20200320 Geldnot bei OneWeb

Threatening bankruptcy already with 100 satellites?

3 months ago we reported, that Elon Musk, in addition to its Tesla car factory near Berlin, also intends to launch 30,000 Starlink satellites into orbit for worldwide broadband Internet access. He applied for this at the US Federal Communications Commission.

His competition from OneWeb wanted to tackle the same (megalomaniacal) idea with 900 satellites and has now become somewhat more modest with 650. Tomorrow, 34 more will be added to the 40 already in orbit. The launch is currently being prepared at the Baikonur spaceport in Kazakhstan. However, Bloomberg reports, that there is a shortage of money in the company and that further financing is being sought.

But even after a possible quick end to the project, the question remains as to who will clean up up up there and let the satellites burn down in a controlled manner. Let's also hope that Elon Musk will give us some food for thought, because as already said in December, there are "only" 23,000 satellites up there at the moment ...

The International Astronomical Union (IAU) has been warning for years that images taken by satellite tracks are rendered useless. At certain times of day, half of all images could be "severely compromised". Even the extraction of satellite tracks, when they are finally fixed after their positioning, is only a small help, because the real background behind the extracted spots is simply missing. So far the orbits of 26,000 "positions" are known and "can be taken into account".

It will probably become really unpleasant when a diffuse pile of scrap is created by collision or meteorite impact ...

Why can such a worldwide project not be discussed and decided in the UNO? Private investors may be allowed to participate, but they must never be in control. Moreover, an up- and donwlink in the USA would certainly encourage the NSA to intercept. We would also see the possible military (co-)use as a great danger.

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