Dear readers,
Welcome to Quartz’s newsletter on the economic possibilities of the extra-terrestrial sphere. Please forward widely, and let me know what you think. This week: Satellite revolution, solar power in space, and SLS forever.
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Space business is really satellite business: That’s because satellites are the only reliable way to make money in orbit these days. In 2018, satellite-related revenue made up 75% of the $360 billion “space economy,” per the analysts at Bryce Space and Technology.
It’s a reality that helps explain SpaceX’s obsession with launching its own satellite constellation, and that the bulk of venture capital investment in spacecraft is for remote-sensing or telecommunications services. People tossing around the term “trillion dollar space economy” are mostly betting on a world where satellite networks carry a growing portion of the world’s internet traffic—with “internet” being the convergence of television broadcasts, consumer broadband, mobile data and the internet of things.
Many of the more speculative potential space businesses, meanwhile—like satellite servicing, orbital debris removal, or a market for propellant mined on the moon—will have to wait for humanity to significantly increase its economic reliance on orbiting spacecraft.
The Federal Communications Commission is responsible for regulating satellite activities in the United States, and its chair, Ajit Pai, has been extremely bullish about the sector. In a speech this week, he talked about what the commission has been doing to help nurture it, from streamlining the licensing process for new satellites to approving lots of them. “Our space agenda involves cutting red tape and giving green lights,” he promised.
That’s certainly Pai’s modus operandi, in orbit and on Earth. Ironically, one reason broadband internet from space is an attractive proposition in the first place is because light-touch regulation in the United States has allowed the consolidation of telecom providers to the point where Americans pay higher prices for access to the internet than consumers in similarly advanced economies. (Call it American exceptionalism.)
Clearly, some evolution is necessary among regulators: The first company mentioned in Pai’s speech was Swarm, the satellite-maker that launched its first satellites illegally after the FCC declined to give them a license. It turned out that the FCC’s concerns about tracking their satellites were incorrect, and one $900,000 fine later, the company is the poster child for a future of high-tech agriculture from space—more to come from me on that story soon.
But you do have to wonder what unexpected consequences could come from a lighter-touch regulatory environment. The spate of concern over visual and radio interference from new low-flying satellite constellations is a case in point. Though these plans were widely discussed for years at space conferences and in regulatory filings, they took astronomers by surprise. Observatories and satellite operators will have to resolve their conflicts on an ad hoc basis because there is no existing forum to address them.
More pressing are the traffic management problems generated by thousands of new satellites (along with the inevitable growth of debris that will accompany them). Pai said that the FCC intends “to improve and clarify [orbital debris mitigation] rules,” but it’s worth noting that any specifics about the rules will come months if not years after the approval of satellites for launch.
A new study from the University of Southhampton in the United Kingdom simulated the debris situation in orbit over the long term, and the results were not good. The current international standard that satellites be removed from operating orbits after 25 years turns out to create more collisions in the long run. It’s one example of how tricky it can be to set reasonable rules for the use of space—and how careful regulators will need to be when they give satellite operators the green light.
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Imagery Interlude
One reason for the burgeoning satellite sector is that astronauts have been chucking tiny spacecraft off the International Space Station (ISS) for years. Regular flights to the ISS offered an alternative route to orbit for organizations seeking to deploy experimental satellites. The company Planet, for example, was able to develop its early spacecraft by “launching” them from the ISS. I just love images of the little fellas drifting off to work:
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SPACE DEBRIS
You’ve just invented the sun. It sounds like a classic Silicon Valley switcheroo: What if humans had some way to beam energy in the form of light from space to the Earth? The science fiction dream of getting power from space is certainly attractive, and central to the dream of space visionaries like Jeff Bezos. Still, NASA, the US Air Force and China are among the more serious organizations investing in the technology to collect solar energy in space—where the sun, it is widely noted, does not set—and transmit it down to Earth.
Look at this mess. A new way to understand the crowding in Earth orbit is this data visualization from researchers at the University of Texas, which shows how often objects in orbit come dangerously close to one another. The project’s leader, Moribah Jah, talked to the Verge about how the visualization works and why it matters. “These things are traveling really, really fast and definitely coming close to each other,” he says. “People need to be aware of that.”
SLS Forever. It’s not a big surprise, since he got the job, but NASA’s new head of human spaceflight Doug Loverro was quick to toe the political line at one of his first appearances in the job, when he called Boeing’s Space Launch System rocket “absolutely mandatory” for a return to the moon. The SLS is delayed and over-budget, but we’re a far cry from last spring, when NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine suggested he might look into cheaper alternatives and was promptly told “heck, no” by Boeing’s supporters in Congress. At the same meeting, Bridenstine disputed the White House’s cost estimate of $2 billion per launch for the SLS, saying that $800 to $900 million per flight would be a more accurate estimate. That’s five times more than the cost of one SpaceX Falcon Heavy, a rocket that actually exists.
Who found India’s lost lunar lander? India’s attempt at landing a robot gently on the lunar surface went awry earlier this year, a testament to the difficulty of getting safely to the moon. Now there’s a dispute about who exactly found the wreckage. NASA used instruments on a spacecraft called the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter to snap pictures of the area of the moon where the lander was aimed. Then, it shared them publicly, asking for help to combine the images for evidence. Shanmuga Subramanian, an Indian engineer, spotted signs of the crash and alerted NASA, who credited him with the ID when they released an image of the debris field. Cool story, right? But national space pride can be a delicate thing, and the head of the Indian Space Research Organisation now says his agency already determined the location of the crash back in September.
Your pal,
Tim
This was issue 26 of our newsletter. Hope your week is out of this world! Please send your space Christmas list, terrifying data visualizations, tips, and informed opinions to tim@qz.com. If you enjoy this newsletter, take 50% off becoming a Quartz member.