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."

Comments

Flat earth

[pablo_max]

Clearly this is part of the coverup designed to convince us that the world is not flat. Nice try.

Public Photography

[pr0t0]

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.

Re:Public Photography

[Anonymous Coward]

I also didn't know that NOAA has supplanted the FCC on broadcast rules as well as extending their ownership to space to enforce their rules there.

Re: Security rules

[Tomahawk]

Those images are not in a high enough resolution to cause any such issues for the military. All you can see is the general outline of the large features. The basically send back a HD image, at best. It's not as of they are sending back images that at 10m per pixel, more like 500m per pixel, or higher still.

This is just NOAA wanting more money, because they can.

Re: Free Money

[Strider-]

The License itself is free. In this situation, NOAA is stuck between a rock and a hard place. The legislation as written started that all imaging done From orbit by private operators must be licenced. It doesn't make any exceptions for low resolution cameras, or engineering cameras that are only temporarily in orbit. The NOAA office simply can not issue a waiver to SpaceX as there is no provision in the relevant law that would permit them to do so.

The only real solution would be for congress to pass new legislation to allow exemptions and so forth, set minimum resolution threshold or whatever. But given how disfunctional congress is these days, I don't think we'll see it for a while.

Re:Frrosty!

[Killall -9 Bash]

Earth is fake.
Space is flat.

Re:Um... jurisdiction?

[pjt33]

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:

States Parties to the Treaty shall bear international responsibility for national activities in outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, whether such activities are carried on by governmental agencies or by non-governmental entities, and for assuring that national activities are carried out in conformity with the provisions set forth in the present Treaty. The activities of non-governmental entities in outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, shall require authorization and continuing supervision by the appropriate State Party to the Treaty. ...

Article VIII:

A State Party to the Treaty on whose registry an object launched into outer space is carried shall retain jurisdiction and control over such object, and over any personnel thereof, while in outer space or on a celestial body. ...

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.

Re:Security rules

[Xylantiel]

I'm a little suspicious of the claim that this is being "interpreted in a new way", and it generally sounds like the reporter is more interested in manufacturing controversy for a catchy story than actually figuring out what is going on. The NOAA release says that SpaceX has a license already, so that's not "new". I'm wondering if, in a previous launch, they violated some "conditions" that nobody on either side wants to talk about specifically. Another option would be that there was something special about this launch that fell on the wrong side of the "conditions" of SpaceX's license. But the reporter apparently couldn't be bothered to actually report the story, they just made up something vague and inflammatory that isn't even consistent with their own primary sources.

Re:Security rules

[thomst]

https://slashdot.org/~Xylantiel confessed:

I'm a little suspicious of the claim that this is being "interpreted in a new way", and it generally sounds like the reporter is more interested in manufacturing controversy for a catchy story than actually figuring out what is going on. The NOAA release says that SpaceX has a license already, so that's not "new". I'm wondering if, in a previous launch, they violated some "conditions" that nobody on either side wants to talk about specifically. Another option would be that there was something special about this launch that fell on the wrong side of the "conditions" of SpaceX's license. But the reporter apparently couldn't be bothered to actually report the story, they just made up something vague and inflammatory that isn't even consistent with their own primary sources.

Brzzt.

The NOAA statement you link to is virtually content-free. That's a fact.

The only thing that seems to have changed is the addition of payload cameras for the Falcon Heavy test launch to showcase Elon Musk's Tesla Roadster and its spacesuited dummy driver, with the Earth as its background. That video has gone pandemic, and, in the process, has immensely boosted both SpaceX's and Elon Musk's own credibility and reputation around the globe, without in any way endangering the USA's national security.

Were I conspiracy-inclined, I'd point to the fact that Musk's resignation from Trump's Economic Advisory Council started a stampede for the exits by other members of that body that resulted in it being disbanded - after having met a grand total of one time - and that sequence of events put a major dent in POTUS 45's claim to have "all the best people" advising him.

Then I'd note that among Donald Trump's signal personality traits is holding very public grudges (and prosecuting them in ludicrously petty ways) over insignificant perceived slights. I'd probably also mention that NOAA, counter-intuitively, is an agency of the Commerce Department - and that Wilbur Ross, the current Secretary of that department, has demonstrated himself to be among the very most shameless presidential sycophants in a Cabinet stuffed to bursting with unabashed toadies and lickspittles.

But I'm not much into conspiracy-mongering, so I'll just add my voice to those who have characterized this bit of bureaucratic thuggery as standard-issue government overreach, tip my hat to the Streisand Effect, and say, "Let's see what happens next time, shall we ... ?"