Dark and Quiet Skies

What it Means for Space Industry and Regulators

Dr Andrew Williams
European Southern Observatory
ESO – European Southern Observatory
Our Mission
To design, build and operate the
most advanced observatories on
the ground, 
and
to foster international collaboration
for astronomy.

Our Vision
is to advance humanity’s
understanding of the Universe by
working with and for the astronomy
community, providing it with world-
leading facilities 
 First image of
Closest exoplanet to us Planet formation
an exoplanet

First image of Black hole at the centre

a black hole of the Milky Way Accelerating Universe
ESO’s Member States and Partners

Today, ESO has

16 member states

Chile is the host state to ESO

telescopes and Australia is a
strategic partner
 UT1 UT2 UT3 UT4
VISTA

VST • V
4 Unit Telescopes
S
Each primary mirror: T
8.2-metre diameter,
17.5 cm thick,
weighing 23 tonnes

Auxiliary Telescopes

Paranal Control
Building
4 movable AT’s,
1.8-metre mirror
Observatory
ALMA
• Largest sub/mm radio
interferometer (in operations
since 2011)
• Global partnership between:
• ESO – 37.5%
• NSF (USA) – 37.5%
• NINS (Japan) – 25%
• In cooperation with the
Republic of Chile
ESO's upcoming
Extremely Large Telescope

Largest optical/infrared telescope in the

world
• 39.3-m segmented primary mirror
and adaptive optics
• Construction 2015-2028 
(~1400 MEUR)
• First science observations
in Sep 2028
ESO’s ELT
is being built on Cerro Armazones in the
Chilean Atacama Desert, at 3046 metres
altitude and just 23 kilometres from the
site of ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT)
at Paranal.
Credit: ESO / Y. Beletsky
Space Sustainability
An increasing concern in the space sector…

“The ability to maintain the conduct of space activities indefinitely

into the future in a manner that realizes the objectives of equitable
access to the benefits of the exploration and use of outer space for
peaceful purposes, in order to meet the needs of the present
generations while preserving the outer space environment for
future generations.”

Guidelines for the Long Term Sustainability of Outer Space, Committee on the Peaceful Uses of
Outer Space (COPUOS), 201
Drivers of space sustainability focus?
1. Impact on spacecraft and missions design and space operations

ESA Space Environment Report, 2022

NASA Orbital Debris Office

Maclay, T., & Mcknight, D.

(2021). Journal of Space
Safety Engineering, 8(1),
93-97.
Driver of space sustainability focus?
2. Environmental concerns
Dark and Quiet Skies as a dimension of
Space Sustainability
 planned telecom and EO constellations
Satellite constellations
• …

(not shown) as of late 2022:

Constellation
Number Number • ~58 constellations
Altitude of Sats Sats
(km) Planned Operational
Starlink (SpaceX) Gen1, Apr2020 FCC Filing 540 - 570 4408 2778 • ~426,000 satellites
Starlink (SpaceX) Gen2, Aug2021 FCC Filing 340 - 614 29988 0
• Green = actually launched / in
OneWeb, Phase 1, 2021 revision
OneWeb, Phase 2, 2021 revision
1200
1200
716
6372
370
0 construction
Amazon Kuiper 590 - 650 7774 0
Chinese Guangwang, 2021 revision  590 - 1145 12992 0 • As of today: 
Galaxy Space (Yinhe) 500 1000 0
Hanwha Systems 500 2000 0 • ~4000 satellites operational LEO
Lynk Global cellphone service constellation 500 2000 0
constellations +2800 pre-existing
Astra (2021 V-band proposal) 380 - 700 13620 0
Boeing (2021 V-band proposal) 670 - 132 0 satellites
10000
Telesat Lightspeed (Canada) (2021 V-band
proposal; reduced by 100 in 2022)
1015 -1325 1969 0
• Not all constellations have filed
Hughes Network Systems HVNET (2021 V-
band proposal) 
1150 1440 0
application
Spin Launch/SN Space Systems (UK) 830 1190 0
Globalstar (Germany) 485-700 3080 0 • Total @2030: ~ 70 000 satellites (???)
E-SPACE Cinnamon-937 (Rwanda/G. Wyler) 528-638 337323 0

Total 426004 3148

 Coming in the future…
Passive De-orbiting Drag Sails Space-based Solar Power

Surrey Satellites

ESA /DLR ADEO Test – Launched 2021

Credit: AST Mobile

Cell Phone Towers in Space

ASTMobile BlueWalker test satellite

– 64m2 phased array antenna

SpaceX is partnering with T-mobile

Impact on Astronomy
Ground-based observatories
● Narrow field (ESO’s VLT, ELT etc.):
~% - ~10% frames affected at
twilight
● Wide-field (VST): 50% of frames -
several satellites per frame at
twilight
● Super-Wide-field on large
telescope: Vera Rubin Observatory
► all frames affected at twilight (tens of
trails), 
► many frames affected during whole
summer night by high-altitude
satellites.
► many frames ruined at twilight.
Impact on Astronomy
Space-based astronomy
Hubble Space Telescope:
~20% of images affected in
future

CSST: Every single

image likely to have
multiple satellite
trails

Credit: NASA/ESA
 Impact on Astronomy
Radio Astronomy
1. High power transmissions beamed directly
into radio observatories (unlikely, but bad)
2. Radio interference in the frequency bands
protected for astronomy by ITU
3. Space-based radio transmissions in radio
quiet zones
4. Unintentional electromagnetic radiation
del Portillo, Inigo, Bruce G. Cameron, and Edward F. Crawley. "A
from satellites technical comparison of three low earth orbit satellite
constellation systems to provide global broadband." Acta

5. Reflection of strong terrestrial Astronautica 159 (2019): 123-135.

transmissions
Astronomy Community Mitigations

• Simulations
• Satellite density maps
• Rescheduling observations
• Post processing of data
Increasing scientific and labour
‘overheads’
What can industry do?

What can industry do?

Satellite / Mission mitigations
• Space X recently published “best practices” on
brightness mitigation
• New approach is a directionally reflective mirror
coating and black materials + operational attitude
adjustments to minimise reflection angles
• Sharing of TLE data
• Kuiper, OneWeb, ASTMobile are considering
mitigations
• Kuiper test-sat launch in Q4 2023
• OneWeb collaborating with astronoemrs to build
reflectance model
• Productive voluntary bi-lateral collaborations
established – often under NDAs

Aim = below naked eye visibility

→ Still visible by majority of astronomical
telescopes
Get involved with the astronomy community
• IAU Centre for the Protection of the Dark and Quiet Skies from
Satellite Constellation Interference (CPS)
• Industry and Technology Hub
• Outreach
• Enlist satellite operators, manufacturers and other stakeholders to
participate and collaboration
• Resources
• Develop references to inform and to educate about astronomy’s concerns
and share recommendations and best practices
• Exchange
• Foster sharing of mitigation techniques and their efficacy and encourage
innovation in new approaches and tools (materials, test labs, simulation
software etc).
Policy considarations
 Policy
• International action
• Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS)
• Established that astronomy is a “space activity”, that COPUOS has a mandate, and that the
Outer Space Treaty provisions should be applied
• Push to establish an “expert group” at Science and Technical Subcommittee of COPUOS
• Emerging national regulatory practices
• US FCC requests operators to conduct coordination agreement with National Science
Foundation
• European Union regulation establishing IRIS2 constellation sustainability criteria
• UK gov sponsored kitemark
• National policy and regulation must be well-informed by analysis and operator practice – we
have a body of knowledge!
 Final thoughts
• Aggregate effects?
• Space as part of the
human environment?

• Design with
sustainability in mind!