4

In January, the PSLV launch delivered 28 satellites to orbit, with 4 SpaceBee satellites among that number, despite them not having an FCC licence (due to size, visibility and tracking concerns)

As mentioned in this article there should have been checks to confirm the satellites launched were licenced, but what do those checks consist of?

Rory Alsop
  • 13,617
  • 4
  • 62
  • 90
  • Would this not depend heavily upon juristiction. A company not based in the USA launching outside USA, why would they need FCC which I think is an USA agencys aproval? – lijat Mar 11 '18 at 06:02
  • Happy to restrict this to US only if that helps - but given the strong collaboration between space-faring nations I am assuming any answer is likely to be broadly applicable. – Rory Alsop Mar 11 '18 at 09:47
  • 1
    @lijat This depends on the interpretation of the outer space treaty. Most countries have signed it and one of its key points is that countries are liable for damages caused by their spacecraft. This means that defacto all space agencies coordinate with eachother in order to prevent collisions and the FCC plays a big part in this globally – Dragongeek Mar 11 '18 at 13:23

1 Answers1

2

The launch provider is supposed to look at the licenses. I know with one of the launches that I have been involved with, the license was approved only a few days before launch, and the launch provider was getting pretty nervous and expecting that we would work on improving that.

PearsonArtPhoto
  • 121,132
  • 22
  • 347
  • 614