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<h1 class="gmail-western" style="line-height:100%;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;font-size:18pt;margin-bottom:0.08in;direction:ltr;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><font size="4">1 Minimum
Allowed Size of Small Satellites</font></h1>
<ol>
        <li>
<p class="gmail-western" align="left" style="margin-bottom:0in;font-weight:normal;line-height:100%;font-family:"Courier New",monospace;font-size:9pt;direction:ltr;color:rgb(0,0,0)">
        <font face="URW Palladio L"><font size="3" style="font-size:12pt">We
        suspect that many of the commenters will not understand why NORAD
        can catalog astonishingly tiny debris, including what may be a
        wire-tie dropped by a spacewalking astronaut (<span style="font-variant:normal"><font color="#14171a"><span style="letter-spacing:normal"><span style="font-style:normal">1998-67NS
        </span></span></font></span><span style="font-variant:normal"><font color="#14171a"><span style="letter-spacing:normal"><span style="font-style:normal">[</span></span></font></span><span style="font-variant:normal"><font color="#14171a"><span style="letter-spacing:normal"><span style="font-style:normal">43498</span></span></font></span><span style="font-variant:normal"><font color="#14171a"><span style="letter-spacing:normal"><span style="font-style:normal">]),
        </span></span></font></span><span style="font-variant:normal"><font color="#14171a"><span style="letter-spacing:normal"><span style="font-style:normal">while</span></span></font></span><span style="font-variant:normal"><font color="#14171a"><span style="letter-spacing:normal"><span style="font-style:normal">
        FCC </span></span></font></span><span style="font-variant:normal"><font color="#14171a"><span style="letter-spacing:normal"><span style="font-style:normal">must
        </span></span></font></span><span style="font-variant:normal"><font color="#14171a"><span style="letter-spacing:normal"><span style="font-style:normal">insist
        </span></span></font></span><span style="font-variant:normal"><font color="#14171a"><span style="letter-spacing:normal"><span style="font-style:normal">on
        a much larger minimum size for </span></span></font></span><span style="font-variant:normal"><font color="#14171a"><span style="letter-spacing:normal"><span style="font-style:normal">small
        satellites. </span></span></font></span><span style="font-variant:normal"><font color="#14171a"><span style="letter-spacing:normal"><span style="font-style:normal">However,
        there is an excellent reason.</span></span></font></span></font></font></p>
        <p class="gmail-western" align="left" style="margin-bottom:0in;font-variant:normal;letter-spacing:normal;font-style:normal;font-weight:normal;line-height:100%;font-family:"Courier New",monospace;font-size:9pt;direction:ltr;color:rgb(0,0,0)">
        </p>
        </li><li>
<p class="gmail-western" align="left" style="margin-bottom:0in;font-weight:normal;line-height:100%;font-family:"Courier New",monospace;font-size:9pt;direction:ltr;color:rgb(0,0,0)">
        <font face="URW Palladio L"><font size="3" style="font-size:12pt">For
        the security of North America, it is essential that foreign powers
        remain unaware of fine details of the capability of NORAD, the
        United States, and Canada to track small or <i>unreflective</i>
        objects in orbit. “Stealth”, technology for reducing radar
        reflections, allows larger objects to given the radar-reflective
        profiles of un-stealthed smaller ones. The minimum radar-reflective
        profile capable of being tracked by NORAD should remain unknown.
        Thus, no object should be licensed for launch if its
        radar-reflective profile in any orientation is close – within a
        classified amount - to the minimum tracking capability of NORAD, the
        U.S., or Canada. We suspect that the 100mm² standard
        minimum cubesat size <span style="font-style:normal">far</span>
        exceeds this minimum capability, perhaps by an order of magnitude.
        As technical capabilities improve, the minimum licensable size
        should be reduced, however the size allowed must always be some
        classified amount larger than the actual minimum radar profile that
        can be reliably tracked.</font></font></p>
        </li><li>
<p class="gmail-western" align="left" style="margin-bottom:0in;font-weight:normal;line-height:100%;font-family:"Courier New",monospace;font-size:9pt;direction:ltr;color:rgb(0,0,0)">
        <font face="URW Palladio L"><font size="3" style="font-size:12pt">That
        said, ORI is interested in launching constellations of many very
        small satellites into LEO, where their orbits would decay to
        re-entry within a few years and they could not be expected to be a
        long-term collision hazard. We urge FCC to allow </font></font><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"URW Palladio L"">licensing
of such things as soon as this is possible within the constraints of
national and North American security.</span></p>
</li></ol>

<br clear="all"><div><br></div>-- <br><div class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr">Bruce Perens K6BP - CEO, Legal Engineering<br>Standards committee chair, license review committee member, co-founder, Open Source Initiative<div>President, Open Research Institute; Board Member, Fashion Freedom Initiative.<br></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>
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