When Elon Musk’s SpaceX launched its first 60 StarLink satellites from Cape Canaveral in Florida last month, it triggered dozens of sightings of unidentified flying objects. Mr Musk took to Twitter to defend the project from accusations that SpaceX was creating “space debris” that could hamper astronomy.
“There are already 4,900 satellites in orbit, which people notice about 0 per cent of the time,” the Tesla billionaire complained. “Starlink won’t be seen by anyone unless looking very carefully & will have about 0 per cent impact on advancements in astronomy.”
The launch was the first stage in an effort to build a mega-constellation of potentially 12,000 satellites.