Viasat Petitions FCC for Environmental Impact Study of SpaceX Plans

Given the likely "significant impacts" that SpaceX's pending license modification would have on the orbital environment, the National Environmental Policy Act requires the FCC to do an environmental impact statement as part of its consideration, or at the very least an environmental assessment, Viasat said in an International Bureau petition Tuesday. It said since its initial petition against SpaceX's request to move more than 2,800 planned satellites to a lower orbit (see 2007140001), "numerous studies, articles, and papers" have noted possible environmental harms from mega constellations, including exacerbating global warming, excessive light pollution affecting astronomers and stargazers, higher collision risks from orbital debris, and bigger threats of satellites not fully burning up on reentry. Smaller, more-routine satellite deployments might not raise the same issues, but SpaceX's plans do "given the sheer quantity of satellites at issue here, as well as the unprecedented nature of SpaceX’s treatment of them as effectively expendable," it said. SpaceX didn't comment.