Nearly 1 in 3 Starlink satellites detected within the SKA-Low frequency band

Inevitability of LEO Constellations and Military Drivers

• Many see large LEO constellations as inevitable: multiple countries and companies (not just SpaceX) view them as key military and communications infrastructure.
• Commenters stress Starlink’s demonstrated military value (e.g. in modern drone/remote warfare) and argue major powers “cannot afford” not to build similar systems.
• Others push back on this “it’s happening whether you like it or not” framing, calling it a tech-industry excuse to avoid hard regulation and international coordination.

Connectivity vs Astronomy: Whose Value Counts?

• One camp argues satellite internet is vastly more valuable than preserving extremely sensitive radio astronomy, especially for rural connectivity and emergency access.
• Opponents counter that:
  • basic science (including radio astronomy) underpins the physics, engineering, and space tech enabling those constellations;
  • astronomy has broader public value (fundamental physics, space/terrestrial weather, long-term knowledge) that is hard to monetize.
• A very utilitarian view (“a few astronomers vs billions of users”) is sharply criticized as small‑minded and short-termist.

Interference Details and Regulatory Gap

• The noted problem is mainly unintentional electromagnetic radiation (UEMR) from Starlink electronics/propulsion in SKA-Low bands, not licensed downlink.
• This UEMR is currently unregulated by ITU and outside the strictly protected radio astronomy bands, so there is no clear rule violation—only severe scientific impact (orders of magnitude above needed sensitivity).
• Some call it “regulatory UB / allowed”; others argue that using an unregulated gap to degrade a global scientific facility is still a harmful “taking” of a shared resource.

Mitigation and Technical Options

• Known mitigations: geofencing / blackout zones over observatories, not transmitting in boresight, scheduling thruster burns away from telescope fields. Starlink reportedly does some of this elsewhere.
• A key complication: if ion thrusters and onboard power electronics are major UEMR sources, mitigation may require redesign, added shielding/filters, and operational constraints.
• There’s debate whether regulation should force such redesign vs expecting astronomers to adapt (e.g. move more work to space).

Space-Based Radio Astronomy Feasibility

• Some suggest “just launch SKA to space” or fly radio-astronomy payloads on commercial constellations.
• Others detail why a SKA-scale space array is currently infeasible: petabit/s raw data rates, petaflop-scale custom correlators, huge power and storage, radiation‑hardened electronics lagging Earth tech, and extreme cost.
• Consensus in the thread leans toward: ambitious low-frequency arrays like SKA-Low are vastly easier and cheaper on the ground for now.

Regulation, Spectrum, and Public-Good Framing

• Debate over whether RF spectrum and LEO should be treated as:
  • a “public/common good” to be carefully allocated; or
  • a rivalrous resource to be auctioned/commoditized as long as rules are followed.
• Some see a pattern: individuals get fined for interference, corporations get bands reallocated or rules updated around them.
• There’s concern that once a company scales fast enough, it can argue it’s “too big to regulate” or “too expensive to fix,” shifting costs onto science and the public.

Corporate Power, Geopolitics, and Debris

• Several comments worry that:
  • megaconstellations accelerate an arms race in anti-satellite weapons and orbital militarization;
  • higher-altitude constellations (500–1,100+ km) by other actors will create longer-lived debris.
• Others reply that many Starlink shells are low enough to naturally deorbit in a few years and that a hot war among launch-capable states would make satellite issues secondary to nuclear risk.

Normative Proposals

• Suggested remedies include:
  • stricter international EMI limits, including UEMR;
  • mandatory geofencing for observatories;
  • requiring interfering operators to fund or launch compensating space observatories;
  • or, more ambitiously, building stronger global governance for orbital and spectrum commons instead of defaulting to corporate and national self-interest.