NOAA VIDEO FOR YOU

I was watching the SpaceX launch of 10 more Iridium satellites yesterday
and they cut the live feed near the end of the 2nd stage's first burn,
saying something about NOAA restrictions preventing them from continuing
the broadcast. I was like WTF?

As usual, Eric Berger came through with a story on this:

NOAA VIDEO FOR YOU ?
NOAA just prevented SpaceX from showing its rocket in orbit
"SpaceX will be intentionally ending live video coverage of the 2nd
stage."
ERIC BERGER - 3/30/2018, 12:52 PM
https://arstechnica.com/science/2018...-a-rocket-but-
noaa-prevented-some-of-it-from-being-shown/

NOAA's response:
http://www.noaa.gov/media-release/no...-broadcast-of-
spacex-iridium-5-launch

From above:

The National and Commercial Space Program Act requires a
commercial remote sensing license for companies having the
capacity to take an image of Earth while on orbit.

Now that launch companies are putting video cameras on
stage 2 rockets that reach an on-orbit status, all such
launches will be held to the requirements of the law and
its conditions.

SpaceX applied and received a license from NOAA that
included conditions on their capability to live-stream
from space. Conditions on Earth imaging to protect
national security are common to all licenses for launches
with on-orbit capabilities.

This is bull**** on the face of it. There is no way that a wide field
GoPro camera (the cameras SpaceX typically uses for this sort of thing)
could ever have the resolution necessary to cause any "national
securty" damage.

It's curious that all previous Iridium launches were allowed to stream
live through all 10 satellites being deployed. Me thinks that the
Starman "incident" put a bug up some middle level NOAA manager's butt.

Jeff
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