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If we can't see it it doesn't exist!!
this post was submitted on 06 Sep 2025
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United States | News & Politics
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Yeah that really serves the people. I’m sure our tax money will then go to oil companies in the aftermath
I read this article does a really bad summarization to me as someone who has not been tracking these satellites. I had to go look at the wiki for the OCO's. Turns out that OCO-2 & OCO-3 are in orbit and operating.
So as I understand this, Trump is not killing the launch of new Sat, but cutting off data collection on existing Sat launches. Further the reason these two SATs are so important is that although there are other Carbon Observers, they don't have the resolution these two do.
Overall, it's an entire waste of money to have built and spent something over a billion dollars, just to cut off the data that Oil companies don't want. (Or at least that's the perception.)
The article could have done a better job bottom lining this.
Satellites don’t just hang out in orbit, they need frequent adjustments or they’ll crash into the earth. So they’re not just turning them off and we can turn them back on later. Although as I understand it, one can be linked to the ISS in a nonfunctional state to be used later. But if they get turned off, at minimum one is crashing and burning.
Absolutely, having worked in remote existence I'm well aware of how much support and maintenance it takes to keep up equipment and collect the data.
The article wasn't clear that Trump was trying to cut the collection & analysis from the headline and several paragraphs in. Initial impression were that we had more orbiters in line for launch that were being scrapped half built... Also tragic, but having working orbiters makes budget inertia slightly more likely to win against a cut.
Several budget cuts have been overturned by lawsuit and although they take months, the orbiters can probably be left in a reduced budget or even maybe limbo for that period while still being recoverable (IMO).
I hope you’re right, because chucking them into the ocean is criminal.