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Starlink’s Unintended Emissions Overwhelm SKA-Low, Drive Mitigation and Policy Action

Comprehensive SKA-Low surveys have recorded more than 112,000 unintended Starlink emissions in protected bands, prompting new industry mitigation efforts alongside emerging regulatory proposals.

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Overview

  • Recent SKA-Low prototype tests in Western Australia cataloged over 112,000 unintended low-frequency emissions from more than 1,800 Starlink satellites, including signals within protected radio-astronomy bands.
  • Emissions were found up to 100,000 times stronger than the faint cosmic signals targeted by SKA-Low, contaminating as much as 30 percent of observation images.
  • Current International Telecommunication Union regulations cover only intentional satellite transmissions and do not address unintended electronic leakage from on-board systems.
  • SpaceX and the SETI Institute have formed a dedicated mitigation working group to engineer hardware and software solutions for reducing satellite interference.
  • International regulators are now considering updates to spectrum management frameworks to safeguard radio-quiet zones against mega-constellation emissions.