Sirius XM is hiring Maxar for two new geostationary satellites, SXM-11 and -12, the companies said Tuesday. Maxar said the two would allow increased Sirius XM capabilities, including an expanded service area and better service quality. The two join SXM-9 and -10, which are in the development pipeline at Maxar.
Last Saturday's SpaceX launch, a resupply mission to the International Space Station, was the 500th commercial launch licensed by the FAA, the agency said Tuesday.
AST SpaceMobile's BlueWalker 3 prototype satellite "is now one of the brightest objects in the night sky, outshining all but the brightest stars," and its use of terrestrial frequencies "poses a new challenge to radio astronomy," said the International Astronomical Union Center for the Protection of the Dark and Quiet Sky from Satellite Constellation Interference (IAU CPS) Monday. The satellite “is a big shift in the constellation satellite issue and should give us all reason to pause,” said IAU CPS Director Piero Benvenuti. The group urged low earth orbit constellations to "be conducted with due consideration of their side effects and with efforts made to minimize their impact on astronomy." AST emailed it's "eager to use the newest technologies and strategies to mitigate possible impacts to astronomy." It said it's working on such mitigations as anti-reflective materials and is "also engaged with NASA and certain working groups within the astronomy community to participate in advanced industry solutions, including potential operational interventions." It said it's committed to avoiding broadcasts inside or adjacent to the National Radio Quiet Zone in the U.S. and additional radioastronomy locations as required or needed. "We also plan to place gateway antennas far away from the NRQZ and other radio-quiet zones that are important to astronomy," it said.
An FCC order allowing geostationary orbit fixed satellite service satellites to operate downlinks in the 17.3-17.8 GHz band will be effective Dec. 27, said a notice for Friday's Federal Register. The commission adopted the 17 GHz order in August (see 2208040055).
Comments are due Dec. 23 on the proposed transfer of OneWeb authorizations as part of its purchase by Eutelsat, with replies and oppositions to petitions due Jan. 3 and replies to those due Jan. 10, the FCC International Bureau said Wednesday in a public notice in docket 22-204. The all-stock transaction was announced in July.
As the FCC considers how to define protection criteria for non-geostationary orbit systems and the level of protection for earlier-round systems, the agency should at minimum preserve the processing round regime and balance targeted protections for operating systems with opportunities for new entrants, satellite operators said Wednesday in docket 21-456. Recapping a meeting with an aide to Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel, they said since there's disagreement about how to protect earlier-round systems from later entrants, they urged issuing a Further Notice as a route to "drive toward a consensus view." Meeting with the FCC were SpaceX OneWeb, Kepler and SES/O3b. Separately SpaceX said any Further NPRM should seek comment on ways to encourage spectral efficiency among NGSO systems in a single processing round. It also suggested that, in the commission's pending NGSO spectrum sharing NPRM, the FCC should require that later-round NGSO systems use information acquired through coordination when demonstrating compliance with an interference protection regime. If earlier-round systems don't provide that information, only then should later-round operators resort to information found in public applications, it said.
National competition going on now to dominate in-space manufacturing and for asteroid and lunar resources will determine what nation is likely to dominate the balance of power there for the next century, said American Foreign Policy Council Senior Fellow Peter Garretson at a Hudson Institute event Tuesday. "This is not some piece of policy to be left for later," Garretson said. He said, along with dominating space commodity production and space infrastructure, the U.S. needs to ensure as many partners as possible are using that infrastructure system. The U.S. and China will likely be the main rivals for space dominance, with India being a later arrival, Garretson said. He said Russia, France and Germany will likely follow the norms established by those space powers. The U.S.' lack of a national plan to develop space-based solar energy generation is "negligent and irresponsible," especially given how numerous other nations, including China and various U.S. allies, have their own space solar programs. Other Congressional space priorities also should include making commercial development of space a national policy, Garretson said. He said the national cislunar strategy put out last week by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy references economic development multiple times; commercial development isn't part of the national space policy or in NASA's charter; and it's unclear whether Commerce or NASA would be the lead in those commercial development efforts. Congress also needs to accelerate development of space infrastructure perhaps through designating a public corporation to finance and build that infrastructure, and create space infrastructure bonds, Garretson said. There also should be a space commodities exchange and space commodities futures exchange, he said. The estimated value of mineral resources in the solar system "is truly vast" and easily dwarfs projections of the space economy being anywhere from $1 trillion to $3 trillion by 2040, Garretson said.
Ongoing delays in delivery of EchoStar's Jupiter 3 satellite by Maxar Space has the satellite maker providing EchoStar with nearly $59 million in discounts and agreeing to pay more damages in the event of further delays, EchoStar said in an SEC filing Tuesday. It said it and Maxar also agreed EchoStar has a right to terminate the order starting Jan. 1, 2024, if the satellite hasn't been delivered. EchoStar said it still expects to launch in the first half of 2023.
The FCC's proposal to sunset interference protections for non-geostationary orbit systems is getting pushback from numerous geostationary and NGSO satellite operators. A sunset would jeopardize service quality and continuity by changing the interference environment that is part of existing authorizations and contractual commitments, the satellite operators said in a docket 21-456 posting Tuesday. They said it also would incentivize coordination delays by systems approved in later processing rounds until the earlier-round system's priority expires, and reverse longstanding FCC policies that give an expectation of ongoing interference protection. Signing the filing were SES/O3b, Iridium, Globalstar, EchoStar/Hughes, Inmarsat, Telesat, Viasat and OneWeb. The sunsetting provision in the NGSO spectrum sharing NPRM adopted in December has been an area of contention (see 2203280029).
Noting it finished the second phase of its C-band clearing obligations next summer, SES representatives told FCC Commissioner Geoffrey Starks the Wireless Bureau should open a filing window for eligible satellite operators to account for final updates to their transition plans. Per a filing Tuesday in docket 18-122, SES said it also said the bureau should release the procedures for eligible operators to file their second-phase certifications of accelerated relocation. It said both actions could be done at the end of May, saying the filing window for updated transition plans should be open until Dec. 5. SES also said the relocation payment clearinghouse's slow pace for processing its outstanding claims is a concern.