House Science Committee Leaders Criticize FCC Action on Orbital Space Debris
WASHINGTON (House Science Committee PR) – House Science, Space, and Technology Committee Ranking Member Frank Lucas and Chairwoman Eddie Bernice Johnson released a statement today on the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) vote on new regulations for orbital space debris.
“As we said in our letter to the FCC last week, regulatory action at this time, without consensus across federal agencies and clear authority from Congress, will at the very least create confusion and undermine the Commission’s work, and at worst undermine U.S. economic competitiveness and leadership in space,” Lucas and Johnson wrote. “Despite a host of concerns raised by this Committee, other federal agencies, and industry stakeholders, the FCC moved forward. This rulemaking process alone is problematic. During a global pandemic and unprecedented public health and economic challenges, the decision to take action on a significant regulatory change is unnecessary and ill-advised. As the Commission proceeds, we expect them to work with our Committee and all relevant federal agencies on an appropriate policy framework for orbital debris.”
2 responses to “House Science Committee Leaders Criticize FCC Action on Orbital Space Debris”
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Pai is only about lining his own pockets and currying favor with industry as part of his exit strategy from the top FCC job. The ever mounting space debris is going to be a bigger and bigger issue as companies launch tens of thousands of satellites to bring internet to deep Amazon rain forest tribes and nomadic herders in the interior of Africa. It’s certainly a possibility in my lifetime that there will be a diminishing set of functional assets in orbit and a cost increase to use what’s left. Going to the moon or anywhere in the galaxy will be a game of threading the needle with spacecraft.
Yes, there are ideas for cleaning up the space around Earth, but it doesn’t take a doctorate in orbital mechanics to see how hard that is.
Pai seems to have pissed a lot of people off in both government and industry so it’s hardly obvious just where you think he plans to hang his hat after leaving the FCC.
In any event, I’m with the Congresscritters on this one, though likely for very different reasons. The regulations proposed would do exactly nothing to abate extant debris and next to nothing to prevent the creation of more.
What they mostly require is for companies with satellite-based business plans to make guesses at various debris-creation probabilities, the allegedly acceptable limits for which would be pre-defined. Making a plausibly rigorous cut at said guesswork is not going to be within the ambit of anyone on staff at a typical satellite start-up, but can be handled by people an extant multinational can either find already on staff or who can be contracted for at fat fees that are, nonetheless, chicken feed to a giant firm.
So, in essence, companies will be forced to make estimates that are within the allowed limits, but to make those guesses/foregone conclusions look plausible. There will be a practical minimum cost to doing this and it will fall, thus, far more heavily on the smallest players and would-be players. At the end of the day, it would all be a complete charade anyway and simply a way to mandate a steady income for yet another new class of shyster “consultants” who live well off regulatory mandates that have little other practical effect..
As for the actual cleaning of debris – either old or new – there are plenty of ways to do that. These differ depending mostly on the mass class of debris one cares to target. The smallest stuff can be de-orbited by laser sweepers. Anything large enough to be tracked can be scavenged by a suitably-scaled sweeper drone or space tug. The proposed regulations are silent anent both the nature and use of actual and potential debris mitigation technology.