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DannyB [soylentnews.org] writes:

Texas Startup Keeps Launching These Obnoxiously Large Satellites—and the Worst Is Yet to Come [gizmodo.com]

Five BlueBird satellites have launched as part of AST SpaceMobile's growing constellation, with even larger ones ahead that may pose a threat to clear night skies.

Bad news for sky watchers: Earth’s orbit has been littered by five more gigantic satellites which are poised to become the brightest objects in the night sky.

The five communication satellites, called BlueBirds, launched [x.com] on board a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on Thursday at 4:52 a.m. ET. Each satellite is equipped with the largest ever commercial communications array to be deployed in low Earth orbit, according to AST SpaceMobile. The company’s prototype satellite unfurled its giant array in late 2022, outshining most objects in the skies [gizmodo.com] except for the Moon, Venus, Jupiter, and seven of the brightest stars. Now, there’s five more of them, as the company builds out its satellite constellation.

AST SpaceMobile is seeking to create the first space-based cellular broadband network directly accessible by cell phones. [...]

[....] AST SpaceMobile wants to build a constellation of more than 100 satellites. On its own, one satellite is bright enough to mess with observations of the cosmos.

[....] The newly launched satellites are just as large as the prototype, but future models could be even larger. “We’re just getting started,” Avellan said during a livestream, Space.com reported. [space.com]

[....] ST SpaceMobile isn’t the only company trying to build cellular towers in space. SpaceX has launched more than 7,000 satellites to date, and new batches of its Starlink satellites keep making their way to low Earth orbit. Amazon, OneWeb, and Lynk Global are other companies trying to get in on the action.

At least we could access social media or control our IoT devices from the oceans to the remotest desert or mountain.

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