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FCC Approves 5 Year Satellite Deorbiting Rule

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11–20 of 119 posts

Re: FCC Approves 5 Year Satellite Deorbiting Rule

#11

> The rule shortens the time required for satellite operators to deorbit LEO satellites to no more than 5 years after completing their mission, from 25 years. De-orbiting faster means reserving more propellant for the final de-orbit burn. Since the lifespan of satellites is already generally determined by how much propellant they have, this new rule effectively reduces the lifespan of any satellite high enough to req…

I'm no rocket scientist, but could there be a service which knocks satellites out of orbit for people? I wonder how cost effective such a service could get. Could one mission knock 10 satellites out of orbit?

It would cost more than reserving some propellant.

Re: FCC Approves 5 Year Satellite Deorbiting Rule

#12
I think this is generally a good thing to do, with some caveats that I hope the FCC considers.

For most satellites below ~450km, this is really a non-issue. Atmospheric drag will generally be sufficient to deorbit the satellite in a few years. For big Earth-observing constellations, Starlink and friends, and many small missions, this doesn't change anything. Debris don't really accumulate dangerously in this zone and collision avoidance is a well-studied problem with a lot of people doing great work. The 18th SDS with the US Space Force, LeoLabs, Starlink/SpaceX, and a lot of other constellation operators take this very seriously and do a good job.

For satellites in the 800km+ range, this is also not a meaningful change. The 25-year rule meant that these satellites needed a deorbit plan anyway. 800km is a rough estimate, in real life it depends on the satellite mass + geometry and the solar cycle.

For satellites in the 450-800km range (again - hand waving here) this is actually a big deal. Satellites that would decay naturally between 5 and 25 years now need an active deorbit plan or need to launch lower and keep themselves up with propellant. Small satellite propulsion is becoming cheaper and more available, so this isn't that onerous for commercial operators. But I do worry a little about educational and non-profit launchers of satellites. They'd be excluded from using launches to this orbital range unless the FCC allows waivers (which I'm hopeful they will).

Overall I don't think this has a particularly big impact. It's a sensible revision of an old rule that was a little too lax. But there aren't that many satellites launching at the high end of the 450-800km range without propulsion. The 1000km-2000km area is a more important area for debris mitigation and that was really already covered.

As for the FCC having this jurisdiction vs. the FAA or the USSF, as Spock would say - "it is not logical, but it is true."

Re: FCC Approves 5 Year Satellite Deorbiting Rule

#13

> The rule shortens the time required for satellite operators to deorbit LEO satellites to no more than 5 years after completing their mission, from 25 years. De-orbiting faster means reserving more propellant for the final de-orbit burn. Since the lifespan of satellites is already generally determined by how much propellant they have, this new rule effectively reduces the lifespan of any satellite high enough to req…

I'm no rocket scientist, but could there be a service which knocks satellites out of orbit for people? I wonder how cost effective such a service could get. Could one mission knock 10 satellites out of orbit?

With a vehicle, probably not. Moving form one satellite's orbit to another is extremely fuel-intensive (you'd typically need ~thousands of km/h of velocity change to do it), so it's not really practical to have a single vehicle up there moving from satellite to satellite.

But maybe there'd be some other way to do it? There have been proposals for de-orbiting little pieces of debris from the ground with lasers, and I suppose it's possible that those approaches would scale to bigger objects (or maybe you could do it with lasers from other satellites whose orbits were fixed, or something).

Re: FCC Approves 5 Year Satellite Deorbiting Rule

#14
post #4

I'd like to see a breakdown of deorbiting fuel requirements with 25 years vs 5 years vs, say, 30 days.

I'd expect the fuel required is generally the same, but this changes the altitude range for the question "do I need propulsion at all?" Satellites that would decay naturally in 6-10 years due to atmospheric drag would have satisfied the old rule. Now they need to install a propulsion system.

The actual impact is probably small - there aren't that many satellites launching to those altitudes, and most of them probably have a propulsion system anyway. But for a university satellite this could be a big obstacle.

Re: FCC Approves 5 Year Satellite Deorbiting Rule

#15
post #3

The previous "de-orbing 25 years after mission completion" sound a deliberately unenforceable rule.

It was enforced during licensing. In order to obtain a license from the FCC (which is effectively required to launch a satellite, unless you never want to communicate with it), you had to prove it would either deorbit naturally in < 25 years or that you had a system to do so at the end of the mission. The rule was generally to have a plan and an ability to deorbit after 25 years. A lot of satellites fail in ways that prevent using a propulsion system.

Re: FCC Approves 5 Year Satellite Deorbiting Rule

#16

I think this is generally a good thing to do, with some caveats that I hope the FCC considers. For most satellites below ~450km, this is really a non-issue. Atmospheric drag will generally be sufficient to deorbit the satellite in a few years. For big Earth-observing constellations, Starlink and friends, and many small missions, this doesn't change anything. Debris don't really accumulate dangerously in this zone and…

> Debris don't really accumulate dangerously in this zone and collision avoidance is a well-studied problem with a lot of people doing great work.

I think this line of thinking is dangerously incorrect. Sure it’s not a problem right now but we’re poised to have a lot more stuff in orbit than we’ve ever had before. Plastic waste didn’t initially “accumulate dangerously” either but once it became more widely used (and did accumulate dangerously) it was much more difficult to try to reign it back.

Re: FCC Approves 5 Year Satellite Deorbiting Rule

#17
post #3

The previous "de-orbing 25 years after mission completion" sound a deliberately unenforceable rule.

I'm not sure but I think has to do with parking the satellite in a lower orbit such that the atmospheric drag will force it to reenter within 25 years, not that the operator has 25 years to deorbit the satellite at some point.

I think this has to do with the amount of fuel the need to save to reach the disposal orbit.

Re: FCC Approves 5 Year Satellite Deorbiting Rule

#18

> The rule shortens the time required for satellite operators to deorbit LEO satellites to no more than 5 years after completing their mission, from 25 years. De-orbiting faster means reserving more propellant for the final de-orbit burn. Since the lifespan of satellites is already generally determined by how much propellant they have, this new rule effectively reduces the lifespan of any satellite high enough to req…

I'm no rocket scientist, but could there be a service which knocks satellites out of orbit for people? I wonder how cost effective such a service could get. Could one mission knock 10 satellites out of orbit?

I'm aware of Astroscale (https://astroscale.com/). They're a Japanese company with a presence in the US and UK that's commercializing this sort of service. I'm not sure if they have plans for multi-satellite de-orbit services, but they do have single-satellite plans.

Among other things, they're promoting a standardized docking adapter (https://astroscale.com/docking-plate/) to give satellite operators a path to either life extension (refueling and/or orbit raising) or de-orbit.

Re: FCC Approves 5 Year Satellite Deorbiting Rule

#20

> The rule shortens the time required for satellite operators to deorbit LEO satellites to no more than 5 years after completing their mission, from 25 years. De-orbiting faster means reserving more propellant for the final de-orbit burn. Since the lifespan of satellites is already generally determined by how much propellant they have, this new rule effectively reduces the lifespan of any satellite high enough to req…

I'm no rocket scientist, but could there be a service which knocks satellites out of orbit for people? I wonder how cost effective such a service could get. Could one mission knock 10 satellites out of orbit?

Going from travelling at Mach 25 in one direction to travelling at Mach 25 in a different direction takes an amount of energy comparable to going from 0 to Mach 25. Being outside of atmosphere helps a lot, and being able to use the less powerful but more efficient electric ion propulsion engines helps a lot, but 10 satellites per mission is usually not feasible. 3 per mission is the number I've heard.

Some companies approaching this problem are hoping to utilize refueling depots. It adds another expensive rendezvous but it does help.

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