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Comment by dahdum | Hacker News Reader

> To me it sounds like there should be clear regulation about right of way in space

Common courtesy worldwide would be for the person causing the risk to move aside first. Worse still it was a private company working on a for-profit product forcing a public weather satellite to divert.

There's no need for regulation until bad actors show up.

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Are we then saying there's an equivalent of domain squatting in space? Cause I could see all types of problems showing up if we call that common courtesy.

Domain squatting is on unused domains while this was an active public weather satellite already on an established orbit. Not at all comparable.

But the implication is then someone will launch a million tiny satellites doing nothing and occupy a million orbits.

That said, this was in my opinion very bad form for SpaceX, to the point I wonder if, as hinted in the article, they simply can’t do collision avoidance properly.

I don't follow - domain squatting takes a domain and makes it unusable for others, orbit squatting would take an unused orbit and make it unusable for others.

The fundamental question is whether you have the right to the exclusive use of an orbital path just because you were there first. This is unresolved but I'm pretty sure the answer is no.

Assigning value (public/private, research/commercial, etc.) to each parties use just muddies the waters. There needs to be an established resolution process and AFAIK there isn't one.

Domain squatting is taking an unused domain and leaving it unused. Google isn’t domain squatting google.com, just like ESA wasn’t orbit squatting.

Assigning value is also necessary. We reserve spectrum for public safety and eventually may need to reserve orbital paths in the same way. Seems like we are pretty far from filling up the sky even with current avoidance tech though.

No, because satellite orbits aren't owned or held by anyone. Not to mention all low orbits have decent amount of junk that's in the process of deorbiting.

Satellites don't "move" into each other's way. Orbits naturally end up that way. There's no one "causing the risk" in the first place. SpaceX could have just as easily asked the ESA to move their satellite as it was getting in the way of their satellite.

You conveniently avoid the fact that SpaceX inserted itself into a collision course with the ESA’s orbit, long after ESA had been there. Being that ESA has a “right of way” they asked SpaceX to take the action

The risk of a crash was 1 in 1,000. This is 10 times the threshold of 1 in 10,000 that requires a maneuver. Both of these satellites have been in orbit long enough for accumulated error to cause the satellite to drift from its predicted path. There are many satellite orbit-crossing events every day, and the accumulated drift is the primary cause of their orbits becoming close enough to require action. An anticipated collision that requires course correction is as close to a no-fault scenario as there can be.

ESA's orbit is itself constantly changing. Orbits are not fixed. They move constantly from orbital perturbation from Earth's gravity field, the moon's gravity field and, notably at these low altitudes, atmospheric drag. Again, who moved into who's path is not something you're going to determine. Yes SpaceX was lowering its orbit, but it's crossing hundreds of satellites paths by doing that, and even the orbit SpaceX satellites are in are shared by many other satellites. LEO is crowded.

> There's no need for regulation until bad actors show up.

What a ridiculous statement. I suppose you'd also suggest no need for traffic laws until there's a 50 car pileup?

Isn't that how most regulations come to be? People die and people realize it can be avoided?

Bad actors are sometimes involuntarily so.

Historically, that is exactly how we arrived at traffic laws.

Kessler syndrome stipulates that may not be a viable approach for orbital ethics/law.

Don’t we know what needs doing? Why do we have to reinvent the wheel?

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