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South Africa's SKA telescope is among world's most

powerful

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Scientists want astronomy-linked conditions on license

agreement

with Starlink

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Musk has already criticised local shareholding laws

By Wendell Roelf

CAPE TOWN, June 2 (Reuters) - Astronomers working with

South Africa's SKA telescope are pushing authorities to ensure

that any licensing agreement with Elon Musk's Starlink will

protect their groundbreaking observations, a senior scientist

said.

Discussions to bring Musk's internet service Starlink in

South Africa have already been contentious, with parent company

SpaceX criticising local shareholding laws while backing equity

equivalent programmes.

Attaching astronomy-linked licensing conditions may further

complicate attempts to introduce Starlink to the country of

Musk's birth, where he has already said he is deterred by

government Black empowerment policies.

South Africa said it will review its Information and

Communication Technology sector rules but will not back down on

government policies to transform the economy three decades after

white-minority rule ended.

Scientists fear South Africa's Square Kilometre Array

(SKA-Mid), the world's most powerful radio telescope together

with another array co-hosted in Australia, will have their

sensitive space observations distorted by Starlink's

low-orbiting satellites.

"It will be like shining a spotlight into someone's

eyes, blinding us to the faint radio signals from celestial

bodies," Federico Di Vruno, co-chair of International

Astronomical Union Centre for the Protection of the Dark and

Quiet Sky, told Reuters in a telephone interview.

Di Vruno said the SKA Observatory, where he is spectrum

manager, and the South African Radio Astronomy Observatory

(SARAO) were lobbying for license requirements to reduce the

impact on observations in certain frequency ranges, including

some that SKA-Mid uses.

That could direct Starlink to steer satellite beams away

from SKA receivers or stop transmission for a few seconds to

minimise interference, he said.

South Africa's current SKA antennae, in the remote Northern

Cape town of Carnarvon, use the 350 megahertz to 15.4 gigahertz

bandwidth, a range also used by most satellite operators for

downlinks.

The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa

regulator and Starlink did not immediately respond to questions

from Reuters about the scientists' concerns.

MAJOR OBSERVATIONS

South Africa's MeerKAT radio telescope, a precursor to

SKA-Mid which will be incorporated into the larger instrument,

has already discovered a rare giant radio galaxy that is 32

times the size of the Milky Way.

Last year, it found 49 new galaxies in under three hours,

according to SARAO.

SKA Observatory, an international body, also campaigns for

conditions on licensing agreements with other major satellite

operators such as Amazon ( AMZN ) and Eutelsat's OneWeb

to ensure quiet skies amid a boom in new satellite launches.

"We are trying to follow different technical and regulatory

avenues to mitigate this issue on the global stage," Di Vruno

said.