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Startup fined $900k for launching illegal satellites, points to future space law challenges
Swarm Technologies, Inc., a satellite startup aiming to create the world’s lowest-cost satellite network, has been fined $900,000 by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for illegally launching and deploying four unauthorized satellites into orbit in January 2018 on a commercial Indian satellite launch vehicle. The satellites in question were Swarm’s SpaceBEE vehicles, which measure one quarter the size of a traditional CubeSat, a class of small satellites measuring 10 cm in height, width, and depth. In December 2017, the FCC deemed the SpaceBEE size too small for the U.S. Air Force’s traditional technology to track with routine methods and declined a license, but the satellites were placed into orbit regardless. With satellite and rocket launch startups proliferating as space access becomes more affordable, the debate over ensuring safety in this international arena is likely expand.
Swarm requested an experimental license from the FCC in April 2017, a first step for any satellite operator to ensure compliance with current international space laws, and their plan was to launch in September 2017, although that date was later delayed. Spaceflight Industries was next hired to connect Swarm with a launch provider and ensure its integration with the rest of the rocket’s payload. After the FCC declined the license in December 2017, Swarm applied for a new license in January 2018 for satellites meeting CubeSat specifications, but the original SpaceBEEs were already loaded onto the contracted Indian Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) and subsequently launched on January 12, 2018.
When news of the SpaceBEE deployment broke, concerns over regulatory backlash spread throughout the satellite community. The FCC issued an Enforcement Advisory on April 12, 2018 warning about consequences for communications companies failing to comply with licensing requirements, including a note to launch providers on how launch activities may be impacted if an unauthorized satellite payload needs to be removed. In a decision released December 20, 2018, Swarm Technologies was ordered to pay the fine and implement a five-year compliance plan.
Since the very first satellite was successfully launched by the Soviet Union on October 4, 1957, activities in space have been largely conducted by national governments and companies affiliated with them. However, the new space era is quickly changing that environment, rapidly opening up the beyond-Earth domain to private citizens. Billionaires like Elon Musk of Tesla and SpaceX, Jeff Bezos of Amazon and Blue Origin, and Richard Branson of Virgin and Virgin Galactic have mostly been the face of private/commercial space industry in recent years, but the technologies they’ve developed are also ushering in a new wave of affordable access to space, and with it, new technologies that don’t fit the traditional mold of “old space”.
The legal foundation for current space laws is the 1967 Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies, i.e., the “Outer Space Treaty”. Under this Treaty and subsequent treaties and laws arising from it, states, or nations, rather, are responsible for any space activities conducted by their own nationals, meaning a regulatory process that must be enforced. Where access to space was once expensive and difficult, the significantly lowered threshold has brought in a field full of players ready to take their shot at participating in the coming space economy and maybe, as seen with Swarm Technologies, even take a few risks to get there.
While the illegal launch of Swarm’s satellites was caught rather quickly (first by the community of amateur space trackers) and action was taken to penalize it, what’s to stop nations in the future from lowering standards to attract private customers? As stated in the FCC’s Enforcement Advisory, “Satellites authorized by an administration other than the United States do not require any FCC approval if Earth station operations are exclusively outside the United States.” Pressure from the international community to comply with treaties will only work to the extent that 1) the penalties deter the profit potential from the industry; 2) the international community agrees the activity is actually unsafe; and 3) the resistance to reforming regulations to permit the activity in question is deemed justified. Innovation, especially out of Silicon Valley, has a history of breaking rules to bring about significant change; however, some would argue that space isn’t the place for that approach.
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- The thrice-flown, Falcon 9 Block 5 rocket that put Swarm’s recent 3 satellites in orbit (all FCC approved): SpaceBEE-5, 6, and 7. | Credit: Pauline Acalin
The thrice-flown, Falcon 9 Block 5 rocket that put Swarm’s recent 3 satellites in orbit (all FCC approved): SpaceBEE-5, 6, and 7. | Credit: Pauline Acalin
The problem seems to be a simple matter of ethics: Don’t launch things into space that aren’t safe for Earth’s occupants. But according to the FCC, Swarm’s proposed satellites were merely “below the size threshold at which detection by the Space Surveillance Network (SSN) can be considered routine.” The licensing issue seemed to generally only be safety-related because of the satellites’ irregularity, not from the lack of actual tracking capability, something that is only going to increase as more players enter the new space arena.
Another point worth consideration is that Swarm’s SpaceBEE satellites are actually trackable using the same SSN network the FCC cited in its rejection of Swarm’s license request, and live tracking is ongoing via an independent tracking service called LeoLabs. According to Dr. Sara Spangelo, one of the co-founders of Swarm Technologies, the satellites are equipped with radar retro-reflector technology, something developed by a US-Navy research and development lab, which makes their radar signature as bright as a CubeSat. The FCC has also granted the company a temporary experimental authorization to test the previously-illegal satellites’ orbital and tracking data. Thus, the question for the future is not so much whether the safety concerns are valid, but whether preventative rules will be waived where newer technology can demonstrate their compliance outside traditional standards.
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SpaceX set to launch astronauts and a classified Falcon Heavy mission on the same day
SpaceX plans three launches Thursday, including Crew-13 astronauts and Falcon Heavy’s first classified NRO mission.
SpaceX is lining up one of the busiest single days in its history, and the company offered a preview on Wednesday morning with a simple post on X: “Sunrise at pad 40.” The video and photos show Falcon 9 standing at Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral, roughly a day before it is scheduled to carry four astronauts to the International Space Station.
That launch is only the first of three SpaceX missions planned for Thursday, October 1, across both coasts.
Sunrise at pad 40 pic.twitter.com/J7Qme4VvIX
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) September 30, 2026
Crew-13 is targeting liftoff at 11:10 a.m. ET, with a backup opportunity Friday at 10:47 a.m. ET. NASA astronaut Jessica Watkins will command the mission, with NASA’s Luke Delaney as pilot and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Joshua Kutryk and Roscosmos cosmonaut Sergey Teteryatnikov serving as mission specialists. According to NASA, Dragon is set to dock with the forward port of the station’s Harmony module around 8 p.m. ET, less than nine hours after launch. Watkins is the only member of the crew who has flown before, and Kutryk will become the first Canadian to reach orbit through NASA’s Commercial Crew Program.
The Falcon 9 booster is flying for the third time after supporting Crew-12 and a Starlink mission, and it will attempt a landing at Landing Zone 40 beside the pad. That site made its debut in February when the Crew-12 booster touched down there, as Teslarati reported at the time. Crew-13 will relieve the Crew-12 astronauts, who have been aboard the station since the middle of February.
On the West Coast, another Falcon 9 is scheduled to lift off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in a window running from 2:18 to 3:16 p.m. ET, a flight NASASpaceflight lists as a Transporter rideshare mission.
The day is set to close at 11:53 p.m. ET, when Falcon Heavy launches from Launch Complex 39A with NROL-97, the first National Reconnaissance Office payload ever to fly on the rocket. SpaceX rolled the vehicle out to the pad Tuesday night. Its two side boosters, which previously flew GOES-U, ViaSat-3 F3 and NASA’s Roman Space Telescope, will return to Landing Zones 1 and 2, while a new center core will be expended in the Atlantic. The Roman launch took place on August 30, so NROL-97 will come barely a month later as Falcon Heavy’s third flight of 2026 and 14th overall.
NASA taps SpaceX to launch the telescope that could unlock new worlds
If all three Florida boosters land as planned, it would be the first time the Space Coast has seen landings at LZ-40, LZ-1 and LZ-2 on the same day, according to the Orlando Sentinel, which has warned residents in Brevard, Orange and Volusia counties that more than one sonic boom is possible.
The schedule arrives just three days after Starship reached orbit for the first time on Flight 14 from Starbase, Texas, deploying 26 Starlink V3 satellites. If Thursday’s missions stay on time, SpaceX will have flown Starship, Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy from four different pads in about four days.
Crew-13 is also the start of a longer run for Dragon. NASA recently added Crew-15, Crew-16 and Crew-17 to SpaceX’s contract in a $946 million modification, keeping Dragon as the agency’s only operational ride to the station while Boeing’s Starliner remains grounded.
Although the two vehicles are built for completely different use cases, Tesla utilized engineering expertise while developing both the Cybercab and Semi to build a thermal architecture that would fit both vehicles. Of course, with some slight revisions.
The development was noted by Lars Moravy and Dan Priestley last week at Tesla’s Semi Handover event in Sparks, Nevada, where the company showed off its dedicated production facility for the Class 8 truck.
🚨 Tesla designed the integrated thermal systems for Cybercab and Semi at the same time as the vehicles were both in development
Tesla wanted to build one thermal system that worked with both vehicles, apart from small modifications.
Semi and Cybercab share parts 🤯 pic.twitter.com/KmzSsUbrcg
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) September 25, 2026
Tesla’s decision to develop one thermal architecture for both the Cybercab and Semi is one of the more revealing engineering choices in the company’s 2026 lineup:
“We designed it at the same time we designed the Cybercab and we said okay we’re going to take our most efficient vehicle and our biggest vehicle and we’re going to take one thermal system and make it work for both.”
Core parts, meaning the compressor, pumps, and heat exchangers, are shared, with only modest changes to cooling-loop sizing and a larger radiator on the truck. The result, they said, is a compressor and thermal stack already proven across millions of miles, delivering “reliability from day one.”
Priestley also highlighted a practical payoff of the indirect design:
“There’s no AC lines, there’s no refrigerant lines…It comes from the factory fully charged, sealed with refrigerant, and it just exchanges coolant. It doesn’t actually run refrigerant up to the front of the vehicle.”
This eliminates potentially leak-prone plumbing that would otherwise require hands-on service, reducing overall uptime and potentially cutting into business margins. The megamanifold runs cabin HVAC and every powertrain heating and cooling loop at once, recapturing waste heat from motors and the battery instead of dumping it the way a diesel engine does.
The approach is just the latest chapter in a continuing story of stretching thermal solutions across wildly different vehicles. Model Y’s Octovalve evolved into the Super Manifold used on Cybertruck, and later Model S/X refreshes. Cybercab then introduced Supermanifold V3, which Tesla says is 80 percent automated to build and 38 percent more efficient than typical automotive thermal systems.
This thermal system is also shared with Cybercab – one thermal system for both our most efficient vehicle & our biggest vehicle
— Tesla Semi (@tesla_semi) September 25, 2026
Tesla has done the same with the 4680 cells, both being utilized in the Cybertruck and Semi, and with heat-pump compressors that Priestley noted were already common across the passenger-car fleet.
Concurrent development of crucial vehicle elements buys scale and reliability that a truck-only thermal system could not match. High-volume passenger car parts are cheaper and more accessible, which can give fleets a sealed, low-maintenance loop of operation from their first day of operation.
For owners and operators, that translates into less energy spent on cabin heat in the colder months, fewer refrigerant-related repairs, and a thermal architecture already stress-tested at passenger-car volumes before the first high-volume Semi left the lines in Nevada.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk certainly tipped off some details of the Tesla Roadster event with a broadening of information regarding the company’s decision to delay the unveiling for two weeks.
For years, people have speculated about what the Roadster will be capable of. While there have been plenty of things said about what it *could* do, we have not seen or been told by Tesla what it will actually be capable of.
However, over the past few days, Tesla’s weather updates have truly pushed the speculation into Plaid Mode, basically all but confirming the car will have some sort of aerial capability — whether that would be hovering or fully flying remains to be seen — but it definitely seems that it will be able to leave the ground intentionally.
“Because this event can only be held outdoors…”
Tesla posted on Monday that it would delay the Roadster event until October 15, and it indicated that it had to do this because the event “can only be held outdoors.”
With the potential SpaceX collaboration to develop cold-gas thrusters that will help the vehicle go airborne, doing this indoors is probably not a safe, or even plausible, possibility.
Roadster event update
We’ve been tracking the weather closely with local meteorologists, but given the severe conditions predicted & because this event can only be held outdoors, we’ve made the difficult decision to reschedule.
New date is October 15. Additional details to…
— Tesla (@Tesla) September 28, 2026
FAA Airspace Restriction
The FAA gave Tesla a Temporary Flight Restriction (TFR) for 10,000 feet above ground level, much higher than the typical 2,000-foot restrictions that are usually placed at SpaceX’s McGregor, Texas site.
Tesla Roadster event requires restricted airspace, and the FAA obliges
Some have said that this massive increase is due to Tesla’s need to restrict unauthorized drone use for spying on the event.
Elon Admits High Winds
“Due to high winds, the new Roadster demo is postponed by 2 weeks,” Musk said in a post on X yesterday.
Due to high winds, the new Roadster demo is postponed by 2 weeks https://t.co/dV3ojDh1iT
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 30, 2026
A reply reading, “What’s strong wind got to do with a car demo with four grounded wheels?” was directly below Musk’s post, satirically and sarcastically probing for more details.
All signs are pointing toward an aerial demonstration for the Roadster.
SpaceX set to launch astronauts and a classified Falcon Heavy mission on the same day
Tesla Cybercab and Semi have more in common than you might think
