Idk much about this company but I'm assuming $150,000 is nothing to them.
But I suppose it's the precedent this sets, not the fine itself
Now they know it's worth just 150k to litter all they want.
Not necessarily how they're viewing it.
Once if was free, now it's $150,000+ with the possibility of that increasing anytime
Don't tell ole muskrat.
SpaceX satellites are in a different place so the rules and limits are different.
Dish Network's satellite is in geostationary orbit. This is a narrow 2 dimensional circular ban of space approximately 20,000 miles away from the Earth. Earth sits in the middle of the circle. This is very valuable space because ~~how objects there have very little gravitational interference (rather gravity is canceled out by other source of gravity).~~ ...the satellite appears to stay in a specific spot in the sky without moving. The reason Dish Network was asked to move its old dead satellite was to make room for a new one to sit in the same place. Again, very limited space there. So when Dish Network didn't move all the way out, it means its much harder (impossible) to use that space for someone else's satellite. What's worse is that it will take from 40 to 100 years for the Dish Network Satellite to fall out of orbit on its own. So unless a vehicle goes out and gets it to move it, that slot is unavailable for decades!
SpaceX satellites, like thousands of others, are in LEO (low earth orbit). Instead of 20,000 miles away its about 200 miles from the surface of the Earth. Additionally, unlike geostationary, there's no narrow band. its all the way around the Earth's sphere. LEO is considered "self cleaning". Any dead satellites in LEO will re-enter and burn up in 3 to 5 years. As in, do nothing and LEO satellites go away relatively soon.
EDIT: @Nighed@sffa.community correctly pointed out I mixed in a Lagrange point concept, which doesn't apply here.
I think you are getting confused between geostationary orbit and legrange points.
Geostationary orbit is just the narrow band where you can have a stable orbit at the same speed as the earth's rotation (so it stays in the same place in the sky) no other gravitational bodies involved.
you're absolutely right. I've edited my post to remove the Lagrange point logic and correct the value of geostationary orbits. Thank you :)
Thank you and @Nighed@sffa.community. That was a great explanation.
His fall downward and burn up in the atmosphere due to the low location. His actually leave no space junk in orbit.
Without any context, anyone who sends things to space can easily pay $150k. For context though, they are worth $3.35 billion as of September. $150k is probably less than a days electric bill for their offices.
The $150,000 fine represents a tiny proportion of Dish's overall revenue, which was $16.7bn in 2022.
It’d probably cost $10M-$20M to launch a falcon 9 up to that altitude alone, not to mention the tech and equipment to change its trajectory without also causing more space debris.
Fines exist only to hurt the poor.
For the rich/big businesses they are just a rounding error.
Should the fine not be the cost of a mission to move the satellite? It's within our technology now.
That would make sense - the fine should be enough to pay for the satellite's disposal.
Over and over we've seen companies not be held responsible for the cleanup of their projects. A lot of parallels to the fossil fuel industry, where they often abandon their wells with little recourse for the people left to clean up the pieces.
As someone who owns an appartment complex I want to fine them for roof junk.
The last apartment I was in had dozens of satellite dishes on the back of every building for a dozen apartments, they didn't even bother to check if one was hooked up before screwing a new one into the wall
I found that dish will screw giant lag bolts right through the shingles of your roof, right next to 3 other abandoned dishes. They are no longer allowed in our complex. I finally identified all the abandoned ones (alost all of them now as they are phased out), removed them and patched all the shingles. Filled an entire dump trailer. It was ridiculous. Had to repair ceilings from the leaks. Cable company is almost as bad. They leave all the old wires up, run new ones right over top. Putting nails through all the siding. But at least they aren't destroying the roof.
Alright everyone, let's get him
You own an apartment complex?
He can't respond because he's too busy painting over all the light fixtures and power outlets
This is true actually. But I had to work late because I accidentally got some on the wall.
As someone who is an actual living human: give your shit away.
As an also actual living human, I rent strictly to seniors, our rent is $4-500 cheaper than anything else comparable in town because they live on fixed income and I am a paramedic/firefighter that works 3 jobs to survive. I am not one of the scumbags (I don't think?) I don't make much of a profit because I refuse to raise the rent on a bunch of widowed old ladies living on fixed incomes and I put my resources back into the units to maintain or improve their living conditions. Yeah, it increases the property value. So I'm not going to pretend it's pure charity, it is a business. But I am not gouging my tenants while I very much can during the housing shortage like every other landlord in my small town.
If I gave it away it would just be bought up by the same monopoly that owns every other complex in my town. He has offered me 3 times what I paid and I refused to sell. Not because I wouldn't LOVE the money, but because the tenants that are pretty much family, that have watched my kids grow up, that have gone to my wedding, would all immediately be out on their ass.
Cool, now lets issue one to Dillweed over at X for Starlink. There was literally a petition put out by the astronomers at ground-based observatories begging him not to do it. What had already been put up was making issues for ground-based telescopes, the full constellation will likely make the multimillion-dollar optical telescopes overpriced tourist attractions.
https://www.astronomy.com/science/starlink-satellites-disrupt-cosmic-studies/
Starlink is losing a crazy number of satellites. Are they burning up or becoming junk?
Starlink sattelites operate in a low orbit that decays over time. They all fall back to earth eventually.
I heard they're designed to burn up in the atmosphere. Probably not an eco-friendly move, but it beats taking a satellite to the head.
Probably not an eco-friendly move
Fine powder of metals strewn over a few km², there's more coming from outer space via micrometeorites and dust. And that bit CO² in the Stratosphere...
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The US government has issued its first ever fine to a company for leaving space junk orbiting the Earth.
The Federal Communications Commission fined Dish Network $150,000 (£125,000) for failing to move an old satellite far enough away from others in use.
Space junk is made up bits of tech that are in orbit around the Earth but are no longer in use, and risk collisions.
Officially called space debris, it includes things like old satellites and parts of spacecraft.
"The more things we have in orbit, the more risk there is of collisions, causing high-speed debris," said Dr Megan Argo, senior lecturer in astrophysics at the University of Central Lancashire.
"Even a paint chip… coming in the wrong direction at orbital speed, which is 17,500 miles an hour [could] hit an astronaut doing a spacewalk.
The original article contains 402 words, the summary contains 136 words. Saved 66%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
We’ve already polluted our home and now we’re polluting the sky above.
I’m not against science and I understand why space is interesting, but it’s as if my car was leaving its tires somewhere every time I’m using it.
@Dariusmiles2123 @dantheclamman
You are leaving tires everywhere. One recent study found tire dust pollution was the number one microplastic in the ocean. A different older study found it was number #2, which is still pretty bad. You almost certainly have tire dust floating around inside your body too. If they made tires purely out of rubber this wouldn't be such a problem, but they don't.
(the double @'s are because I'm on mastodon, that's just what it does.)
Yeah I know I’m a tiny bit of my tires, but I ain’t leaving a whole tire behind just because it’s difficult to bring home 😅
But what you said is interesting and it shows that we’re polluting the world in so many different ways.
Still we can’t be perfect but we can try to improve.
Is that a real pic? Like millions of satellites and junk just revolving around earth.
I'm pretty sure it's just a computer generated Depiction, an actual picture likely wouldn't have the objects visible or would only just barely be visible because they are so small compared to the earth. This one is exaggerated so you can see them.
There are ~20,000 objects in orbit large enough to be tracked as hazards. Personally unclear if that includes active satellites, but that's 'only' another ~10,000.
There are ~100,000 airline flights a day worldwide.
How crowded does the sky look with planes?
Yes space junk is a thing to be concerned about / regulate. But at the scales involved it's basically negligible. We're orders of magnitude away from any kind of cascade or locking ourselves out of orbit or any other doomsday scenario.
Planes can also move out of the way of other planes, and have air traffic controllers directing them. Space junk doesn't do that, and while I agree that space junk isn't "crowding" space at this point in time. It does appear to be ever growing and it is just a matter of time before an important satellite is taken down due to neglecting this ever growing space junk problem.
Satellites do. They also are required to have plans to be raised to a graveyard orbit or to be de-orbited. This one failed to reach it's graveyard orbit is the issue. It can be an issue if it gets out of hand, but it really isn't for a long time. Space is big. By the time it is an issue, we'll probably trivially be able to handle the cleanup (or we're in another dark age).
One of the biggest fears I tend to think of about in space is Kessler Syndrome where one collision creates a shotgun blast of debris that increases the chances for more collisions (cascade effect). If you've seen the movie Gravity you get a great example of how it would go down.
I believe it's just a depiction of it. Looking around some other similar pictures, there were some images where it showed all "space debris" larger than 1cm as like a white dot. So, it's not quite the level of fields of metal floating around out there.
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
