SpaceX tests black satellite to reduce ‘megaconstellation’ threat to astronomy

Re:SpaceX tests black satellite to reduce ‘megaconstellation... by deegles on Thursday January 16, 2020 @01:40PM (#22067478)

SpaceX could provide a handful of at-cost launches for astronomy projects per year. It wouldn't fix anything for the ground telescopes but could be a bit of an olive branch for the community.

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Re:SpaceX tests black satellite to reduce ‘megaconstellation... by SiempreViernes on Thursday January 16, 2020 @03:38PM (#22068637)

Even if they were free launches that wouldn't rank above a taunt: most of the satellite cost is in the development and construction anyway.

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Re:SpaceX tests black satellite to reduce ‘megaconstellation... by grey-area on Friday January 17, 2020 @02:35AM (#22072658)

Starlink satellites cost < 500k each, compared to hundreds of millions for traditional sats.

If you mass produced space telescopes they wouldn't cost the ridiculous sums spent on JWST, which is a terrible example of the wasteful cost plus contracts of nasa. They've been planning it since 1996, and costs have risen from 1 billion to 10 billion.

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Re:SpaceX tests black satellite to reduce ‘megaconstellation... by saterHater on Thursday January 16, 2020 @05:27PM (#22069702)

I wonder how much it would cost to get a decent camera on one of those Starlink launch missions just so it would beam down some distortion free, high-resolution pictures to the masses.

Although I doubt that would provide meaningful data to professional astronomer.

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