'Satellite constellations' are filling the Arizona night sky - Houston Chronicle

This technology can provide much-needed internet access in rural areas.

“We were all looking up at the sky of course because it was outside, and that’s what you do an observatory, you admire the night sky,” Girgis said.

“You couldn’t see any of the galaxies anymore, you could just see these bright diagonal lines going across the screen,” Girgis said.

Jeff Hall, director of Lowell Observatory, said “everyone was caught off guard at how bright the satellites were.

Once the satellites reach their final orbit, they’re just at the edge of human vision, “but for a major research telescope that is blindingly bright, even a smallish research telescope,” Hall said.

Their intent is to bring Internet to underserved rural areas like the Navajo Nation; a goal that’s taken on new urgency since the pandemic.

“The core of this policy is from a time when the concern was who was going to get to the moon first, was it going to be the US or the Soviets?,” said Barentine, referring to the Outer Space Treaty signed in 1967 when only a few dozen satellites had been successfully launched into orbit.

The growing numbers of satellites, Barentine said, is “putting pressure on this need to more clearly define the roles and responsibilities with respect to managing that sense of orbital space as this commons that belongs to all of us.”.