CALIFORNIANS WIN, ASTRONOMERS LOSE
Posted: 18th July 2024
Astronomers Lose in Court
Last Friday, July 12, 2024, a 3-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit gave the green light to SpaceX to keep on destroying our night sky and filling our atmosphere with metallic dust and toxic chemicals.
On December 29, 2022, the International Dark-Sky Association, representing astronomers all over the world, had appealed the decision of the Federal Communications Commission to grant SpaceX a license to launch up to 30,000 more satellites without performing an environmental review. See my newsletter of April 30, 2024 for details.
In Friday’s decision, the court ruled that satellite launches and deployment, no matter how many, “are deemed individually and cumulatively to have no significant effect on the quality of the human environment and are categorically excluded from environmental processing.”
The astronomers have 45 days to decide whether to appeal the 3-judge panel’s decision to the full 15-member Court of Appeals. Even if they do not do so, they can still appeal the panel’s decision to the U.S. Supreme Court within 90 days.