Swarm Asks the FCC for Permission to Launch 150 Tiny Satellites

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AlphaAtlas

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Earlier this year, Swarm Technologies got in trouble with the FCC for putting four tiny satellites into orbit without permission. Authorities and experts claimed that the tiny objects were too difficult to track, which makes them a danger to other satellites in orbit. Swarm was reportedly fined $900,000 for the transgression late last month, and now, IEEE Spectrum reports that Swarm is asking the FCC for permission to launch 150 of the micro-satellites a mere day after paying the fine. The satellites each weigh "about the same as a can of soup," and measure about 4.3 inches along their longest edges, making them orders of magnitude smaller than communications satellites from competitors like SpaceX.

At first glance, the new constellation might look even riskier than the experimental CubeSats the FCC barred. While there were only four devices in the original application, this one would see more than 500 satellites being launched into orbit over the constellation’s 15-year lifetime. This is because there are still wisps of atmosphere at Swarm's chosen altitudes of between 450 and 550 kilometers, dragging down the CubeSats to burn up in as little as two and a half years. On the way down, each satellite would also pass through the 400 kilometer band where the International Space Station orbits. At the lowest altitude of 450 kilometers, Swarm's satellites would have to be replaced at least four times over the 15 years. However, Swarm's new application goes to great lengths to persuade the FCC that its tiny satellites are much less dangerous than the agency first thought. For a start, being so small and light, they are virtually guaranteed to burn up completely in the atmosphere, thus posing no risk to people on Earth (unlike SpaceX's satellites).
 
We need these guys to help with good arguments for flying drones around airports and such.

"The drone is so much safer than say, your average African Swallow."
 
SomeoneElse said:
Great now when they launch spacecraft into orbit they have to worry about it getting hit by a "can of soup". We are going to have so much crap in orbit you won't even be able to go to space.
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People like to talk about this, and like to show "maps" of the junk in space....What people fail to think about are the objects in those maps are enlarged thousands of times or more, you have small objects the size of a microwave on the same scale as some whole states/islands. And a good bit of the junk out there are older, boosters etc as back in the day many were not recovered. however today items have to have a projected age that after which they are forced to reenter and burn up. The sats being talked about here are very low orbit that only last a year or two before reentering on their own. The other thing is even with those full maps that you can't even see the surface of earth in, most objects are actually miles apart. Its like driving down the road and seeing a single piece of trash every few square miles and going "wow, what a trash heap".

Is it something that has to be tracked and watched? Sure. Does it make launching a bit harder? Yep. But it is no where near the doom and gloom most sites report it as, because hysteria sells.
 
cjcox said:
We need these guys to help with good arguments for flying drones around airports and such.

"The drone is so much safer than say, your average African Swallow."
Click to expand...

An African swallow, yes. But not a European swallow!
 
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BlueFireIce said:
People like to talk about this, and like to show "maps" of the junk in space....What people fail to think about are the objects in those maps are enlarged thousands of times or more, you have small objects the size of a microwave on the same scale as some whole states/islands. And a good bit of the junk out there are older, boosters etc as back in the day many were not recovered. however today items have to have a projected age that after which they are forced to reenter and burn up. The sats being talked about here are very low orbit that only last a year or two before reentering on their own. The other thing is even with those full maps that you can't even see the surface of earth in, most objects are actually miles apart. Its like driving down the road and seeing a single piece of trash every few square miles and going "wow, what a trash heap".

Is it something that has to be tracked and watched? Sure. Does it make launching a bit harder? Yep. But it is no where near the doom and gloom most sites report it as, because hysteria sells.
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Its not even that there is too much up there now, its the fact that we keep making plans to add hundreds of sats every other month ( as it seems ). Not to mention these things are moving incredibly fast.
 
SomeoneElse said:
Great now when they launch spacecraft into orbit they have to worry about it getting hit by a "can of soup". We are going to have so much crap in orbit you won't even be able to go to space.
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Trapped on an earth that we slowly make un-inhabitable.
I can't think of a better outcome for homosapiens.
 
SomeoneElse said:
Its not even that there is too much up there now, its the fact that we keep making plans to add hundreds of sats every other month ( as it seems ). Not to mention these things are moving incredibly fast.
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Except you might actually have a hundred in a year, if you are lucky, not sure where you are getting hundreds a month. And lots of launches are to replace existing satellites, the same with the 500 number given here, most of those are replacements as they will only last a year or two. Last year was something like 90? And this completely ignores how large space is, as even on a single plane and not considering different orbit types, there is massive amount of space between objects. We have millions of cars on the road that share a single plane, and a limited one at that as they can only travel on roads. And yet the number of satellites, including most of the "junk" is something around 17,000 in a much, MUCH larger 3 dimensional area. It's like looking at some of the air traffic controller maps and thinking "HOLY SHIT"....and then remembering that most are miles apart at different altitudes. And unlike cars or the like, they don't just change direction or speed and are tracked 24/7.
 
BlueFireIce said:
Except you might actually have a hundred in a year, if you are lucky, not sure where you are getting hundreds a month. And lots of launches are to replace existing satellites, the same with the 500 number given here, most of those are replacements as they will only last a year or two. Last year was something like 90? And this completely ignores how large space is, as even on a single plane and not considering different orbit types, there is massive amount of space between objects. We have millions of cars on the road that share a single plane, and a limited one at that as they can only travel on roads. And yet the number of satellites, including most of the "junk" is something around 17,000 in a much, MUCH larger 3 dimensional area. It's like looking at some of the air traffic controller maps and thinking "HOLY SHIT"....and then remembering that most are miles apart at different altitudes. And unlike cars or the like, they don't just change direction or speed and are tracked 24/7.
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/tech...o-orbit/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.4a41d5749dab

This is just one instance of adding satellites......this is 4400 of them in a matter of months......
 
However, Swarm's new application goes to great lengths to persuade the FCC that its tiny satellites are much less dangerous than the agency first thought. For a start, being so small and light, they are virtually guaranteed to burn up completely in the atmosphere, thus posing no risk to people on Earth
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Right, but I don't think that's a concern. There's so many of them and they're more difficult to track, collisions in-space become more likely. Wasn't there just a leak on the ISS from a small object impact?

There's already a ton of debri floating around. What happens if a Mars or moon 2.0 mission can't detect one as they leave our orbit? Remember, the original moon missions didn't have nearly as much stuff up there at the time.
 
SomeoneElse said:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/tech...o-orbit/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.4a41d5749dab

This is just one instance of adding satellites......this is 4400 of them in a matter of months......
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You are from the future? Because it hasn't happened yet, you don't get to count future items as junk right now lmao. They have planned life spans and will be de-orbited once no longer in use. Double, triple, whatever you like the number from that link, and you would still have better chances of hitting the powerball than hitting one of them when launching into space. Orbits and future launches are planned and calculated to a very high degree, what exactly do you think is going to happen?
 
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BlueFireIce said:
Orbits and future launches are planned and calculated to a very high degree, what exactly do you think is going to happen?
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True, but it's hard to properly plan a launch to a high degree when you have variables (these small satellites) that you don't know where they are - I believe that is why they've been working to change that (reflectors, etc.).
 
Spidey329 said:
True, but it's hard to properly plan a launch to a high degree when you have variables (these small satellites) that you don't know where they are - I believe that is why they've been working to change that (reflectors, etc.).
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But, we do know where they are, the biggest fear expressed are untracked space junk that is not artificial. Last number I remember reading about is that we were tracking over 500,000+ objects that are not man made, those are the ones to worry about.

Jim Kim said:
Uhh
It's not like the previous ones, that are littering the heavens, were calculated on a Big Chief tablet with crayons.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opin...curity-threat-trump-address-column/606030002/
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As I already stated, in the early days few recovered or de-orbited satellite/boosters etc etc. However the orbits were still very precise, it's just math. And how well they were launched doesn't matter, we track them now. your link has to go back to 2009 for the first and only artificial satellite collision. Wow....one, yes, doom and gloom, I mean the title is "Space junk threatens our economic and national security.", can you get anymore alarmist? Everything we are launching now has planned de-orbits, as it's been required to move defunct satellites into at least a graveyard orbit since 2002, though all of the ones talked about here will be de-orbited, as they are all in very low orbits. Keep in mind that the impact talked about in the link they knew the dead satellite was going to pass by, it wasn't a random "where did that come from?", they made the choice not to move their satellite, as they had passed each other many many times before without issue, if I remember right, someone had used some incorrect data in a satellite tracking app when they were calculating the encounter.

And from this, yall are talking about not being able to enter space, or making the planet un-inhabitable. Talking about alarmist.
 
I'd rather sound "alarmist" then exclaim nothing to see here;
bagdad-bob.gif


https://www.wired.com/2010/05/ff_space_junk/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome
 
Jim Kim said:
I'd rather sound "alarmist" then exclaim nothing to see here;
View attachment 132865

https://www.wired.com/2010/05/ff_space_junk/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome
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I said nothing of the sort.

The Kessler syndrome was based on the idea of never de-orbiting satellites, and that it would build up to a point of congestion that a cascade would happen, his time frame prediction of this cascade has passed already, and I will say yet again....We de-orbit or graveyard orbit decommissioned satellites.
 
My question is, who owns low earth orbit?

The FCC fined them for launching, but whats to stop them from asking - say - the government of Tuvalu for their blessing and then launching?
 
BlueFireIce said:
You are from the future? Because it hasn't happened yet, you don't get to count future items as junk right now lmao. They have planned life spans and will be de-orbited once no longer in use. Double, triple, whatever you like the number from that link, and you would still have better chances of hitting the powerball than hitting one of them when launching into space. Orbits and future launches are planned and calculated to a very high degree, what exactly do you think is going to happen?
Click to expand...
I guess you didn't read the part where i said they are planning on putting more in orbit...... I am talking about the future that was the whole point of the OP.....They are going to put more in orbit than they are de-orbiting the junk already there that's the whole point of the comment dude.
 
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