The FCC says a space startup launched four tiny satellites into orbit without permission

Earlier in 2018, a space startup from Silicon Valley launched four of its first prototype communications satellites on top of an Indian rocket. Except the Federal Communications Commission says that the company didn’t have authorization to send up those spacecraft from the US government. The four satellites reportedly belong to a fledgling company called Swarm Technologies, which was started by former Google and NASA JPL engineer Sara Spangelo in 2016. The probes, dubbed SpaceBees 1, 2, 3, and 4, are meant to test out Swarm’s idea for a “space-based Internet of Things” network and went up as part of a cluster of 31 satellites aboard an Indian Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) rocket on January 12th.