Astronomers working on South Africa’s Square Kilometre Array (SKA) telescope are urging the government to include strict protections for radio astronomy in any potential licensing agreement with Elon Musk’s Starlink.

Their concern is that the company’s satellite internet service could interfere with critical scientific research conducted at one of the world’s most advanced radio telescope sites.

As talks progress around Starlink’s entry into the South African market, scientists want licensing conditions that would shield the SKA-Mid telescope from signal interference.

“We are proposing conditions that could, for example, require Starlink to steer beams away from our antennas or temporarily pause transmissions in critical zones,” said Di Vruno, spectrum manager at the SKA Observatory.

The South African Radio Astronomy Observatory (SARAO) is also involved in pushing for similar terms.

The SKA-Mid array, located in the remote town of Carnarvon in the Northern Cape, operates across a frequency band of 350 megahertz to 15.4 gigahertz—spectrum that overlaps with bands often used by satellite operators for downlinks.

Without safeguards, researchers fear that Starlink’s thousands of low-orbit satellites could swamp the telescope’s sensitive receivers, undermining years of work and billions in global investment.

Discussions around Starlink’s rollout have already stirred controversy.

SpaceX, Starlink’s parent company, has pushed back against South Africa’s local ownership laws and proposed alternative equity-equivalent arrangements.

Elon Musk himself has previously voiced concerns about Black empowerment policies in South Africa.

According to Reuters, adding radio astronomy protections to the licensing mix could further complicate regulatory negotiations.

Despite SpaceX’s resistance, South African officials have signaled that while they are open to revisiting rules in the Information and Communication Technology sector, their core policies aimed at economic transformation remain non-negotiable.

The stakes are high. The SKA telescope, co-hosted by South Africa and Australia, is designed to be the world’s largest and most powerful radio observatory.

Its precursor, the MeerKAT radio telescope, soon to be fully integrated into SKA, has already made historic discoveries.

Among them is a giant radio galaxy that stretches 32 times the size of the Milky Way and a separate breakthrough that identified 49 previously unknown galaxies in less than three hours.

As the government weighs Starlink’s license, scientists stress the importance of not sacrificing long-term astronomical progress for short-term connectivity gains.