Dish TV issued a $150,000 fine for failing to park a dying satellite properly!

[thewayne]

This is a first. And since the Bloomberg article is potentially behind a paywall, I'll quote the Slashdot summary:

Todd Shields and Loren Grush reporting via Bloomberg:
Dish Network Corp. was fined $150,000 by US regulators for leaving a retired satellite parked in the wrong place in space, reflecting official concern over the growing amount of debris orbiting Earth and the potential for mishaps. The Federal Communications Commission called the action its first to enforce safeguards against orbital debris. "This is a breakthrough settlement, making very clear the FCC has strong enforcement authority and capability to enforce its vitally important space debris rules," Loyaan A. Egal, the agency's enforcement bureau chief, said in a statement.

Dish's EchoStar-7 satellite, which relayed pay-TV signals, ran short of fuel, and the company retired it at an altitude roughly 76 miles (122 kilometers) above its operational orbit. It was supposed to have been parked 186 miles above its operational orbit, the FCC said in an order (PDF). The company admitted it failed to park EchoStar-7 as authorized. It agreed to implement a compliance plan and pay a $150,000 civil penalty, the FCC said.

Now, this is fine and dandy for the FCC fining an American corporation, and I'm for it: we DO NOT need more space junk! But they don't have regulatory power over foreign corps. Will this encourage satellite corps to register companies in, say, the Bahamas to handle certain operations to avoid fines like this? I guess we'll see.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-10-02/dish-dealt-first-ever-space-debris-fine-for-misparking-satellite

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/23/10/03/000254/dish-dealt-first-ever-space-debris-fine-for-misparking-satellite

Comments

[disneydream06]

Well, that is a good start, but I would have preferred a much larger fine. :)
Hugs, Jon

[silveradept]

Good, yes, that there's a fine for failing to follow procedure, but there is that concerning part of figuring out how to clear out all of the space junk. I feel like the correct option for such a thing would be that the lack of fuel would cause the satellite to degrade gracefully and then have all of its components burn up in the atmosphere before being allowed to touch back down, but I'm sure someone will do a thing where their satellite remains intact, and then we have space debris falling on the planet.

Maybe the better option is that when something gets to a certain amount of fuel or other such things, it's pointed at the sun and told to drive straight into it. Something definitely needs to be done about clearing the skies.

[thewayne]

One of the more interesting, at least to me, proposals for de-orbiting satellites was to either spray them with water (reduces their velocity slightly which causes orbit degradation) or attach a parachute/streamer to them, which does the same thing.  It's a slow process, but eventually friction with the atmosphere grabs hold and does the job.

[silveradept]

That would be intriguing as an idea, assuming the entries could be controlled so nobody exploded. Maybe they could use some of the urine from the ISS to do it.