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Heaviest (and probably brightest, until Reflect Orbital's awful mirror) satellite ever is supposed to launch sometime tonight. I hate AST SpaceMobile only slightly less than I hate Reflect Orbital.
One news article suggested that there was a chance of a collision during the launch window so they had to shift it?! Need a CRASH Clock for launches now too, apparently.
Wondering how we fix a Kessler type event that is due any second.
Do you think Reflect will actually launch?
@sundogplanets if you squint it looks like an evil mechanical penguin
@sundogplanets
So, a cell tower in orbit?
Not only optical pollution, but high power transmitters too, what is that going to do for radio astronomy?
Urggh
@electric_gumball THere are already a bunch of them. This one is just hideously large. 6000 kg.
Here's a (messy, quick, not peer-reviewed) animation I threw together* using one of AST SpaceMobile's requested orbital configurations. These AST satellites are so bright that if you were standing in downtown Toronto on the summer solstice, in the night sky you'd be able to see the moon, Venus, and a handful of AST SpaceMobile satellites all night long.
*the code was part of a peer-reviewed paper: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-3881/ac341b
RE: https://mastodon.social/@sundogplanets/115748537218476769
Here's a nice, angry op-ed I got invited to write for Nature about AST SpaceMobile's first stupidly bright satellite a couple years ago: https://rdcu.be/drQOU
And just a reminder, if you're half as pissed off about stupidly bright satellites as I am, DarkSky International has an open letter to Reflect Orbital and their investors that you can sign here:
@sundogplanets should we use amateur rockets to launch old fishing nets into space to
Oh, nope. Don't need everything like that in the atmosphere all at once
@autolycos This is a cyberpunk novel I would definitely read
This is a bonfire demo instance for testing purposes
