$150k sounds like a rounding error for a satellite operator. Is there a rapidly increasing fee schedule or other penalties, such us restricted future launches? Otherwise it would be folded into the regular operating expenses.
In general, a lot of government fees and penalties are not just about that penalty, it's about the fact that if you do it again, the next one will be much, much bigger. Read the $150K as a warning shot across the bow.
There are some places where this doesn't seem to operate very well, particularly in the financial world, but in general, this is often the idea behind these penalties. Especially for the first time a law is getting enforced; it isn't really very just to ignore a law for years/decades and then one day out of the blue slam someone with multi-million dollar judgments. There are even some Common Law doctrines that the targets could use to argue against such penalties holding up in court, though, as always, trying to counter a written law with common law general doctrines is tricky. But I'd say there's at least a good chance you could get a sudden, huge initial penalty argued way down in a lawsuit.
Yes. And also, it's bad PR for the team responsible. Managers don't want to have trouble hiring people. After the first fine, the message can be "we're modernizing to stop this from happening!" But getting multiple fines over years is going to make the best of the talent poor essentially unavailable to hire.
From the outside how would you tell the difference between this and a back door agreement between regulators to offer a low fine in exchange for favors down the line?
> Otherwise it would be folded into the regular operating expenses.
If you read the consent decree[1] you can see that the monetary fee is not the only thing DISH agreed to.
In section 18 you can see they agreed to implement a compliance plan. Basically they improve on their fuel tracking, and end of mission planning. This makes it more likely that this thing won't happen again, and also makes it easier to argue if it still happens that it happened wilfully.
Well of course it won't look like a traffic ticket, when they just pay with a credit card online and call it done. There is paperwork and "promises" and agreements. They have to have a compliance "officer" now and they have to report that propellant tracking has been implemented. That's still a drop in the bucket to have to shorten the life of their satellites. The fuel alone probably costs more than $150k.
It establishes a level of liability and bad behaviour which means if it collides with something they'll probably have an easy time suing dish for the cost of the satellite (millions).
2002 - Dish Network launches EchoStar-7 with a 10 year license from the FCC
2004 - FCC passes new Orbital Debris Mitigation rules, grandfathering existing satellites[1]
2012 - Dish Network applies for a license extension, which includes provisions according to the new rules
2020 - FCC updates debris mitigation rules[2]
2022 - Dish Network notices unexpected fuel loss, and begins moving satellite to graveyard orbit, but only makes it 122km instead of the required 300km.
I had remembered recent press releases about new debris mitigation rules and my first reaction when reading this story was surprise that the FCC was applying the new rules to a satellite launched over 20 years ago, but it appears that is not the case. Dish Network is being fined according to rules that were in place when they requested their license extensions, not the more recent rules.
Not enough, they should be require to fix their mistake by sending out another Satellite to either retrieve it or push it out where it was indented to be.
Additionally to prevent a company from just going bankrupt they should be required to pay in advance a fee to a fund (ala FDIC) that will deal with issues that have to be dealt with. In this case it may be "ok" but what if this satellite was not out of the active geostationary zone and posed a risk to others important satellites?
Asking that first point of a company right now would probably just kill the geostationary launch industry for a few years. Those kinds of mission rescue/extension vehicles are still under development. There was one such mission a few years ago, but it was a special case for reasons I can't recall right now. At the moment I think there are a handful of companies working on both adapters to be placed on the initial satellite and the MEV to go with it which would be launched in case of a problem with certain systems.
Plus, retrieving it is almost guaranteed to be unrealistic. It's out near geostationary orbit. The only options are to have an MEV move it into normal geostationary orbit or dump it into a graveyard orbit.
The direction is good though. Instead of a fine they could be required to pay a space janitor to clean up their mess in the next N years. That would provide funding and motivation for space janitor companies to improve their technology faster.
> Not enough, they should be require to fix their mistake by sending out another Satellite to either retrieve it or push it out where it was indented to be.
Seems like a plan with a bad risk/reward ratio. Right now the satellite isn't where it's supposed to be, but neither is it directly in the way of other geostationary satellites. But if you send up another satellite to deliberately interface with this one and move both up, you risk something going wrong and either getting stuck with two satellites in that position, or worse, both crashing into each other and making a huge mess. It's probably better to wait until the technology for grappling satellites in space is mature. This is presently an active area of research and development (OSAM), so a bit of patience should pay off.
In an alternate reality there's an equal but opposite HN quarterback:
"Too much! I get sending a message with a small initial fine like 150k plus requiring a compliance plan, but this high amount is a step too far. Prepayment is just the epitome of regulatory capture IMO. Even for selfish reasons a satellite company will strive to keep their satellites minimally functional and safe from any systemic dangers in orbit. But I guess Uncle Sam always has to get his cut."
Realistically I almost never see upvoted comments saying a governmental fine was too much, even when the fine is, say, significantly greater than the entire companies revenue.
Honestly this is mostly fair. The fine is small but non-negligible. The infraction here is really the poor propellant tracking which is a mistake, not some nefarious plot or gross negligence. The satellite didn’t quite make the graveyard orbit but it’s out of the way. Tracking in GEO is only getting better, so it’s not really a debris risk. But you do have to issue fines to signal to the industry that getting deorbit plans wrong has a consequence.
This debris is probably actually pretty cheap to remove by chance.
The orbit it is in is perfectly between geostationary and the disposal orbit. That means any other satellite who is travelling from one orbit to the other can stop off on-route for no fuel or time cost.
'grabbing' a satellite is fairly easy too. Even a fridge magnet would be enough to grab this satellite - since even tiny forces over many hours are enough in space.
I therefore suspect that it would be possible to complete this disposal with a satellite already on orbit - ie. not specially designed for the purpose, and using very little additional fuel - perhaps some operational satellites even have enough extra in reserve.
Are you really suggesting some satellite drop whatever its doing, break its orbit to meet up with this thing and attempt to push it, all while risking irreparable damage? These things are made for a lonely existence in space, so they don't have bumpers or cameras or little fridge magnets for docking with other spacecraft.
While still being important, I'd like to draw people's attention to the fact that this is a satellite a long way away from Earth, and is not in any significant danger of causing low Earth orbit to become a no-go area. It's remotely possible that it might cause a problem out at geostationary orbit, but that's very unlikely. There's a lot more space out there and most satellites are all moving in the same direction and at the same speed, making it a lot safer than low Earth orbit.
They put DISH under a consent decree. Despite the low size of the fine, I expect the long term cost to DISH will be enormous. Consent decrees are no joke.
Readit News
There are some places where this doesn't seem to operate very well, particularly in the financial world, but in general, this is often the idea behind these penalties. Especially for the first time a law is getting enforced; it isn't really very just to ignore a law for years/decades and then one day out of the blue slam someone with multi-million dollar judgments. There are even some Common Law doctrines that the targets could use to argue against such penalties holding up in court, though, as always, trying to counter a written law with common law general doctrines is tricky. But I'd say there's at least a good chance you could get a sudden, huge initial penalty argued way down in a lawsuit.
If you read the consent decree[1] you can see that the monetary fee is not the only thing DISH agreed to.
In section 18 you can see they agreed to implement a compliance plan. Basically they improve on their fuel tracking, and end of mission planning. This makes it more likely that this thing won't happen again, and also makes it easier to argue if it still happens that it happened wilfully.
1: https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DA-23-888A2.pdf
This. There are other compliance conditions, and failure to comply means no more launch licenses.
Now, most probably nothing is out there waiting to get run over by a derelict Dish bird, but if there was...
Dead Comment
2002 - Dish Network launches EchoStar-7 with a 10 year license from the FCC
2004 - FCC passes new Orbital Debris Mitigation rules, grandfathering existing satellites[1]
2012 - Dish Network applies for a license extension, which includes provisions according to the new rules
2020 - FCC updates debris mitigation rules[2]
2022 - Dish Network notices unexpected fuel loss, and begins moving satellite to graveyard orbit, but only makes it 122km instead of the required 300km.
2022 - FCC updates debris mitigation rules again[3]
I had remembered recent press releases about new debris mitigation rules and my first reaction when reading this story was surprise that the FCC was applying the new rules to a satellite launched over 20 years ago, but it appears that is not the case. Dish Network is being fined according to rules that were in place when they requested their license extensions, not the more recent rules.
[1] https://www.fcc.gov/document/mitigration-orbital-debris
[2] https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-updates-orbital-debris-miti...
[3] https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-adopts-new-5-year-rule-deor...
It almost seems like we need some ion drive cleanup tugs in orbit. Mayb they could reclaim reaction mass gradually from the solar wind.
Additionally to prevent a company from just going bankrupt they should be required to pay in advance a fee to a fund (ala FDIC) that will deal with issues that have to be dealt with. In this case it may be "ok" but what if this satellite was not out of the active geostationary zone and posed a risk to others important satellites?
Plus, retrieving it is almost guaranteed to be unrealistic. It's out near geostationary orbit. The only options are to have an MEV move it into normal geostationary orbit or dump it into a graveyard orbit.
Seems like a plan with a bad risk/reward ratio. Right now the satellite isn't where it's supposed to be, but neither is it directly in the way of other geostationary satellites. But if you send up another satellite to deliberately interface with this one and move both up, you risk something going wrong and either getting stuck with two satellites in that position, or worse, both crashing into each other and making a huge mess. It's probably better to wait until the technology for grappling satellites in space is mature. This is presently an active area of research and development (OSAM), so a bit of patience should pay off.
I suppose that in orbit, space has won out over tabs. :-)
(sorry I couldn't help myself)
"Too much! I get sending a message with a small initial fine like 150k plus requiring a compliance plan, but this high amount is a step too far. Prepayment is just the epitome of regulatory capture IMO. Even for selfish reasons a satellite company will strive to keep their satellites minimally functional and safe from any systemic dangers in orbit. But I guess Uncle Sam always has to get his cut."
Space libertarianism here we go!
The orbit it is in is perfectly between geostationary and the disposal orbit. That means any other satellite who is travelling from one orbit to the other can stop off on-route for no fuel or time cost.
'grabbing' a satellite is fairly easy too. Even a fridge magnet would be enough to grab this satellite - since even tiny forces over many hours are enough in space.
I therefore suspect that it would be possible to complete this disposal with a satellite already on orbit - ie. not specially designed for the purpose, and using very little additional fuel - perhaps some operational satellites even have enough extra in reserve.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37744077