The Royal Astronomical Society in London has expressed similar concern, saying in a statement last week that "initial images of the constellation suggest that they will exhibit frequent reflective flaring, where transient alignment with sunlight leads to temporary surges in brightness."

Cees Bassa, an astronomer of the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy, made his own calculations. The impact of about 1,600 Starlink satellites to be deployed in the first stage of Starlink project is that about 84 satellites would be above the horizon at any time at latitude 52 degrees and up to 15 of those visible during twilight and the entire summer.

Musk wrote in a tweet at the end of May that "potentially helping billions of economically disadvantaged people is the greater good," highlighting Starlink project's goal in providing internet services to remote areas on Earth.

But "if we need to tweak sat orientation to minimize solar reflection during critical astronomical experiments, that's easily done," Musk wrote.