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The Federal Communications Committee (FCC) may be shirking its responsibility when information technology comes to net neutrality, but it's still hard at piece of work regulating commercial satellite launches. The agency has started an investigation of a California startup for launching 4 pocket-size satellites without proper authorization. If confirmed, this would be the first always unauthorized launch of commercial satellites.

You're probably wondering how we've gone this long without an unauthorized satellite launch. Until recently, it was simply very difficult and expensive to reach orbit, and anyone attempting to do so without approval would accept been stopped. Now, a visitor can develop small CubeSats on the cheap and pay less than $100,000 for space on a rocket. That appears to exist the situation with Menlo Park-based Swarm Technologies. The company launched its outset four satellites in January aboard an Indian Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (run across above).

The satellites, known equally SpaceBEE ane-4, were successfully deployed by the rocket. Its main payload was an Indian mapping satellite, but it also carried smaller satellites for Planetary Resources, Canadian telecom company Telesat, and more. That'due south the aforementioned launch TeamIndus was unable to afford, leading to the finish of the Google Lunar Ten Prize.

Earlier this calendar month, the FCC sent a letter of the alphabet to Swarm Technologies revoking dominance for a follow-up launch. The letter says this was in response to Swarm Technologies' "apparent unauthorized launch and operation of four satellites." The FCC is investigating the situation, and Swarm may lose its FCC license and be unable to exam its communication technology.

Swarm Technologies is still in "stealth" fashion, and so we don't take all the details on its communication technology. The business firm was founded by sometime NASA and Google researcher Sara Spangelo with the aim of supporting the so-called internet of things (IoT). Every bit more of these devices come online, they'll demand to communicate with other devices and services over the internet, just not all areas are wired for reliable internet access. Swarm would provide solar-powered ground stations with low-power RF transmitters connecting IoT devices. The ground stations could beam data upwardly to a SpaceBEE satellite that in turn sent data to basis stations connected to the internet.

Here's the problem: Swarm wants to use very small satellites. Its designs are 10cm across and just 2.8cm tall. You lot basically get iv satellites in a single 1U launch payload. That'south cheaper, but it's besides nearly incommunicable to track such small-scale satellites. The FCC expressed business organization that these objects could collide with other satellites and spacecraft, so Swarm offered to cover the satellites with radar-reflective material and install GPS trackers. The FCC wasn't convinced, but Swarm apparently went ahead with the launch anyway.

Without FCC support, Swarm Technologies is basically in a property pattern. Its upcoming launch was supposed to use larger 1U satellites that are easier to track, only it may never get a adventure to attempt them out.