We are in the initial years of a watershed moment, this time not on the ground (with LEDs) but in space. The rapid development of efficient and reusable rockets by private-sector companies has made Earth orbit no longer the exclusive realm of national space agencies, and steadily increasing numbers of entities now are launching both people and hardware into space. The result is an exponential growth in the density and variety of satellites at a wide range of altitudes.
Two workshops in 2020, SATCON1 and Dark and Quiet Skies, proposed a number of recommendations aimed at mitigating the impact of the various causes of interference on astronomy and our society. The SATCON2 workshop and Dark and Quiet Skies conference in 2021 focused on the implementation of the recommendations, in particular identifying both the technical and political actions needed for their effective realization, as well as which stakeholders and partners would need to collaborate to implement a satisfactory solution for the preservation of dark and quiet skies.
In the briefing we will comment on:
- the national/international policies and laws being considered
- a "one-stop shop" for observers worldwide to coordinate the observation and measurement of interference caused by satellite constellations (both optical and radio)
- the algorithms being considered for avoidance and streak remediation
- the thoughts of the extended community and their priorities related to this topic
- the connection with the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space and the Science and Technology Subcommittee
- the possibility of hosting an International Astronomical Union Centre on dark and quiet skies protection from satellite constellation interference.
We hope you will join us.
Presenters
(in order of appearance)
Richard Green
University of Arizona/Steward Observatory
Richard Greenis a Research Professor and Assistant Director for Government Relations for Steward Observatory at the University of Arizona. He has served as director of Kitt Peak National Observatory, the Large Binocular Telescope Observatory and the UKIRT Observatory. He recently completed a term as Division Director for the Division of Astronomical Sciences at the National Science Foundation. He has served on the Scientific Organizing Committees as a working group chair for the SATCON Workshops and Dark & Quiet Skies Workshops.
Joel Parriott
American Astronomical Society
Joel Parriotthas been Director of Public Policy for the American Astronomical Society since 2012. He has a decade of experience at the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB), where he was responsible for both the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science. Prior to his service at OMB, Dr. Parriott spent four years at the National Research Council (NRC) on the staff of the Board on Physics and Astronomy, where he supported numerous high-level studies, including the Decadal Survey of Astronomy and Astrophysics.
James Lowenthal
Smith College
James Lowenthalis Mary Elizabeth Moses Professor and Chair of the Astronomy Dept. at Smith College. His research focuses on galaxy formation and evolution using some of the world's largest telescopes on the ground as well as in space, and he also uses a small roof-top telescope with undergraduate students to study exoplanets. He is Vice President of IAU Commission C.B7 on Site Protection, he serves on the AAS Committee on Light Pollution, Radio Interference, and Space Debris, and he served on the SOC and as working group chair on both SATCON1 and 2 and both Dark & Quiet Skies 1 and 2.
Aparna Venkatesan
University of San Francisco
Aparna Venkatesan is a cosmologist and Professor of Physics and Astronomy at the University of San Francisco. She works actively on developing inclusive space policy, scientific partnerships with Indigenous communities, and preserving space as a scientific, environmental and cultural resource for humanity.
Chris Hofer
Amazon
Chris Hofer is an engineer and joined Amazon Project Kuiper in February 2020 as the International Team Lead with responsibility for all WRC activities and satellite coordination. He was the Chair of the Industry Subgroup for SATCON2 and is the Chair for the Industry Subgroup for the Dark and Quiet Skies conference.
Therese Jones
Satellite Industry Association
Therese Jones serves as the Senior Director of Policy at the Satellite Industry Association, where she supports work on regulatory, legislative, defense, space sustainability, cybersecurity, export-control and trade issues of critical importance to the Association’s 50+ member companies. Previously, Therese was an assistant policy researcher at the RAND Corporation, where she focused on space policy, and prior to that worked as an astrophysics researcher focusing on galaxy formation and evolution. Therese is currently a Ph.D. candidate in Policy Analysis at the Pardee RAND Graduate School. She holds a master’s in astrophysics from the University of California, Berkeley, and bachelor’s degrees in astronomy and astrophysics, physics, German, and international studies from The Pennsylvania State University.
Ashley Vanderley
National Science Foundation
Ashley Vanderleyis the Senior Advisor for Facilities in the Division of Astronomical Sciences at the National Science Foundation (NSF) and has worked in the Electromagnetic Spectrum Management unit since 2017. She has had program responsibilities in the Spectrum and Wireless Innovation enabled by Future Technologies (SWIFT) program as well as in the Spectrum Innovation Initiative: National Center for Wireless Spectrum Research (SII-Center). She serves as the U.S. Head of Delegation for ITU-R Working Party 7D, served as a US Delegate to WRC-19, and participated in COPUOS in 2021.
Piero Benvenuti
Past Advisor and General Secretary, International Astronomical Union
Piero Benvenuti?is an Italian astrophysicist and professor emeritus at the University of Padua. He was Secretary General of the International Astronomical Union for the 2015-2018 triennium, before becoming President of its Editorial Board and advisor to the organization's Executive Committee. He has also been Commissioner of the Italian Space Agency since November 2018.? ?He has been on the Steering Committee for the Dark and Quiet Skies for Science and Society workshop in 2020 and the conference in 2021.
Connie Walker
National Science Foundation's NOIRLab
Connie Walker is a scientist at NSF’s NOIRLab, president of the IAU’s Commission on the Protection of Existing and Potential Observatory Sites, and chair of the IAU Executive Committee’s Working Group on Dark & Quiet Sky Protection. In 2020 and 2021, she was co-chair of the two SATCON workshops and of the Dark & Quiet Skies workshop and conference. She is on the board of directors of the International Dark-Sky Association, as well as a member of the AAS’s Light Pollution, Radio Interference and Space Debris Committee.
Meredith Rawls
University of Washington
Meredith Rawls is a research scientist in the Department of Astronomy at the University of Washington. She writes software to handle terabytes of nightly data from Vera C. Rubin Observatory's Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST), which will ultimately become the highest resolution movie of the night sky ever made. Her background is in stellar astrophysics, and lately she studies the plethora of newly-launched low-Earth-orbit satellites in the hopes observers worldwide don't lose the night sky. She was a working group member for SATCON1 as well as Dark & Quiet Skies 1 and 2, and chaired the SATCON2 Observations working group.
Jonathan McDowell
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
Jonathan McDowell is an astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, MA. A staff member of the Chandra X-ray Center, he studies black holes, quasars and X-ray sources in galaxies, as well as developing data analysis software for the X-ray astronomy community. Dr. McDowell has a B.A in Mathematics (1981) and a Ph.D in Astrophysics (1986) from the University of Cambridge, England, and has previously worked at the Royal Greenwich Observatory, the Jodrell Bank radio observatory and NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center.
