The new satellites are a precursor to the Starlink V2 satellites that will eventually be lifted aboard SpaceX's Starship launch system.
Welcome news for the astronomical community
One benefit of the V2 Minis is that they appear to be less bright than the standard Starlink satellites. Auploaded to the preprint server arXiv suggests that they are roughly ten times fainter than the standard versions. This will be welcome news for the astronomical community, some of which has organized against the relatively unregulated launches of Starlink. Recently, SpaceX has been working with the Federation of Astronomical Societies on methods for dimming its satellites and preventing them from appearing as bright streaks in astronomical observations.
SpaceX now has more than 4,250 satellites in orbit and it's waiting on FCC approval to send tens of thousands more. It will have to continue to work with the astronomical community on solutions if it hopes to avoid backlash against its service — even NASA has warned that it could impede its capacity for detecting potentially harmful asteroids headed toward Earth.
The standard V2 satellites will be larger, though, so it remains to be seen whether they will be as dim as the Minis that have just started communicating with ground stations.
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