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.
Thank you and @Nighed@sffa.community. That was a great explanation.
The worry with the self cleaning band is the possibility of Kessler syndrome. See, the geosynchronous satellites are basically stationary relative to each other, and geosync is huge, so if one is junk, it’s stationary junk with nothing around it.
LEO orbits, in the other hand, criss-cross each other in a maddening dance. And if one shatters into dozens of tiny projectiles, that could shatter another and another into a cascade of space shrapnel. And then low Earth orbit is closed. No starlink, no iss, no manned spacecraft, etc.
It would self clean in a few decades. Three. Maybe five.
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.
sofa cushion money.
$150k fine to a company with ~ $17 billion in annual revenue is less than ninety cents for someone that earns $100k a year.
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.
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.
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.
I tried to upload the gif of the outdoorsman smiling and nodding but it broke. Loved this reply lmao
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/
I’ll bite the bait and ask you to explain how Starlink satellites contribute towards the space junk problem without having to reference astronomy or bringing up you-know-who’s name.
the space junk problem without having to reference astronomy
But that’s like half the problem with it.
Obviously some people don’t care about science. But yeah, the inability to properly observe space from Earth would be crushing - while the new space telescopes are goddamned awesome, they’re also ridiculously expensive and tiny compared to the massive surface-built structures we have on Earth.
Starlink adds a tremendous number of satellites to Low Earth Orbit. Like, Starlink is now something like 50 percent of all active satellites. That’s a lot of traffic up there. And in LEO, where orbits criss-cross in an endless complex dance, the risk of collisions is far higher than in Geosync. While the advantage of LEO is that everything has a lifetime measured in decades until the orbits decay and they burn up, the risk is Kessler Syndrome, where shrapnel from collisions creates an endless cascade of destruction that makes LEO completely unusable for several decades. That would be the end of all LEO satellites and all manned spaceflight for possibly the rest of our lives. You could still get ships through the Kessler debris layer safely for launching high-orbit and geosync satellites, but low orbit would be too hazardous to place anything in for long-term work, especially since it would risk prolonging the problem.
If Kessler starts, it will be impossible to stop - the shrapnel is too small for satellites to detect and avoid with their adjustment thrusters. A pandemic-style S-curve of destruction as all the satellites in LEO die. And we’d have to evacuate ISS.
Starlink is losing a crazy number of satellites. Are they burning up or becoming junk?
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.
A crime with a fine is a crime only for the poor, and definitely not for the guy who probably got a million dollar note commissioned just so he could wipe his ass with it
like, you’re not wrong…but also who is poor and getting a space junk fine???
what about other countries?
“[This could] go on and potentially hit other satellites, causing yet more debris and potentially cause a cascade reaction.”
“Just like the…”
“Sigh, yes like the Sandra Bullock movie.”
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.
I don’t know nt get it. They only moved it half the distance that they needed, because it ran out of fuel. It’s a relatively short distance and I’d expect space movement to keep moving, after I initiated, as there is no friction. Why did it stop moving once they were headed away?
Explaining orbital mechanics is hard because people aren’t used to it, but I’ll try. I’d recommend playing Kerbal Space Program if you really want to understand it though.
Orbiting is just moving horizontally as fast as gravity pulls you down, so you never fall down. If you speed the horizontal part up, you’ll move further away on the opposite side of your orbit because you were moving sideways faster than you were falling down. To stay at that altitude you need to be moving faster though, so you’ll fall back in if you don’t accelerate here again. You don’t just keep going further away, because higher orbits require faster and faster speeds.
Let me know if that helps, but this probably can’t be understood by text very easily. You probably at least need pictures, if not video, but actually interacting with it is the best way. Kerbal Space Program is famous for helping people wrap their mind around orbital mechanics.
I’ll second KSP. I learned a ton from that game.
I got it one time when someone explained orbiting as “falling faster than gravity pulling you towards the ground”.
