Disposing equipment at a lower altitude potentially poses a threat, the FCC said.
Space junk, the debris whizzing around at high speed in orbit, is made up of human-made objects that no longer serve any useful purpose, according to NASA.
Such junk includes derelict spacecraft, rocket parts and flecks of paint that, while tiny, still have the potential to destroy a space shuttle window.
“As satellite operations become more prevalent and the space economy accelerates, we must be certain that operators comply with their commitments,” FCC Enforcement Bureau Chief Loyaan A. Egal said in a statement Monday, adding that the fine makes it “very clear” that the government agency has “strong enforcement authority and capability to enforce its vitally important space debris rules.”
A large volume of debris — usually the result of a satellite explosion or collision — can also pose risks to active satellites including those the Pentagon and intelligence agencies use for national security.
Every year there are dozens of near-collisions between active satellites or pieces of debris, The Washington Post reported in January. The more satellites in space, the greater the chances a collision will happen, leading to more space debris being produced. Earlier this year, it was estimated that there are more than 6,000 active satellites rotating around Earth.
The space agency estimates that there are around 500,000 particles between 1 and 10 centimeter in diameter in Earth’s orbit.
After Dish launched its EchoStar-7 satellite in 2002, the company filed a mitigation plan that said it would bring the satellite at the end of its mission to an altitude of 300 kilometers above its operational geostationary arc, according to the FCC. The document noted that the end-of-mission deorbit maneuvers would take place in May 2022.
Three months ahead of schedule, in February 2022, Dish determined that the satellite had very little propellant left, which meant it could not follow the original orbital debris mitigation plan in its license, the FCC said in the statement.
“DISH ultimately retired the satellite at a disposal orbit approximately 122 km above the geostationary arc, well short of the disposal orbit of 300 km specified in its orbital debris mitigation plan,” the statement said.
The FCC said DISH had violated the Communications Act, the FCC rules, and the terms of the company’s license by relocating its direct broadcast satellite to a lower disposal orbit.
Dish said in a statement that the company has a “long track record of safely flying a large satellite fleet and takes seriously its responsibilities as an FCC licensee.”
It said the satellite at issue was “an older spacecraft (launched in 2002) that had been explicitly exempted from the FCC’s rule requiring a minimum disposal orbit.”
Dish also said the FCC made no “specific findings” that the satellite “poses any orbital debris safety concerns.”
In recent years, a handful of significant events have contributed to the space junk problem. In 2007, China used a missile to intentionally destroy the Fengyun-1C weather satellite that had been orbiting Earth since 1999. The destruction of the satellite littered orbit with hundreds of pieces of shrapnel, Space.com reported, branding the debris cloud “worrisome.”
In 2009, an American and a Russian satellite collided, sparking concerns over the risk to the International Space Station and leaving behind some 2,000 satellite shards. And in 2021, the Russian military blew up a derelict satellite, creating a wave of debris that threatened the ISS astronauts, sending them scrambling into an emergency shelter.
Last year, President Biden called for the abolishment of tests that destroy satellites in orbit and the Pentagon has since launched a program called Orbital Prime that invests in cleaning up space.
As experts raise the alarm about space junk, governments and operators are beginning to work toward a clean up operation that NASA says poses myriad technical and economic challenges.
Christian Davenport contributed to this report.
