Viasat will sell its Link 16 Tactical Data Links business, which is part of its Government Systems segment, to defense contractor L3Harris Technologies for $1.96 billion, Viasat said Monday. Viasat said the TDL deal is expected to close in the first half of 2023, and said it received approval for the sale from Inmarsat's equity sponsors. Viasat CEO Mark Dankberg said the sale "will transform our balance sheet, reduce cash interest obligations, and sharpen strategic focus." He said its ViaSat-3 constellation and planned Inmarsat acquisition "both create greater forward-looking government systems growth opportunities in space-based businesses with more R&D, capital and operational synergies."

The GAO laid out a series of policy options, though not recommendations, for how agencies and lawmakers could deal with orbital debris, satellite reflectivity and upper atmosphere emissions issues. In a report last week, GAO said options include supporting research about those issues' potential effects and development of technologies to address them; facilitating improved sharing of relevant constellation data; establishing appropriate agreements or regulations; and building national and international organizations to facilitate mitigation of constellations' effects. It said the report was done in consultation with agencies including the FCC, NASA, FAA and NOAA.

ViaSat-3 finished integration and now is going through mechanical environmental testing in preparation for the high-throughput satellite's launch later this year, Viasat said Thursday. The integration work involved attaching solar arrays, reflectors and other hardware to bring it to its full flight configuration, it said.

Umbra Lab is seeking 60 extra days for the launch of a synthetic aperture radar satellite, citing launch delays beyond its control. Three of the six satellites authorized under its FCC license have been launched and two are due for launch in December, but the sixth can't be launched before Jan. 13, 2023, which is the date the license expires for unlaunched satellites, Umbra said in an FCC International Bureau application Monday. It said the launch is scheduled for Feb. 15 and it's seeking an extension of the deployment deadline until March 15.

SpaceX is resisting calls by some satellite operators that the FCC allow waivers, in its proposed five-year post-mission disposal requirement (see 2209200041). In docket 18-313 recaps of a meeting with aides to all four commissioners Monday, SpaceX said exemptions or overly-permissive waivers would undermine the five-year rule's incentives. Exempting or liberally giving waivers to non-maneuverable satellites or high-altitude operations "would gut" the incentive operators have to design systems and missions with sustainability as a key trait, it said. The company urged waivers only in exceptional circumstances, and that waiver requests should include a per-satellite passive-decay collision risk analysis. SpaceX on Sunday told the International Bureau that Dish Network's opposition to sharing the 2 GHz band (see 2209220068) features the meritless attacks it has made in other proceedings but doesn't bring up any legal or factual arguments relevant to the application itself. The company said its 2 GHz plans don't go against agency rules governing the band. It said if Dish ever changes direction after more than a decade of letting its 2 GHz mobile satellite service remain unproductive, it can coordinate with SpaceX. Dish didn't comment.

SpaceX's Starlink might try to provide unfettered internet access in Iran under the General License D-2 issued Friday by Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control, company CEO Elon Musk indicated. The updated U.S. sanctions guidance opens the door to technology companies offering Iranians more options for secure, private, outside platforms and services in response to the Iranian regime's violent crackdown of protests there, per the State Department. "Activating Starlink ...," Musk tweeted in response. In a media briefing, a Treasury official said Starlink's commercial-grade service and Starlink hardware wouldn't be covered in the general license, and would need agency approval, but it "welcomes and we will prioritize applications for specific licenses to authorize activities supporting internet freedom in Iran."

Globalstar's unwillingness to share the 1.6 and 2.4 GHz bands (see 2209150048) goes against the FCC's fundamental spectrum allocation goal of a competitive market with multiple co-frequency operators sharing, SpaceX told the International Bureau Friday. SpaceX said it's "ready, able and willing to coordinate" with other mobile satellite systems, but "Globalstar appears entirely unwilling to even try." Globalstar was never granted exclusivity in the bands, SpaceX said. Globalstar's iPhone connectivity partnership with Apple (see 2209080001) seems to point to it having network capacity available for sharing, the filing said. Globalstar didn't comment.

SpaceX's Starlink app is on pace to be downloaded more than 2 million times this year, averaging between 3,000 and 5,000 a day, 42matters blogged this week.

Opposition by Natural Resources Defense Council and the International Dark-Sky Association (NRDC/IDA) to SpaceX's proposed second-generation constellation comes months after the pleading cycle's close and uses arguments the FCC already rejected or that have been previously addressed, the company told the International Bureau in a filing Wednesday. They ignore that the National Environmental Policy Act doesn't apply to space and "seek to goad the Commission into exceeding" its NEPA authority, SpaceX said. They also ignore SpaceX's efforts to mitigate the reflectivity of its Starlink satellites, it said. NEPA doesn't stop the FCC from authorizing commercial satellite communications, but it does make the agency look at the environmental impacts, NRDC/IDA said earlier this month in the opposition: "So far, it has not." The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit decision that the agency didn't violate NEPA in a SpaceX license modification (see 2208260035) didn't address the merits of the NEPA claims raised, and relying on a categorical exclusion to allow the second-gen constellation "is unlawful," the groups said.

PlanetiQ hopes to launch as soon as October 2023 its low earth orbit Gnomes-4 satellite for radio occultation services to be used for weather forecasting and analysis, it said in an FCC International Bureau application filed Wednesday. The Colorado company said it later plans a Gnomes constellation of global navigation satellite system navigation and occultation measurement satellites.