Internet from satellite: things are getting tight in Earth orbit!

China also wants to gradually expand its network: the plan is to have approximately 15,000 satellites in orbit by 2030. However, “Qianfan” is not China’s only satellite project in space. The “GW” constellation is planned with approximately 13,000 satellites. Another project, Honghu-3, is expected to include about 10,000 satellites. Also in other countries, such as Amazon’s Kuiper, large internet projects involving thousands of satellites are about to start.

Different standards apply in space
Naturally, the dimensions in space are enormous. But given the many plans for satellite networks, the question is: how much space is there in low orbit – that is, at an altitude of about 200 to 2000 kilometers – and will the satellites not get in each other’s way? At the end of 2021, Musk calculated in an interview with the ‘Financial Times’ that there would be room for ‘billions of satellites’. Each layer, that is, the height, has a larger surface area than the Earth itself. “A few thousand satellites are nothing,” he said.

The European Space Agency ESA is taking a more critical look at the issue. According to her, there are about 13,230 satellites in orbit and about 10,200 are still in use. With the increasing number of satellite constellations in space, the risk of collisions that could cause enormous damage in the event of chain reactions increases, says ESA boss Josef Aschbacher. He is in favor of a globally applicable space traffic law to make it clear who must take evasive measures in dangerous situations.

The ESA itself wants to drastically limit the creation of space debris by 2030, also in view of the increasing number of satellites. Any satellite subsequently sent into space must be deorbited at the end of its lifespan, Aschbacher says. In September, ESA deliberately burned up one of its satellites in the atmosphere.

Satellite launch creates a cloud of debris
China’s downing of a disused weather satellite in 2007 showed how devastating debris can be. It is estimated that more than 40,000 pieces of debris with a diameter of more than a centimeter were created – every second collision avoidance maneuver of the ESA satellites since then. is based on such pieces.

The American space agency NASA, which itself has almost 2,000 satellites in space, is also concerned about the increasing number of satellites and debris in space and says it is working on ‘clean-up plans’.

Lambert Liu, an industry expert and space expert from China, believes the risk of a satellite collision is low. The Chinese refer to the UN Office for Space Affairs. Every country must report data on satellite launches there, also to prevent collisions.

“Nobody wants something like that to happen, so we check in the United Nations system which satellites are in the sky before they are launched,” he says. In addition, the missiles would make contact with the ground. If a satellite flies too high or too low, you need to readjust it to avoid a crash.

Some experts look more critically at the space issue. There is not enough space in low Earth orbit to safely place that many satellites there – unless precise rules are agreed upon, Miles Lifson and Richard Linares argued in an op-ed on the online portal “Spacenews” in 2022.

There are no fixed routes in orbit
There are no fixed routes on which satellites must fly. For this reason, the space race is a priority for China. The Communist Party-ruled country’s current five-year plan includes the development of several satellites as a goal. This is also due to “the scarcity of satellite frequencies and orbital resources,” which, according to official information, are allocated “on a first-come, first-served basis.”

But why bother at all if access to the Internet is also possible on Earth? Liu cites China’s national security as the reason. Anyone who sets up their own communications in space can prevent internet access from becoming dependent on political decisions in other countries, such as the rival US.

Moreover, about 40 percent of people on earth do not yet have internet access, so now is a good time to build a technical infrastructure for this, says Liu. But some are critical that China could soon offer internet via its satellites in other parts of the world, such as Africa. The People’s Republic blocks critical websites such as those of foreign media or organizations for its approximately 1.4 billion inhabitants.

Astronomers condemn light pollution
A completely different group is critical of all satellites: astronomers. When the satellites are illuminated by the sun, they appear as interference fringes on astronomical images. For two years now, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) has had its own satellite monitoring system, which allows astronomers to plan their observations with telescopes.

The IAU has just calculated that a new expansion phase of the Starlink satellites could shine up to five times brighter in the sky than the previous Starlink satellites. But the brightness can be reduced: for example, by making the outer paint of the satellites less reflective or by certain flight maneuvers.

Some astronomers are now hoping for support from artificial intelligence. As the magazine ‘Science’ just reported, AI is able to detect and eliminate the long interference fringes in photos with a high degree of certainty. But satellite launches and developments are advancing at a breakneck pace, Siegfried Eggl, an astrophysicist at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, told the magazine. The researchers are “doing their best to catch up.”