Re:FCC Accuses Stealthy Startup of Launching Rogue Satellites
by ineedasername on Saturday March 10, 2018 @12:41AM
(#16557283)
The technicality isn't radio waves. It's object size. FCC rejected Swarms application because it wanted to use satellites smaller than the smallest 1U CubeSat specs. Apparently, tracking for these objects gets much hard the smaller they get, or something like that. But once its up, it's up, and the physical risk cannot be mitigated with an off-switch the way signal interference could, there are simply now 4 quarter-U sized sats too small to track as effectively as standard sats, which risk analysis had shown posed a too-high potential for harm.
It's been a long-standing ethical concern that the breakaway startups succeed by asking for forgiveness (e.g. ride sharing and room letting). Who is to decide that space is any different? And when the technicality is based on radio-waves, why RF spectrums more sacred than housing laws?