Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

Camera-Studded Falcon Heavy Launch Blamed for NOAA's Restrictions on Livestreamed Launch Video

posted by chromas on Friday April 06 2018, @06:55PM   Printer-friendly
from the unlicensed-pixels-prove-the-earth-is-flat dept.

takyon writes:

During a recent SpaceX launch for Iridium, the live coverage of the mission was cut off early, with the host pointing to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) restrictions on launches that don't obtain a license. While SpaceX may have been breaking the law on previous missions that it had broadcasted without obtaining a license, it appears that nobody at NOAA realized until the high-profile maiden launch of Falcon Heavy. However, there is also a dispute over whether NOAA approached SpaceX about the issue or SpaceX voluntarily asked for a license:

NOAA had recently told the company to get a license for the cameras on the rocket, SpaceX said after the launch. The reason? The cameras take video of the Earth from orbit, and NOAA regulates imagery of Earth taken from space, thanks to a 26-year-old law. However, this was the first time SpaceX needed to get a license for its cameras. SpaceX filed a license application just four days before the launch, but NOAA couldn't approve the use of the cameras in time. (Reviews can take up to 120 days, NOAA says.) And so there was a blackout when the Falcon 9 reached orbit.

What changed? SpaceX and other rocket companies have been livestreaming their launches from orbit for years now, and practically all show Earth in the background. Well, it's possible that SpaceX may be in NOAA's crosshairs because of the company's recent Falcon Heavy launch and famous Starman livestream. In February, SpaceX aired live footage of SpaceX CEO Elon Musk's Tesla in space for hours, with Earth prominently featured in the background. It got massive amounts of attention — and that may have triggered NOAA to reach out to SpaceX, requiring the company to get a license for its cameras, according to a report from SpacePolicyOnline.com.

[...] There's still some confusion around the livestream saga, though. NOAA claims that SpaceX was the one to reach out to the agency about getting a license, not the other way around. "It was SpaceX that came to us," Tahara Dawkins, the director of NOAA's Commercial Remote Sensing Regulatory Affairs Office said at a meeting Tuesday, according to Space News. "It wasn't NOAA that went out to them and said, 'Hey, stop, you're going to need a license.'" SpaceX disagrees. A company spokesperson, speaking on background, says it only filed an application after NOAA said the cameras qualified as a "remote sensing space system" and needed a license. (We asked NOAA for further clarification and will update the story if we hear back.)

Plus, neither NOAA nor SpaceX will admit that the Falcon Heavy launch was what started this chain of events, but Weeden argues it's the likeliest catalyst. "Starman probably attracted so much attention that someone at NOAA or someone at SpaceX realized they may have crossed that threshold to start thinking about that license," he says. When asked during Tuesday's meeting if SpaceX had broken the law with its past broadcasts from space, NOAA's Dawkins said "she would not know without looking specifically at what took place," according to SpacePolicyOnline.com.

SpaceX says it doesn't need to obtain a license for NASA missions, such as the recent CRS-14 mission to the International Space Station. SpaceNews notes that the American Space Commerce Free Enterprise Act would allow the Secretary of Commerce to waive licensing of some remote sensing systems.

Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Camera-Studded Falcon Heavy Launch Blamed for NOAA's Restrictions on Livestreamed Launch Video | Log In/Create an Account | Top | 27 comments | Search Discussion
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by JNCF on Friday April 06 2018, @08:14PM (2 children)

    by JNCF (4317) on Friday April 06 2018, @08:14PM (#663538) Journal

    Every weather war conspiracy should include this quote:

    Others are engaging even in an eco- type of terrorism whereby they can alter the climate, set off earthquakes, volcanoes remotely through the use of electromagnetic waves.

    --Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen, April 28, 1997 [archive.is]

    Nevermind the context, this particular sentence was phrased in the present tense! Also bring up Bernard Eastlund's patents. [wikipedia.org]

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +1  
       Interesting=1, Total=1
    Extra 'Interesting' Modifier   0  
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  
    Total Score:   3  

  • (Score: 2) by frojack on Friday April 06 2018, @10:06PM (1 child)

    by frojack (1554) on Friday April 06 2018, @10:06PM (#663557) Journal

    Nevermind the context?

    The man was speaking about mere fears and false scare of a threat that distract agencies from doing their jobs.

    A: Well, it points out the nature of the threat. It turned out to be a false threat under the circumstances. But as we've learned in the intelligence community, we had something called -- and we have James Woolsey here to perhaps even address this question about phantom moles. The mere fear that there is a mole within an agency can set off a chain reaction and a hunt for that particular mole which can paralyze the agency for weeks and months and years even, in a search. The same thing is true about just the false scare of a threat of using some kind of a chemical weapon or a biological one. There are some reports, for example, that some countries have been trying to construct something like an Ebola Virus, and that would be a very dangerous phenomenon, to say the least. Alvin Toeffler has written about this in terms of some scientists in their laboratories trying to devise certain types of pathogens that would be ethnic specific so that they could just eliminate certain ethnic groups and races; and others are designing some sort of engineering, some sort of insects that can destroy specific crops. Others are engaging even in an eco- type of terrorism whereby they can alter the climate, set off earthquakes, volcanoes remotely through the use of electromagnetic waves.

    So there are plenty of ingenious minds out there that are at work finding ways in which they can wreak terror upon other nations. It's real, and that's the reason why we have to intensify our efforts, and that's why this is so important.

    Never mind the context indeed!!! You seem particularly good at that.

    --
    No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.

    • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Saturday April 07 2018, @12:49AM

      by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Saturday April 07 2018, @12:49AM (#663603) Journal

      The man was speaking about mere fears and false scare of a threat that distract agencies from doing their jobs.

      That's what they want you to think.

      ---

      Never mind the context indeed!!! You seem particularly good at that.

      It seems he's in a good company this time. Speaking [soylentnews.org] of [soylentnews.org] context [xkcd.com]:

      Since NOAA is involved, I think this is a prime opportunity for a weather war conspiracy theory.

      Here's how my conspiracy theory is evolving. I'd like to propose a network of weather modification machines housed in pizza place basements across North America. I think we can identify which pizza places are involved by the quality of their cheese pizza. ... Even if they won't let you into their basement, somebody who is following up on this theory will at least leave very satisfied.

      Every weather war conspiracy should include this quote:...

      Nevermind the context, this particular sentence was phrased in the present tense! Also bring up Bernard Eastlund's patents.

      --
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford