The FCC has issued its first superb for space junk to Dish Network for not properly deorbiting its satellite. The corporate admitted it was accountable for not shifting its EchoStar-7 to a safer spot and pays a penalty of $150,000 and implement a compliance plan.
Space debris — non-functioning manmade materials floating around space — can pose a hazard to working infrastructure, including the ISS, which has had run-ins with debris up to now. In line with the FCC, defunct satellites like Dish’s may also interfere with “the nation’s terrestrial and space-based communication systems by increasing the danger of injury to satellite communications systems.”
“This can be a breakthrough settlement, making very clear the FCC has strong enforcement authority and capability to implement its vitally essential space debris rules,” FCC enforcement bureau chief Loyaan A. Egal said in a press release.
“This can be a breakthrough settlement, making very clear the FCC has strong enforcement authority and capability to implement its vitally essential space debris rules.”
Dish had told the FCC it had a plan for coping with the direct broadcast satellite way back in 2012. By May of 2022, it was going to maneuver the EchoStar-7 186 miles (300 km) above the geostationary orbit it had worked in (22,000 miles above the surface of Earth). By February, nevertheless, Dish realized the satellite didn’t have enough propellant left to finish its maneuver, and it shut it down about 76 miles (122 km) away, where it could still prove to be a hazard.
This failure meant the corporate had broken the terms of its FCC license, leading to an investigation and subsequent superb.
The difficulty of find out how to take care of all of the trash in space is an ongoing and complicated one, but that is the primary time the FCC has fined an organization. While $150,000 is pocket change for Dish, a regulatory organization with some teeth has a a lot better probability of creating firms clean up their mess.