Question 26982 — research and innovation

Summary

Mr. Cédric Villani alerts the Minister of Higher Education, Research and Innovation about two recent events: the launch of the Starlink communications satellite constellation by SpaceX and the allocation of 5G frequencies. These two events, a priori distinct, will quickly disrupt the work of scientists around the world. On the one hand, the Starlink project, which consists of saturating space at low orbit of satellites to deliver high-speed internet everywhere on the planet, degrades the quality of the night sky due to the brightness of the satellites (equal to that of the Polar Star) and their omnipresence in the sky (1,600 satellites put into orbit by 2021 for SpaceX, not counting competing projects). This constellation, similar to networks of artificial lights in orbit, will prevent the observation of many astrophysical phenomena of interest, a field which has made significant scientific and technological progress in recent years thanks to ambitious means and international collaborations. For the record, France invested, between 2012 and 2017, more than 70 million euros in Very Large Research Infrastructures (TGIR) for astrophysics and astronomy, which would be lost if the observatories become unusable. In At the same time, in November 2019, during the World Radiocommunications Conference, the associations of mobile telephone operators attributed to the future 5G a frequency and a noise level almost similar to the conditions of observation of water in the atmosphere. This choice, made with full knowledge of the facts, will reduce the quality of short-term weather forecasts but also of long-term research, particularly those linked to change. climatic. This situation could lead to serious consequences, such as the impossibility of predicting the trajectory of a cyclone or the occurrence of a flood. In both cases, he questions him about the measures taken to safeguard the quality of scientific work, for which France has invested and positions itself in global pole position, and which risks being sacrificed for the benefit of commercial and economic interests.

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