New artificial stars: Five more satellites have deployed giant antennas
When BlueWalker 3 began its work, it was one of the brightest objects in the night sky. Now a total of five successors are set to launch commercial operations.
(Image: AST SpaceMobile)
AST SpaceMobile has put five more giant satellites into operation and deployed their 64 m² antennas. Company founder Abel Avellan speaks of a "significant milestone" and proudly points out that the BlueBird 1 to 5 satellites have "the largest commercial antenna surfaces" that have ever been sent into low earth orbit (LEO). They are already working at full speed on the next generation of commercial satellites, which will have significantly more capacity for direct communication with smartphones. However, the launch of the giant satellites and the announcement by the US space company are likely to provoke completely different reactions, and not just in astronomy.
Mobile phone reception everywhere
The new giant satellites were launched on September 12th on a SpaceX rocket. They will soon ensure that smartphones can connect directly to a satellite anywhere in the USA and therefore never suffer from a lack of network coverage. The cell phones do not require any special technology and should be able to go online at broadband speed. AST SpaceMobile is cooperating with established providers and promises to be able to complement existing mobile networks. However, the company does not say exactly when the BlueBird satellites with the unfolded giant antennas will be able to start work.
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The launch of the five satellites was preceded by years of testing with the predecessor BlueWalker 3. It was launched into space in the fall of 2022 and became one of the brightest objects in the night sky after deploying its giant antenna. However, subsequent fluctuations in brightness have indicated that the exact orientation has a significant influence on how bright the satellite appears. With the launch of five more such giant satellites, AST SpaceMobile could now attract more criticism, not least because the company is making it clear that it is sticking to its goal of launching dozens of such satellites into space.
The fact that astronomical observations could be made more difficult by the new space race has been pointed out time and again, especially since the development of SpaceX's Starlink satellite internet. There are also plans for further mega-constellations of hundreds or even thousands of satellites, for example from Amazon. However, while it is not so much their brightness as their immense numbers that are making more and more astronomical images unusable, the problem with AST SpaceMobile's satellites is a different one. Although there are significantly fewer of them, they can appear orders of magnitude brighter in the night sky. To reduce the problems, the companies are working with researchers on countermeasures.
(mho)
