Starman Saw Too Much

April 6, 2018 10:16 AM

NOAA Explains the Restriction on SpaceX launch webcast: During the March 30 launch of 10 Iridium Next satellites on a SpaceX Falcon 9, SpaceX cut off the live video from the rocket’s second stage nine minutes after liftoff. The company cited “restrictions” imposed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for terminating the live feed.

Turns out that a 2010 law, the National and Commercial Space Program Act, requires a commercial remote sensing license for companies having the capacity to take an image of Earth while on orbit. SpaceX didn't attract much attention about this, but the February 6th launch of the first Falcon Heavy and live camera attached to Starman in his Tesla Roadster got the NOAA to review their license application stack.

"Dawkins said that no previous SpaceX launches had NOAA commercial remote sensing licenses, even though many have flown onboard cameras, including several previous Iridium missions. An April 2 launch of a Falcon 9 from Florida carrying a Dragon cargo spacecraft had no such restrictions, she said, because that was considered a government mission. While the spacecraft is performing a mission under contract to NASA, the launch itself was considered commercial and licensed by the Federal Aviation Administration’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation."

posted by JoeZydeco (26 comments total)

Planet Earth copyright 0000-2018 all rights reserved
posted by Servo5678 at 10:24 AM on April 6, 2018 [7 favorites]

Obviously this is part of NASA's plan to keep the truth of the Flat Earth from Americans.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 10:26 AM on April 6, 2018 [7 favorites]

If SpaceX decided to move operations to say, Japan, I wonder how quickly they would get a license? I understand NOAA's issues, however. Understaffed, underfunded, but smart enough to CYA.
posted by Brocktoon at 10:45 AM on April 6, 2018

Funny you should mention launching from other countries, and perhaps I should have attached this to the post, but there's another recent case where a startup from the US tried to launch a swarm of communication/broadband satellites and was denied by the FCC.

So they piggybacked 4 satellites on a launch from India instead, and the FCC is not too thrilled. This case is a little more cut-and-dried, since you really can't operate a space-broadband system in the US without FCC-licensed subscriber stations in the plan.
posted by JoeZydeco at 10:53 AM on April 6, 2018 [3 favorites]

If SpaceX decided to move operations to say, Japan

ITAR makes it impossible for any space-related company to transfer out of the United States.
posted by Quindar Beep at 11:13 AM on April 6, 2018

Also, I thought you were referring to the Jeff Bridges "Starman", and was worried my nerd brain didn't catch the reference. Lois Lane had two alien boyfriends? How to win in Vegas? One of those, I'm sure.
posted by Brocktoon at 11:31 AM on April 6, 2018 [4 favorites]

Here's the NOAA page on the license. Their FAQ notes that there is no fee required. Sounds like someone just neglected to submit a little paperwork.
posted by exogenous at 11:31 AM on April 6, 2018 [3 favorites]

The larger question is "Why is this paperwork necessary?" Someone at the NOAA dropped the ball by not anticipating that they were over-regulating.
posted by Quindar Beep at 11:37 AM on April 6, 2018 [2 favorites]

Sounds like someone just neglected to submit a little paperwork.

Seems to be a reoccurring theme in Silicon Valley.

The larger question is "Why is this paperwork necessary?"

Because "taking images of the Earth from space" is a not insignificant part of intelligence gathering.
posted by NoxAeternum at 11:40 AM on April 6, 2018 [12 favorites]

The law was passed by Congress, not NOAA. Anyway, I welcome some public control over data gathering by private companies which are already far too powerful in this world.
posted by exogenous at 11:41 AM on April 6, 2018 [4 favorites]

Not taking images like that -- I defy anyone to point to a negative consequence that could arise from a camera of that quality in Earth orbit. The NOAA didn't anticipate low ground resolution publicity picture taking, and should have.
posted by Quindar Beep at 11:43 AM on April 6, 2018 [2 favorites]

I defy anyone to point to a negative consequence that could arise from a camera of that quality in Earth orbit.

I defy any multi-billion dollar company sending rockets into space not to have the time and money to do their due diligence.
posted by grumpybear69 at 11:58 AM on April 6, 2018 [14 favorites]

From more background reading, the 2010 law came about because of an impending wave of companies that were going to launch private satellite imaging systems. Congress and the intelligence community wanted to know what was going up and who was looking at the data.

Given the fact that there was no application fee necessary, this looks more like a bureaucratic step to halt anything that looked fishy.

I remember having Dish Network satellite TV and one of their geosync satellites had a camera pointed back at Earth. You could watch it 24 hours a day.
posted by JoeZydeco at 12:00 PM on April 6, 2018 [3 favorites]

I defy any multi-billion dollar company sending rockets into space not to have the time and money to do their due diligence.

Seriously. Regulation is not inherently bad, as this week has amply demonstrated.
posted by NoxAeternum at 12:02 PM on April 6, 2018 [4 favorites]

Seriously. Regulation is not inherently bad, as this week has amply demonstrated.

Regulation concerning what someone is allowed to observe or measure, on the other hand, is a topic worthy of vigorous debate.
posted by eotvos at 12:06 PM on April 6, 2018 [8 favorites]

Yes, but this regulation is unnecessary. Due diligence notwithstanding -- there was no possibility of harm from this. What's the point of having a permit process with a 100% chance of a "yes"? And if the chance isn't 100%, why are they saying no to a camera taking pictures that are kilometers to the pixel?
posted by Quindar Beep at 12:06 PM on April 6, 2018

You have to give them three months to hide the aliens though.
posted by Pyry at 12:09 PM on April 6, 2018

What's the point of having a permit process with a 100% chance of a "yes"?

If you'd bothered to spend one minute reading anything at the link I posted, you would know the answer to this.
posted by exogenous at 12:20 PM on April 6, 2018 [3 favorites]

Yes, but this regulation is unnecessary. Due diligence notwithstanding -- there was no possibility of harm from this. What's the point of having a permit process with a 100% chance of a "yes"? And if the chance isn't 100%, why are they saying no to a camera taking pictures that are kilometers to the pixel?


Republicans are making and have made controlling images of the Earth from space a high priority because they offer evidence of Global Warming which is stark and undeniable.

It would be interesting to know whether the bill was passed before or after Republicans took control of Congress, who sponsored it, and why Obama allowed it to become law.
posted by jamjam at 12:45 PM on April 6, 2018

This is Public Law 111-314, signed in December 2010. Passed the House by voice vote with bipartisan cosponsors. Passed the Senate by unanimous consent. Looks like they mostly just reorganized existing regulations, without creating new law or changing the meaning or effect of existing law.

I don’t know offhand where the licensing requirement originated. It looks to mostly require the images to be gathered consistently with the national security of the United States, and to have unenhanced images be made freely available, and to provide tracking information for the satellite.
posted by Huffy Puffy at 1:08 PM on April 6, 2018 [2 favorites]

There might be more insight into the history via the 1997 Kyl-Bingaman Amendment, designed to protect Israel from satellite imaging by other nations. The NOAA page that exogenous posted points in this direction.

An opinion from Ogle Earth: Revoke the Kyl-Bingman Amendment, Already.
posted by JoeZydeco at 1:08 PM on April 6, 2018 [3 favorites]

Link from the NOAA explainer says.
"Small, hand-held cameras shall not be considered remote sensing space systems."

So lego astronauts on weather balloons at the edge of space are still OK. [and bikes in space are arguably cooler than electric cars anyway]
posted by ASCII Costanza head at 1:12 PM on April 6, 2018 [2 favorites]

Regulation is not inherently bad, as this week has amply demonstrated.

Was there something special about this week?
posted by thelonius at 1:32 PM on April 6, 2018

"Small, hand-held cameras shall not be considered remote sensing space systems."

I would bet that SpaceX's lawyers looked at that and considered themselves in the clear, based on things like commercial availability and sensor size. I can certainly see the argument for it.
posted by bonehead at 2:44 PM on April 6, 2018 [1 favorite]

I'm sure Stable Genius would give this US spaceflight company a pass.
posted by ZenMasterThis at 6:56 PM on April 6, 2018

Pffffffft. Anyone who's read Colin Wilson's "The Mind Parasites" knows that once you get far enough away from the Earth, you can't hear them any more. Obviously that includes NASA rules.
posted by Twang at 8:09 PM on April 6, 2018 [3 favorites]