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SpaceX Can't Broadcast Earth Images Because of a Murky License (cnet.com)
Last Friday, SpaceX wasn't able to give its fans a view of the 10 new Iridium satellites it released into orbit from its Falcon 9 upper stage. Here's why. From a report: Weirdly, company engineers staffing the launch webcast blamed National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration restrictions for the blackout from the stage, a staple of most SpaceX launches. Well, at least those that don't involve deploying spy satellites or top-secret space planes. The story behind the missing live feed is a muddy bureaucratic affair. It appears that NOAA has recently decided to start interpreting or enforcing a decades-old law in a new way. The agency says SpaceX and other commercial space companies must apply for a license to broadcast video from orbit.
"The National and Commercial Space Program Act requires a commercial remote sensing license for companies having the capacity to take an image of Earth while on orbit," NOAA said in a statement last week. "Now that launch companies are putting video cameras on stage 2 rockets that reach an on-orbit status, all such launches will be held to the requirements of the law and its conditions."
"The National and Commercial Space Program Act requires a commercial remote sensing license for companies having the capacity to take an image of Earth while on orbit," NOAA said in a statement last week. "Now that launch companies are putting video cameras on stage 2 rockets that reach an on-orbit status, all such launches will be held to the requirements of the law and its conditions."
...and the horse they rode in on.
"cant show photo of globe earth because of copyright license law"
earth is flat, everybody knows it by now
lol
Clearly this is part of the coverup designed to convince us that the world is not flat. Nice try.
Likely due to security -- it's essentially a spy satellite that could image military facilities, etc, by chance. Of course, the info is out there anyway, but it probably wasn't as common when the law was actually written.
On the one hand, I support privacy. On the other hand, transparency about military operations and movements has the potential to destroy the ability of countries to wage war. As a pacifist, I firmly support the latter idea.
Solution? Transfer ownership of the satellites to a shell company in a country that lacks such restrictions, broadcast away?
How convenient, just in the nick of time to grab more money!
Hasn't it already been tested and settled (in the US) as a First Amendment right? People are free to photograph and shoot video of public spaces that have no expectation of privacy.
Planet Earth: pretty public.
I'm sorry, but your opinion seems to be wrong.
So somehow NOAA can violate the Space X's 1st Amendment right? I mean I did not know the US owns the Earth or it's likeness.
In other words NOAA have the ability to make money from space launches without actually providing anything except "their permission"...
Not the location, just movements on a base. A mass of vehicles or aircraft being prepared for an invasion might be visible from space.
Does the US Gov't just want SpaceX to move out of country and then broadcast?
We have publicly available, high-resolution weather satellite imagery already. SpaceX isn't going to "out" something which isn't already visible to the public one way or another.
Heck, a US "invasion" force is probably locatable from the FitBit website.
#DeleteChrome
They should just put a pixelation filter over the earth. That will certainly draw attention to it, if nothing else!
That was the turning point of my life--I went from negative zero to positive zero.
This is just harassment for making NASA and ULA look bad.
I propose the motion that the next SpaceX stage to be launched is called "Caroline"
"Wait. Something's happening. It's opening up! My God, it's full of apricots!"
Earth is fake.
Space is flat.
"Prediction: within 10 years, Windows will be a Linux distribution." Me, 7-6-2016
International law requires countries to regulate the outer space activities of private companies. Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies, Article VI:
Article VIII:
I don't think the treaty says anything specifically about regulating communications, but it certainly establishes the principle that you don't escape national jurisdiction by leaving the planet.
Naval space platforms.
It's under NOAA because when the law was passed, jurisdiction was given to NOAA. Yes, it;s very stupid, and it's not rocket science either.
How about a moderation of -1 pedantic.
Actually this is the kind of stuff that would give him a very good reason to threaten their funding. This is not something we should let NOAA do. They exist to study the environment (weather) and report their observations in real time. Beyond that is out of bounds. They sure as hell don't own the planet! Getty does... If we don't vote the crooks out congress it will only get worse. We must at least demand transparency, or use technological means to take it ("Russian Hackers", yeah, that's the ticket) when the majority fails to clean up their fucking act. No more secrets! Let's shift the balance of power
It's because NOAA loves Trump so much and trying suck up to him because they support his AGW policies.... oh wait.... nevermind...
"I say we take off, nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."
How about "Christine" instead?
"I say we take off, nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."
I think it's mostly because NOAA is the one taking lots of pictures of the Earth.
presumably the guys with the raspberry pi cameras and weather balloons are not in orbit so this doesn't apply. Or does orbit include anything not touching the ground, what if I jump and take a photo ?
Nullius in verba
If I were SpaceX, I would just transmit the video feed anyway, let NOAA try to enforce its silly regulation, then take a nationwide applause bow as the agency gets stomped by the Gorsuch Court.
Ah, the march of bureaucratic stupidity continues. If I'm understanding correctly this is an old law from when commercial Earth imagery was a fairly new thing. It was intended to prevent high resolution imagery of sensitive sites being captured and sold at a whim. It has no real relevance to rocket launches (cameras are only capturing Earth as a backdrop, not as focused land images), the law itself is pretty dated as nowadays there are a plethora of companies/countries with high resolution Earth imaging satellites.
I presume they're not broadcasting from orbit, rather they are transmitting a stream to earth and someone on earth might broadcast it. But what is broadcasting anyway? I don't think youtube is defined as broadcasting is it? because it sends individual streams to users. The only internet broadcasting I know about was the old MBONE which I haven't heard of in years. What precisely is supposedly outlawed? And do laws apply in space anyways?
Putin is Paying them for.
Cause Chaos in the Trade, International Relations, and Political arenas, so they can reap maximum benefit for their Benefactor.
Putin already won WWIII; we just haven't noticed yet.
Truth isn't Truth - Guliani
Why not just broadcast it from some other country? Like Russia. You can broadcast anything you want to out of Russia, can't you?
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
The title of the article implies that SpaceX "can't" broadcast from their second stages. A more accurate statement is that they "couldn't" broadcast on their one particular launch. They could in fact broadcast for their previous launch due to the fact that it was a NASA launch. And they have applied for a NOAA license for their future launches, meaning they WILL be able to broadcast from stage 2 for future launches.
This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when first he appears as a protector - Plato (423 to 327 BC)
Never heard of Radio Christine...
"Wait. Something's happening. It's opening up! My God, it's full of apricots!"
Wonder if staffing that office for the last decade cost more than the license will bring in?
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
51 U.S. Code Subchapter III - LICENSING OF PRIVATE REMOTE SENSING SPACE SYSTEMS
960.12 Data policy for remote sensing space systems.
It does not look like the provisions are onerous, but it may take some time to make the required determinations. It should be possible to request a license for the entire program, as long as a review takes place prior to any changes that modify image quality. However this is not the same as actually reading the issued license - if there is one.
960.12 Data policy for remote sensing space systems.
(a) In accordance with the Act, if the U.S. Government has or will directly fund all or a substantial part of the development, fabrication, launch, or operation costs of a licensed system, the license shall require that all of the unenhanced data from the system be made available on a nondiscriminatory basis except on the basis of national security, foreign policy or international obligations.
(b) If the U.S. Government has not funded and will not fund, either directly or indirectly, any of the development, fabrication, launch, or operations costs of a licensed system, the licensee may provide access to its unenhanced data in accordance with reasonable commercial terms and conditions, subject to the requirement of providing data to the government of any sensed state, pursuant to 960.11(b)(10).
(c) If the U.S. Government has (either directly or indirectly) funded some of the development, fabrication, launch, or operations costs of a licensed system, the Assistant Administrator, in consultation with other appropriate U.S. agencies, shall, subject to national security concerns, determine whether the interest of the United States in promoting widespread availability of remote sensing data on reasonable cost terms and conditions requires that some or all of the unenhanced data from the system be made available on a nondiscriminatory basis in accordance with the Act. The license shall specify any data subject to this requirement. In making this determination, the Assistant Administrator may consider:
(1) The extent and proportion of private and Federal funding of the system;
(2) The extent of the governmental versus the commercial market for the unenhanced data;
(3) The effect of a nondiscriminatory data access designation on the applicant’s commercial activity; (4) The extent to which the applicant’s proposed commercial data policies would encourage foreign operators to limit access, particularly for research and public benefit purposes; or (5) The extent to which the U.S. interest in promoting widespread data availability can be satisfied through license conditions that ensure access to the data for non-commercial scientific, educational, or other public benefit purposes.
Space is flat.
Actually space really is flat to such an extent that it creates a serious "fine-tuning" problem for cosmology. A bit more matter or a bit less and space would be noticeably curved....at least on cosmological scales.
This must go the way of dinosaurs. More accurately, the bicycle licenae and the television reception license.
Don't know about the US, but in India, you needed a license to ride a bicycle on public road till 1947 and TV broadcast reception licence 1984.
what the holy fuck!
so, taking photos of our own planet are 'security things' that need 'authorization'?
this proves we jumped the shark. I mean, any thinking person should object to the notion that you need 'permission' to photo anything about the earth.
look, if your toys are so secret that can't be photod, why are they not under physical cover, then?
absurdity. time to tear down all regulations and start over. it would be a mixed blessing to restart humanity. what we have now is going entirely in the wrong direction and shit like this just proves it pretty clearly.
"you need our permission to take photos from space". such utter bullshit.
I hate authoritarians. they all suck.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
No, they probably just want SpaceX to apply for the free license which Congress made a requirement in the law years ago so that they're compliant. Fortunately, SpaceX has now already applied for one and thus should be able to broadcast in the future.
In other words, this is much ado about nothing, except a very minor story about the amount of regulations Congress has passed regarding space.
The party of stupid and the party of evil get together and do something both stupid and evil, then call it bipartisan.
But they can broadcast to countries outside the US without paying a license fee, right? So they should just skip US for a few launches until wisdom comes to NOAA's head.
My father used to say, "if it's not clear what something is about, it's probably about money". In this case, a government agency sees a way to profit from selling licenses. Launch companies have money, therefore they need to "pay their fair share" to any government agency that can find a way to tax it using obscure interpretations of old laws.
Or did they take footage in space, unicast it down to earth, then broadcast it using the internet or other traditional medium?
a private corporation has a moral imperative to publicly tell Uncle Sam to get fucked.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
Go suck your masters' wee little dicks somewhere else.
Uh... shill, that is.
While it's true that there isn't a clear-cut definition of outer space for the purposes of the treaties, some of the proposed definitions are essentially variants on "the altitude at which you can orbit".
Hey Donald,
If you're looking, here's a great way to get rid of stupid regulations and maybe fire a few mid-level bureaucrats.
Just change the regulation to apply only to cameras with greater than 2400 x 1800 resolution or having lenses with focal length greater than 105 mm.
Do something actually useful for a change, please.
Don't take life too seriously; it isn't permanent.
Yea i was just thinking how this will give the conspiracy a jolt lol, but frankly it's amazing how no mountain is high enough for the lobbyright to reach ... copyright in space , who claims jurisdiction over the extra-atmosphere btw (extrasphere?) let me guess ... the leaders of the free world, right?
Free speech was meant to be free for all... how can anyone grow up in a nanny state ?
Because eventually, they'll perfect things enough that they can move their entire space launching operations into international waters and totally avoid such BS bureaucratic regulations.