Private equity firm Advent International signed a merger agreement to buy Maxar Technologies for $6.4 billion, Maxar said Friday. It said the deal will let it accelerate investments in satellite technologies, pursue M&A on its own, and grow its earth intelligence and space infrastructure businesses. It said the deal is expected to close in mid-2023.

Allowing SpaceX to add very-high frequency telemetry, tracking and command beacons to its second-generation Starlink satellites would give them redundant TT&C capabilities, which would allow better tracking of Starlinks, the company said in an FCC International Bureau special temporary authority application Friday. The improved tracking "will benefit all operators in the instance of a conjunction or an anomaly," it said. The commission, in its approval earlier this month of part of the second-gen constellation (see 2212010052), deferred decision on Starlink's proposed tracking beacons. In a letter posted Friday, Dish Network said SpaceX was deliberately dragging its feet on a request for data on the validation software used to show its second-generation constellation's compliance with equivalent power flux density limits. SpaceX doesn't need the 30 days it says it will respond by, Dish said. "SpaceX needs that time only for the purpose of withholding the information from parties entitled to it," Dish said. SpaceX didn't comment.

AST SpaceMobile said it expects to start commercial operations of its satellite-provided mobile service in the latter half of 2023, and prompt approval of its petition for U.S. market access for V-band feeder links "is necessary to avoid jeopardizing the preparations necessary to meet commercial deployment objectives," company representatives told the offices of FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel and Commissioners Brendan Carr and Brendan Starks, per an International Bureau filing last week. The company said it anticipates doing 4G LTE and 5G tests globally with partner companies in the U.S., Japan, Europe, Africa, South America and Asia.

SpaceX and Amazon's Kuiper disagree about Kuiper's orbital debris remediation plans for its proposed satellite constellation. In a letter Wednesday to the FCC International Bureau, SpaceX said Kuiper promises to limit conjunction risks while deorbiting and to cooperate with other operators, but it's not giving technical details that can substantiate such pledges. Last month Amazon said concerns raised by commenters about its orbital debris mitigation plan were "unfounded and represent no reason to delay grant of the application."

DOT needs to improve its process for identifying and documenting GPS interference incidents, per a GAO report Thursday. It said DOT identified 196 potential GPS interference incidents in the first five months of this year, but its process doesn't include all available user reports and its data has inaccuracies. "Without a process that produces quality GPS interference information, federal efforts to quickly respond to and stop interference could be delayed," GAO said. It said DOT has worked to improve transportation sector resilience to GPS interference, but it's not clear how those efforts improved resilience. The report recommended DOT document its incident identification process and develop a strategic approach to resilience.

Verizon's plans to use C-band spectrum terrestrially starting in Q1 2023 in some markets poses "a profound risk of harmful interference" to incumbent satellite users, Eutelsat CEO Eva Berneke told FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel and Commissioners Brendan Carr and Nathan Simington in a series of meetings recapped Wednesday in docket 18-122. Eutelsat urged the agency to issue a framework for satellite operators to certify completion of the second phase of the C-band accelerated relocation process, as terrestrial transmissions in the band pose a threat to any unfiltered earth stations. In docket 20-173, Telesat said the C-band relocation coordinator is requesting that Telesat and other eligible satellite operators transition a percentage of antennas/feeds that hadn't been associated with any particular operator as they're discovered in the operator outreach program. Telesat said it has been transitioning its assigned share and working on transition of some antennas/feeds the relocation coordinator identified as pointing at Telesat satellites but not receiving signals from them.

Intelsat's Galaxy 35 and 36 geosynchronous orbit satellites were launched into orbit Tuesday on an Arianespace Ariane rocket, the company said. The two C-band satellites are part of a fleet refresh that started in 2020 and are the fifth and sixth out of seven satellites it's launching in 2022 and 2023, it said.

OneWeb ordered 10,000 Hughes-made flat-panel LEO Terminals for use by enterprise and government customers of OneWeb's satellite broadband, Hughes said Tuesday. It said testing of prototypes is underway, with production of the terminals for OneWeb to start in the second half of 2023.

Comments are due Jan. 12 to the Copyright Royalty Board on a proposed further partial distribution of 2015-2017 satellite royalty funds for DBS retransmission of over-the-air broadcasts, per a notice in Tuesday's Federal Register.

As part of its partnership with T-Mobile to provide satellite-to-cellular service (see 2208260038), SpaceX asked the FCC for U.S. market access for its German-licensed direct-to-cellular hosted payloads to communicate on an unprotected, noninterference basis in the 1910-1915 MHz and 1990-1995 MHz bands with mobile handsets already authorized to use those PCS G-block frequencies. In an International Bureau application Tuesday, SpaceX said its satellite-to-handset cellular operations will meet broadband PCS service technical limits "and thus will be indistinguishable from terrestrial PCS G-block operations from an interference perspective. "The system will merely put already assigned spectrum to more intensive use by allowing it to be received in locations where it cannot be received today," SpaceX said. It said the direct-to-cellular payload will be aboard a 2,016-satellite subset of the second-generation non-geostationary orbit constellation. It said the payload will support text messaging, voice service and basic web browsing over three to four 1.4 MHz bandwidth channels or one 5 MHz channel, both for downlinks and uplinks. It requested a waiver to use the 1910-1915 MHz and 1990-1995 MHz bands since they lack a satellite allocation under the U.S. Table of Frequency Allocations.