Curtin study records 112534 emissions from 1806 Starlink satellites in 73-235 MHz over 29 days

The Curtin team processed 76 million images from a 29-day campaign on the EDA-2 prototype station. Emissions included periodic 13 kHz tones near 137 MHz recurring every 100 seconds and signals inside the ITU-protected 73-74.6 MHz and 150.05-153 MHz bands. Peak leakage exceeded target cosmic hydrogen signals by four orders of magnitude, rendering up to 30 percent of images unusable at affected frequencies.

ITU Radio Regulations protect designated bands only from intentional transmissions. Unintended electromagnetic radiation from satellite hardware falls outside current enforcement mechanisms, leaving no formal mitigation pathway despite the 6000-plus satellite constellation size. Prior SpaceX interventions addressed optical brightness via visors and higher-frequency coordination via NSF agreements, yet low-frequency hardware coupling remains unaddressed.

SKA-Low requires 10^-5 Jy sensitivity for cosmic-dawn measurements. Continued leakage at observed levels would force either exclusion of contaminated bands or computationally intensive subtraction methods whose scaling remains unproven. The published dataset provides the first quantitative baseline for regulatory and engineering responses.

SpaceX received the findings and indicated openness to hardware revisions on future satellites. ITU working groups have scheduled discussion of unintended emissions, though any rule change would require years and would not retroactively constrain the existing fleet.