This archive report was first published on 22 June 2020.
On June 23, 2020, SpaceX launched 60 satellites into orbit as part of its Starlink mission, marking the tenth batch of satellites in the constellation.
The Falcon 9 rocket, which launched from Cape Canaveral at 22:58 BST (17:58 EDT), carried the 60 Starlink satellites into orbit, bringing the total number in orbit to over 500.
According to NASA's Kennedy Space Centre, the goal of Starlink is to create a network that will provide internet services to those who are not yet connected, and to offer reliable and affordable internet across the globe.
Elon Musk hopes the satellites will bring low-cost internet to remote areas on Earth, with Starlink explaining that the satellites will deliver high-speed broadband internet to locations where access has been unreliable, expensive, or completely unavailable.
However, several astronomers have raised concerns that one of the satellites could pass in front of a telescope and obscure an image, citing a recent study published in arXiv.
Researchers led by Stefano Gallozzi wrote: "Depending on their altitude and surface reflectivity, their contribution to the sky brightness is not negligible for professional ground-based observations. With the huge amount of about 50,000 new artificial satellites for telecommunications planned to be launched in Medium and Low Earth Orbit, the mean density of artificial objects will be of >1 satellite for square sky degree; this will inevitably harm professional astronomical images."
