[batbomb]

The shelf life isn't the problem. The problem is quantity in the sky (this will continuously be relaunched) and how bright they are. This will ruin many long exposures for many existing telescopes, but you can do some amount of image subtraction if you do many short exposures. That's might be a problem for some instruments depending on their readout electronics.

It's also a global problem.

[aeternus]

The video in the article is not representative. Solar sails were not in the final position and the satellites were not in their final (higher) orbit. It was also taken during the short time-window that the sun was still illuminating the satellites.

Regardless, we should be moving our telescopes to space. Much less interference of all kinds.

[batbomb]

The amount of light will still be appreciable and will affect many kinds of observatories around the world, even at magnitudes less brightness.

You also can't slew a telescope in space like you can on ground, it would be extremely cost prohibitive in terms of fuel.

"moving telescopes to space" is the equivalent of "let them eat cake" comment in this funding environment. It sounds like a wonderful proposition until you realize how many observatories we have on the ground and their utilization and how expensive it would be to replicate half that utilization. It's already not easy getting time on a telescope, if everybody had to be crammed on 15 space observatories costing $1B/each, there would be no observational time for grad students or post docs let alone funding for research. You also kill follow up observations on temporal events.

Of course, maybe the government could reach an agreement with SpaceX to send up the observatories for free and send some money the way of the astronomers for seriously messing up the sky, but there's no reason to expect SpaceX to be a good citizen of the night sky.

[aeternus]

>there's no reason to expect SpaceX to be a good citizen of the night sky.

Seems like they are willing to do more than most:

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1132908915144794113

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1132908689860415488

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1132902372458418176

[perilunar]

>You also can't slew a telescope in space like you can on ground, it would be extremely cost prohibitive in terms of fuel.

You can use reaction wheels instead for zero fuel use.

[batbomb]

not quickly