WASHINGTON — The Commerce Department office that licenses commercial remote sensing systems is studying whether it should close a potential loophole in how companies comply with orbital debris mitigation rules.
The Commercial Remote Sensing Regulatory Affairs (CRSRA) division of the Office of Space Commerce will formally publish a request for information (RFI) in the Federal Register March 8 on the issue of debris mitigation regulations for systems it licenses. The RFI was released for public inspection March 7.
The RFI notes that while CRSRA had for two decades required companies seeking remote sensing licenses to provide a post-mission disposal plan for their satellites, the office dropped the requirement in 2020 as part of a broader revision of commercial remote sensing regulations. The rationale at the time was that nearly all systems seeking remote sensing licenses also had licenses from the Federal Communications Commission, which requires licensees to have orbital debris mitigation plans.
“To avoid duplicative regulation, Commerce opted to defer to FCC license requirements regarding orbital debris and spacecraft disposal, and therefore removed license conditions requiring specific orbital debris or spacecraft disposal practices in final rule,” CRSRA stated in the RFI.
However, the office noted that, since then, it has seen “an increasing number” of multinational systems that seek commercial remote sensing licenses but have communications licenses in other countries, and thus do not have FCC licenses.
“CRSRA is also sensitive to emerging communications methods not currently licensed by FCC, meaning a satellite using such methods would not be subject to FCC disposal and orbital debris mitigation requirement,” the RFI states. That is an apparent reference to optical communications systems that do not use radio-frequency spectrum managed by the FCC.
The office is seeking input from the remote sensing industry on whether…
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