Sneaky satellite launch raises risk of Gravity-style space collision The space-disaster movie Gravity – where an escalating wave of space debris wipes out a space station and shuttle – now looks like a slightly more plausible scenario. The Federal Communication Commission (FCC) has pulled permission from Silicon Valley startup Swarm Technologies to launch four satellites into space after what …
The TLDR is still pretty long: The Earth is much bigger than you think so you need to liberally sprinkle some zeros on the end of your satellite count. You need thrusters to prevent solar winds from turning your space mesh into a space clump. Radiation glitches on satellites with thrusters is messy. Space agencies don't want your space junk. There are things in orbit that governments don't want you potentially looking at.
So if a US company launches a satellite from India, we all expect the company to be subject to US rules. What if they set up a server in India to monitor the launch? Do we expect them to be subject to US rules with respect to the data on the server?
I still don't get it.
Yeah, seeeee...that's my take-away.
I've been to none too few launches in my life and last I cecked, FAA was your hurdle.
FCC is not a relevant entity.
Concievably, I can make a satellite that radiates Nothing (which Aces's out FCC), gathers some data, looks around, and crashes the spinning rust next to my BBQ on a Saturday Afternoon. (Ok, that might be a bit liberal in design, I admit...beats IP over carrier pidgeon, let's go with it...)
So how and or why would the FCC care?
As far as rocketry goes, and the FAA, America is (theoretically) built towards the concept that if it's not explicitly Denied, it's implied you can do what you want. In the sky, this becomes less true. The FAA's charter is: If it implicitly allowed, it's specifically denied. Ultimately, this is a good thing I think.
However:Americans (in general) have this odd mix of Crazy, and wealth to actually home-brew an ICBM/Low Orbit craft for kicks, as a one-off. It's only a matter of time before "Big Richard" in Texas decides to *successfully* build his own thing and to hell with things like international treaties and let everyone know there's going to be a launch-plume that every satellite is seeing making edgy folk more edgy until he parks his microsats in a bad place and all hell breaks loose.
Won't be government(s) that screw Richard, tho. It'll be business that owns the CommSats suing him into oblivion. Government will just build a few new keyholes, with all new goodies on an up-rev, and grab a few bucks from the general fund.
But the US FCC is sociopathic right now, you'll have to forgive us while some of our politicos demonstrate complete delusion.
"So the FCC has authority over space as well, now?"
I think they just authorize the use of RF to communicate with them. But, effectively, it looks like it, for U.S. companies at least. Yeah I'm not happy about that either. I'd think NASA or even the FAA should have that jurisdiction. Maybe it's time for Con-grab to define the regulatory roles better.
Raid the company's HQ and arrest its officers. Extract the orbital data and then have the DoD destroy them with some air-to-space missiles. Oh wait. We don't have any of those because the US military has been burning through its budget with endless war, and on surface ships and aircraft that will last about 15 minutes in a conflict with a serious adversary. Maybe we should ask the Chinese...
But you forget their secret launch capable and readily reported launches of their own launch platform putting secret satellites in orbit.
But that is not happening at all. Nothing to see hear.
There are probably nuclear powered satellites up there, with significant capability for all we know.
"Wouldn't they also need to be black.... really black?"
You mean Vantablack?
I know, Vantablack is only unreflective in the visible; not radar.
Actually, the Vantablack site FAQ covers exactly that question regarding clothing use, and their answer is that by its very nature (forest of tiny tubes) the coating performs exceedingly poorly on anything that isn't a fairly immobile, contact-free surface. As a clothing item, putting it on would already be a huge challenge and it would wear off really fast in use...
This post has been deleted by its author
The article speaks of permissions to orbit satellites but this surely applies only to American companies/agencies within its national jurisdiction?
I wonder how much other tiny junk is up there right now, launched by other nations? And what it's doing? Fiendish Orientals, for example, could pack much mischief into a one-litre box, if they chose.
I also wonder how much science has gone into assessing upper limits on satellite density? With forthcoming constellations of Internet-of-Shyte due, this seems ... Interesting.
PS Why not unspool a small piece of foil, to act as attached chaff, so that even a tinysat can be tracked?
"PS Why not unspool a small piece of foil, to act as attached chaff, so that even a tinysat can be tracked?"
Unspooling a piece of foil in space is not as easy as it sounds. You'd need considerable drag on the foil (and not on the sat) to slow it down enough to unspool. Unfolding a stowed sail would be easier and yet probably not reliable and durable enough to be an acceptable tracking target.
Some of his bigger "friends" have told him they don't like the competition.
Yes there is a potential "Kessler effect" scenario here and things could go badly TITSUP on a global scale (everything in LEO that is, the GEO comm sats shouldn't be affected too much, I hope).
Where a nuclear test resulted in something being launched into space. Namely the steel cap from the shaft used to contain blast.
Also recall some mad scientist in the 1950s claiming that one of his models launched itself into space because the retardation mechanism malfunctioned due to electrical interference.
In fact there are ways, had some ideas recently to build a prototype tentatively called called "NX-0" basically a small car sized single pilot orbital vehicle based on non-mainstream science and reverse engineered technology in the event something bad happens (tm) here on Earth like a supervolcano or other "black swan event".
It would have enough thrust and supplies to reach lunar orbit, landing might be a bit more tricky but the plan is to send out a distress signal on the H band and wait.
More like, if CERN discovers as predicted that antimatter generates weak negative gravity (ie around -3%) and entangled antimatter more so, its possible that the drive I've invented could work.
If nothing else it should work better than an ion drive even if it needs a small nuclear reactor optimized for 66MeV with spiral rotating "buckets" of specially shaped magnesium-25 enriched sheets to produce sodium-22 or maybe even a fusor with a pyrolytic graphite inner grid and heavy metal target to take advantage of induced fission and dispose of surplus weapons-grade materials.
Intriguingly even if it works less well than expected the resulting stable neon can be used as fuel for a conventional ion drive or M2P2 hybrid.
see http://positron.physik.uni-halle.de/poster/ICPA16_Poster_22Na_positron_manufacture.pdf
To get this into orbit would cause some issues but a possible shortcut has been examined, ie use a hybrid lift engine based on large permanent magnets rotating around contra-rotating disks on a high conductivity landing pad to get it airborne assisted with a central turbofan and then engage the primary drive and rockets at around 25-50 feet once everything is stable, diverting power from the stored kinetic energy in the disks for added stability. This also overcomes any problems with EMI to ground based control systems.
"if CERN discovers as predicted that antimatter generates weak negative gravity (ie around -3%) and entangled antimatter more so, its possible that the drive I've invented could work."
well, as one mad scientist to another, you can try kickstarter...
either that or realize that the energy required to produce enough antimatter is of "stellar" proportions.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
