https://www.pcmag.com/news/despite-spacex-protests-fcc-clear...
Comment period ended in July.
https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs/search/search-filings/results?q=(pr...
The source article is quite clear there's no regulatory violations here.
> "Although this IEMR abides by ITU-R guidelines, these intensities are large compared to the strongest astronomical radio sources in the sky and will therefore have the potential to disrupt astronomical observations at SKA-Low frequencies;"
> "The detected IEMR and UEMR are outside of the frequency bands protected for radio astronomy, but are at frequencies of great interest for key experiments for the SKA-Low facility, and at frequencies where RQZ protections at the SKA-Low site are in place;"
The claim stands whether a regulation will be put in place which will require SpaceX to fix or switch off their (thousands) of satellites polluting the spectrum or the band will simply be handed to SpaceX.
"This UEMR is not currently regulated by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), the organization responsible for managing and allocating the radio spectrum for various uses"
Especially since the observations appear to be outside the protected spectrum, the answer is "that's probably okay". There's balancing that needs to be done - does the safety benefit of a world in which nobody can be out of contact of emergency services, and the economic benefit of having reasonably high speed internet available everywhere, outweigh the loss of radio astronomy potential.
I think it probably does.
Further context: the signal strengths they're talking about are equivalents of isotropic emitters in the *milliwatt* power range, detectable down to the microwatts—detectable at ranges of thousands of kilometers,
https://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/full_html/2023/10/aa47654-... ("Detection of intended and unintended emissions from Starlink satellites in the SKA-Low frequency range, at the SKA-Low site, with an SKA-Low station analogue")
> "The flashes reach a maximum intensity of approximately 10^6 Jy beam^−1 at ranges of ∼500 km (EIRP ∼ 30 mW) and a minimum intensity of approximately 2000 Jy beam^−1 at ranges of ∼2000 km (EIRP ∼ 1 mW)"
Further context: part of the EMI isn't a fixable circuit design issue—it's (I understand) EMI from normal operation of ion thrusters,
> "The authors have been in communication with SpaceX (who owns, builds, and operates the Starlink constellation), who explains that this radiation is likely due to the satellites’ propulsion or avionics system and is likely over 50–200 MHz (SpaceX 2023, priv. comm.) The propulsion system is actively engaged during the time this train is detected. This radiation is therefore in the class of UEMR."
Well, that's what is required to receive a weak signal from beyond that circuit board, from outer space.
> there's no reasonable way to adapt to that
You'd be surprised what becomes reasonable and possible once a requirement is set.
> it's unreasonable to ask an entire planet to turn into a radio-quiet zone.
Noone is asking that.
It's reasonable to require radio interference of a device to stay within defined boundaries. This is the case in all other industries as well, why shouldn't it suddenly apply for a fleet of satellites which blast radio signals from outer space to earth?
No; it really isn't. There's no industry on the planet where "must accept" regulations are set by the world's most sensitive physics experiments.
Do we set acoustic noise regulations by what a LIGO interferometer can measure? Of course not. We'd have to outlaw the mechanical engine were it so. Regress to a medieval society of horse people (very small horses with noise-absorbing horseshoes).
Do we regulate nuclear power by what astrophysical neutrino detectors perceive? Also, no. Even though they see fission reactors on the other side of the planet, and it is noise to them.
The prior art is we that set noise regulations by what interferes with actual humans in their actual day-to-day functioning; and we set RF regulations by what interferes with the functioning of other circuits useful to humans. Not exotic physics experiments. This is a new thing to ask; and it is bold.
The criteria is not industry vs. "world's most sensitive physics experiments", it's industry vs. "agreed activity for public/societal benefit". And there are many examples for it.
We regulate light/noise and other pollution in consideration of wildlife and plants, we regulate nuclear waste disposal considering our responsibilities to the greater public good.
We could also not regulate anything with regards to wildlife and plants, there is no immediate economic benefit to preserve all variants of rhinos, tigers, reptiles etc., we could kill all plants except the most resilient one, it's much more economic to maintain them in long-term then.
We could also globally agree to dispose all nuclear waste in one place on earth and just never go there again.
Actually we could disband entities like the EPA, because we can figure out solutions to each environmental impact on-demand if there's enough incentive for it.
But we don't, because there is (or used to be) consensus that there are also goals beyond short-term economic growth. Areas of interest for greater society, for mankind if you will.
In that case, I'm not sure why you're concerned. Let's flip this around: set up our regulations to loosen our EMI radiation restrictions & facilitate our satellites and space exploration. According to your logic, that should be perfectly reasonable to astronomers, if that's what the regulations say, and it should be possible for them to adapt to that.
If that's not what you meant, then astronomy needs to make some concessions.
“You'd be surprised what becomes reasonable and possible once a requirement is set [and additional funding is allocated to overcome the negative consequences of said requirement]”
It is then up to the taxpayer to define whether the path of performing astronomy research in orbit of earth to preserve a for-profit business-model is more reasonable than defining regulation which allows such research to be performed on earth for a fraction of the cost (but may require for-profit companies to further invest in R&D to comply or re-evaluate their business model).
It's that simple. Astronomy won't be able to provide immediate ROI or a sales-plan of increased revenue to offset the cost-increase when researching in orbit. So if that's the only criteria, then such research is a futile activity and will be stopped.
Astronomy research?, Radio spectrum?, LOE?, Starlink operations?
All of this is global. In the end it'll be about geopolitics, although it should be a field that urgently requires global governance and consensus.
Next time it could be interference between Starlink vs. a Chinese for-profit. It would be good if there's a commonly agreed way of handling such matters in place...
> Astronomy won't be able to provide immediate ROI or a sales-plan of increased revenue to offset the cost-increase when researching in orbit.
That's too bad. I was under the impression that "You'd be surprised what becomes reasonable and possible once a requirement is set."
So your belief is that for-profit companies should not be required to comply to regulation put in place after they start business in any field.
And for-profit companies who later join to compete with them? They should, because it's not "additional"? Or also not, to ensure a competitive market?
So basically no regulation of any kind shall happen, because companies should not be expected to cope with new regulation if it incurs additional effort for them.
Congrats.
That is not what they said. That's an extremely bad-faith statement that's not even a "misinterpretation", because that implies that there is a valid interpretation, and there isn't - you just made up something completely different and claimed that they said it.
You're really not helping your argument here if you have to resort to lying about other peoples' words in order to try to defend your positions.
Interesting that was your takeaway, when all I actually said was "no double standards pls".
(i.e., hold astronomy and for-profits to the same standard, insofar that they have to just 'deal with it' when new regulation shows up - or not.)
I don't understand your comment on so many levels. The ITU treaties do exist, and they do protect observational astronomy bands, and everything here is *in compliance with* extant ITU regs. As I quoted above. I can turn your words on your head: who are astronomers to make arbitrary choices for rest of the human species? Or, who are HN to? People do want their gadgets to work. They value that more highly than many things, things more important than mere astronomy experiments—more highly than human rights, for example (to contemplate all the slave labor in the modern electronics supply chains).
On another level: you say it's just one one company, but that company is obviously just an early-adopter, leading-edge of a great horde of space companies going in for the gold rush. There will be many others, and then there will be the Chinese military, and—do you think there will be more favorable outcomes negotiating with the PLA, filing complaints to the PLA over the RFI of their prized military assets? Yeah; no. In 5-10 years the landscape will certainly be utterly unrecognizable, and it will not be a SpaceX hegemony any longer. You will be opposed to a hundred adversaries of many nations—not just that one.
And following after that, there will be humans and human tourists going up, pretty soon I'd bet; by the thousands; and they'll be bringing their electronics gadgets up to visit, and later inhabit, Earth orbit. Have you internalized the numbers we're discussing here? This telescope array can detect the equivalent of a short-range wireless Bluetooth gadget at 2,000 kilometers range—and they're complaining about it, they want that banned. (Literally—if it weren't for the earth in between us, my wireless mouse right here could be radiating greater signal power through your body, dear reader, no matter where you are right now on the planet, than these satellites flashes we're discussing here. Click, click.) No way is that compatible with a future of humans inhabiting space. The space RF environment is, incomprehensibly pristine as it stands... but that won't last, can't last, there's no way humanity moving to the stars will preserve that pristine silence, you might us well give up right away. Fighting it is futile, foolish, misguided, and more than a little misanthropic.
They also mentioned detecting narrowband transmissions from a commercial FM station, 300km from the radio observatory that reflected off the satellite.
Which, like, cool that they can detect that, but you completely lost me if want to ban all metallic objects in earth orbit.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Echo ("Project Echo" (1960-69))
(Here's a historic irony: the field of radio astronomy was founded by people doing this stuff. The cosmic microwave background was discovered, by accident, with an RF horn built for this satellite relay experiment).
(Here's another weird one:)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_West_Ford ("Project West Ford" (1961-63)) ("The goal of the project was to place a ring of 480,000,000 copper dipole antennas in orbit to facilitate global radio communication")
Yes, this could cause problems, like loss of GPS, weather prediction and other scientific equipment, and enemies wouldn’t be able to keep an eye on each other as easily, leading to wars. But, maybe light pollution would be less annoying.
If this balancing argument is merely based on short-term economics, then of course the corporation always wins. Every commons becomes a tragedy in that world.
There is also a huge safety benefit in killing all wild animals, and companies are even happy to build taxable businesses for that if allowed.
This needs to be evaluated and balanced against the economic benefit of having wild animals roam the planet free of charge...
/s
How is the whole Musk/Trump love affair going today?
They'd be begging for the FCC after that.