Yes it's a little awkward. I think they mean South America is still ok -- so they can collect data there -- but not North America.

It's not just you. It feels like there's a missing sentence or paragraph somewhere connecting the two. Maybe there's a compounding effect making the impact of turning the satellite off worse?

This is one of the annoying constructions in English that has two common meanings which are the opposite of each other. It can either be referring to the worst possible/conceivable setback (as here) or to the worst encountered setback-- you have to use other clues like overall tone and the surrounding context to figure out which was meant.

You wrote:

> I was waiting …

I think your instinct and expectation were correct. The article reads:

> The info provided by Biomass will be a critical step forward.

I think it should read "The info provided by Biomass would be a critical step forward." ("Would" should be used because it's discussing a hypothetical situation contrary to fact — contrary to fact because the restrictions impede the collection of the desired data.)

My guess is that it's either sloppy editing or LLM-generated text.

It can be read in two ways.

The most natural way is as you have read it.

However, it is also valid in the sense of "this is a setback, but it's not all that bad". (You might write, "Still, this isn't the worst setback ever.")

You would need to read enough to realize by later lack of a description of the worst setback to realize the former, most natural way, is not in use.

Interesting, I never noticed the ambiguity until you pointed it out.

It's like the awful phrase 'I could care less' I suppose.

Ragebait. Initially I thought it was something Trump did that resulted in this, and I'd assume others may as well.

> Surely the orbit of this satellite will be well known and so false positives alarms can be ruled out?

It's not the physical presence of the satellite over the US that messes up (or could) ICBM detection, it's the operation of the satellite's radar system. That's why they have to turn off the radar when it's over the US and Europe.