techcrunch.com by Devin Coldewey Mar 9, 2018
The FCC has denied a space startup permission to launch a collection of communications satellites after discovering that it had already launched some — after being told not to. Swarm Technologies, still in stealth mode, appears to have gone ahead with the deployment of four satellites deemed too small to be tracked and therefore unsafe to put into orbit.
IEEE Spectrum put the pieces together from public FCC documents and some launch manifests. Swarm’s original plan was to put several very small satellites — smaller even than 1U Cubesats — in orbit to test its experimental communications system.
But the small size meant the satellites couldn’t be tracked with existing space monitoring technology, and the FCC, which must approve communications satellite launches, considered this too great a risk and declined to authorize Swarm’s proposed deployment.
More:
https://techcrunch.com/2018/03/09/fcc-accuses-stealth-space-startup-of-unauthorized-satellite-deployment/
