliable, or that manual operations (if any) are 100% error-free."

PC Mag also reported that SpaceX's Starlink Gen2 satellites are aimed to launch as soon as next month. This leaves SpaceX hoping for the FCC to accept its proposal for deploying 30,000 satellites.