Citing concerns about the collision, NASA has made a formal comment at the request of a US company to build a megacons of satellites at an altitude of 720 km above the Earth’s surface (PDF). This seems to be the first time that NASA has commented on such an application for entry into the market for public use, which is pending before the Federal Communications Commission.
“NASA presents this letter during the public comment period in order to provide a better understanding of NASA’s concerns regarding its assets in its orbit, to further reduce the risk of collisions for the mutual benefit of all involved,” wrote Samantha Fonder, space agency. Engineer for.
Is a presentation of plans by AST and Science, which intends to build a galaxy of more than 240 large satellites, deploying “cell towers” in space to provide direct 4G and possibly 5G broadband connections to cell phones on Earth. The Midlands, Texas-based company calls its star “SpaceMobile” and has amassed an estimated 120 million.
The space agency was forced to comment on AST’s proposal for a number of reasons. Most notably, the proposed itude height for the spacemobile constellation is close to that of the “A-Train”, which NASA and U.S. There are 10 Earth-science surveillance satellites operated by the Geological Survey as well as partners from France and Japan. “Historical experience with the A-Train constellation has shown that this particular area of space produces a large number of connections between space objects,” the NASA letter said.
They are big too
The satellites are also very large. To provide service, AST plans to build a spacecraft with a large phased array antenna space 900 square meters. According to NASA, the plan for a possible connection to other satellites and debris in this orbit would require a “rigid-body radius” of meters0 meters or a control 10 times larger than other satellites.
Exercising around the proposed spacemobile constellation would seem like an extraordinary tax, NASA said. “For a full constellation of 243 satellites, 1,500 mitigation operations and 15,000 planned activities can be expected each year,” the space agency said. “This would equate to four maneuvers and 40 active planning activities on any given day.”
Finally, the space agency is concerned because ASTA has never built a satellite close to the size of 1-ton or larger vehicles that would populate its constellation. Given this lack of experience, it is expected that 10 percent or more of the satellites may fail, making them unable to maneuver to avoid collisions. NASA found the risk of a catastrophic collision to be “unacceptably high.”
NASA released its comment on October 30, and the comment period closed on Monday. Other comments on the AST application were helpful.
In response to Ars’s inquiries about NASA’s presentation, AST said it would work with NASA to address its concerns. “We have reviewed NASA’s letter and are confident that we can work with them to address their concerns, including clarifying the formation of the AST constellation, including protecting NASA and other orbital assets,” said Raymond Sedwick, chief scientist at Space. And other orbital assets. Systems on AST.
What is FCC?
So why is this an issue before the Federal Communications Commission? U.S. Responsibility for space activities is spread across several federal agencies, but the FCC manages the spectrum. In this case, the AST has obtained a license to use spectrum in the V-band of Papua New Guinea (yes, it is legal). But in order to gain access to the U.S. market and sell its services, AST must still obtain FCC permission.
When it comes to spaceX’s megalomania installations including Starlink, OneWeb and others – FCC Is Hundreds, if not thousands, of new satellites are being placed in low Earth orbit when the issue of debris is being considered. Therefore, it will be interesting to see where the FCC goes on this issue as the federal agency has two rival interests.
In general, the FCC gives unreliable approval when it comes to granting spectrum licenses to satellite operators. “I am not aware of any instances of the FCC denying such a license,” said Brian Weed, a satellite expert with the Secure World Foundation. “They’re trying to be business-friendly and encourage companies to do business in the US.”
However, the FCC is using its Spectrum Authority to consider rules that would reduce the wreckage of satellite operators capable of damaging the government from potential accidents as well as further maneuvering on their vehicles. The comment period for the proposed rules, which was first published in April, closed last month. It’s not clear what the final rules will look like, but satellite operators have sharpened some ideas.
In the end, it’s not clear how the FCC will handle NASA’s concerns, knowing two or three things about space and talking for the first time.
In the bigger picture, Weed said, the dust-up between NASA and AST is further evidence that the U.S. government and other astronaut nations around the world need to do better to keep Earth’s orbit as debris-free as possible. No government agency has been charged to ensure the low Earth’s orbit is safe, and existing models have failed to fully recover from the debris spent in the second phase of the rocket and known debris from new and old satellites. So, in some sense, with all the megacons installations flying in space today, regulators are flying blind, he said.
“We have a lot of work to do in the last 10 years,” he said. “From the point of view of government policy oversight, we are behind the power turn.”
