The largest satellite of its kind ever raised its wings in low Earth orbit recently
Bluebird 6 has the largest commercial communications array antenna ever deployed in orbit around Earth, covering approximately 2,400 square feet.
Courtesy of AST Spacemobile
The largest communications satellite of its kind ever built took a major step toward operation on Tuesday: Operator AST Spacemobile announced the launch of the arbitrarily record-breaking spacecraft. called bluebird 6Has successfully opened its huge antenna.
Spanning approximately 2,400 square feet (223 square metres), it is the largest commercial communications array antenna ever deployed in low-Earth orbit. AST Spacemobile hopes this will be the first of many satellites: The Texas-based public company already has six small satellites operating in low-Earth orbit, with plans for several more giants like Bluebird 6. These will eventually create a cellular broadband network aimed specifically at smartphones.
The Bluebird 6 is huge. While the Starlink satellites are the size of a large table and have an array that stretches about 100 feet, Bluebird 6’s array spans an area just shy of a double tennis court. It’s also very bright, says Peter Plavchan, an associate professor of physics and astronomy at George Mason University who is not associated with the satellite company.
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“These satellites will be so bright that they will be easily visible to the naked eye,” he says, “even brighter than Saturn.” He says that having so many bright, numerous man-made objects in the sky means that ground-based astronomy – whether professional or amateur – will eventually be affected.
“The landscape of our sky is changing,” says Plavchan. “Even in places with dark skies now, things are going to look different.”
Samantha Lawler, associate professor of astronomy at the University of Regina, agrees that such bright objects will make astronomy dirty – and a lot more.
“Having too many of these satellites in the sky would be detrimental to astronomy research, devastating to naked-eye observers and could even cause serious problems for migratory birds and other animals that navigate by the stars,” says Lawler.
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