7/16/25: Starlink v2 Optimized satellites reflect green?

SpaceX has recently begun to launch an updated version of their v2 Mini satellite, termed V2 Optimized by SpaceX. Little information was released prior to a SpaceX notification that the new spacecraft was launched on a Falcon-9 in late May; apparently it is ~260 kg lighter than the previous V2 Mini, which had a blue dielectric mirror coating on the nadir (under) side. It would appear that the new ‘v2 Optimized’ iteration may have had an update to the underside dielectric mirror coating. It also appears that they are significantly less bright, as the following image illustrates..

Blue and green satellite track — Blue v2 Mini satellite (left), green satellite (right) is possibly a new Starlink v2 Optimized spacecraft, announced by SpaceX in late May. Only a slight contrast adjustment was made to the image to retain actual colors captured; note that the green track is quite a bit dimmer than the blue).

I happen to be up in British Colombia at the moment, and decided to put a camera out one night to see what I could see. The camera was faced east, and I started a timelapse sequence using a 28mm lens a bit after midnight. I happened to catch what appeared to be a Starlink train descending into the horizon, and it consisted of two blue satellites (v2 Minis, almost surely), and 20 GREEN satellites. Having dedicated most of my shooting time in the last two years to shooting satellites, I have never once captured a green satellite track. This leads me to believe that SpaceX may have updated the dielectric mirror coating on the underside to a substrate that reflects green. Due to lack of cell reception up here at Desolation Sound, I cannot confirm for sure whether these are indeed Starlink or possibly the recently launched Kuiper v1 satellites, but it does appear that these green-reflecting spacecraft are in the 53° inclination (along with several thousand other Starlink satellites). The SkySafari screenshot below shows three random 53° Starlink tracks, and two random 70° Starlink tracks for reference.

Satellites (annotated) — SkySafari screenshot showing difference between 53° and 70° inclination tracks as observed from 50°N latitude.

Images were captured from 0:55:15 – 01:09:39, and most of the trails went through Andromeda Galaxy and terminated at the horizon somewhere around 085° azimuth. The two blue satellites (v2 Minis, presumably) may or may not be associated with this ‘train’, and to my knowledge SpaceX has not commented on whether recent payloads contain all v2 Optimized satellites, or a mix with the older v2 Minis. The image was a challenge to composite and I had to reject some non-Starlink satellites due to track drift from the camera tripod being mounted upon the bow of a 50′ boat that was rafted together with 17 other boats (during times when the boat would rock slightly, you can see tracks drift a bit from straight lines).

More as I can research this once I am back on firm ground.