As part of Eutelsat's proposed acquisition of OneWeb (see 2207250041), the companies seek FCC OK to transfer control of earth station and experimental licenses held by OneWeb, per an International Bureau submission Wednesday. Eutelsat also notified the FCC about a change in control of its foreign-licensed Eutelsat and its Satelites Mexicanos satellites that have U.S. market access.
SpaceX's effort to use the 2 GHz band to add mobile satellite service (MSS) capabilities to its first-generation constellation (see 2207260005) "is a lawless, pirate application," Dish Network told the FCC International Bureau Thursday. Band licensee Dish said it has been using the band to deploy its 5G network. It said the request seeks to provide MSS when SpaceX's Starlink is authorized to provide only fixed satellite service, and it would violate the agency's rules for the band. SpaceX didn't comment.
Amazon's Kuiper and Telesat wrapped up coordination agreements for their low earth orbit fixed satellite service systems, Amazon told the FCC International Bureau Wednesday. It said they also reached coordination agreements for operation of Telesat's geostationary orbit system, and thus was withdrawing its comments on Telesat's proposed modification of its system. In its comments last month, Amazon urged the bureau to treat the larger first-phase deployment as part of the 2020 processing round and that any grant be conditioned on Telesat getting satisfactory equivalent power flux density findings from the ITU.
Dish Network urged the FCC to reject DirecTV's analysis of the viability of 5G/satellite sharing of the 12 GHz band (see 2208020049) in a filing posted Tuesday in docket 20-443. “DIRECTV effectively admits that its contested claims of ‘close to 100%’ interference potential do not apply to the entire country,” Dish said: “Even if the assumptions made by DIRECTV were all correct (which they are not), the nationwide percentage of dishes threatened with interference would be a lower number because the number of DIRECTV dishes is a small fraction of the dishes that DIRECTV has assumed in the vicinity of a macro-cell tower.”
Thirty-six satellites have arrived at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in India, and their launch will mean OneWeb will have more than 70% of its planned first-generation low earth orbit broadband constellation in orbit, the company said Tuesday. OneWeb said it should have global coverage in 2023. OneWeb told us it expects the launch to happen in October.
Capellla Space wants to add a satellite to its Earth Exploration Satellite Service license. In an FCC International Bureau application Monday, Capella asked to modify the orbital characteristics of its Capella-9 satellite and to add Capella-10, which would operate with identical technical parameters and in the same orbital plane. Capella said it has launched seven of the eight satellites the FCC authorized, and Capella-10 would be its ninth, to be launched simultaneously with Capella-9.
More satellite operators are backing a five-year post-mission disposal requirement, with suggested modifications to the FCC proposal. In a docket 18-313 post Tuesday, OneWeb, EchoStar, Iridium and SES/O3b urged the agency to add language recognizing there can be waivers from the five-year rule and to lay out criteria for evaluating those waiver requests. They said there can be good cause for not being able to meet the five-year rule, such as an anomaly or other event beyond the operator’s control. Amazon's Kuiper and SpaceX also are seeking tweaks to the proposed rule (see 2209190073).
Viasat and SpaceX disagree how the FCC should look at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit decision backing the agency's modifying SpaceX's first-generation constellation operating parameters (see 2208260035). That ruling doesn't resolve SpaceX not complying with the FCC's interference protection requirements, Viasat, which was a plaintiff in the litigation, told the International Bureau Monday. The decision also doesn't cancel "the need for a fulsome review of the adverse environmental impacts" of the proposed second-generation Starlink system, it said. The court dismissed Viasat's complaint on procedural grounds, but the satellite operator said it didn't address the merits of Viasat's claims or deny "the need for careful environmental review in this proceeding of the much larger and more environmentally problematic second-generation Starlink system." SpaceX urged the FCC last month to reject the arguments raised in the commission proceeding on its pending second-generation constellation that also was part of the litigation. Even with FCC equivalent power flux density rules being "overly protective" of geostationary orbit operators to the detriment of non-geostationary ones, "SpaceX has certified that the Gen2 system will comply," it said. SpaceX said the court made a point of rejecting critics' "bespoke EPFD analysis" and that Viasat's environmental arguments fail on their merits and should be rejected.
Three satellites in SpaceX's first-generation low earth orbit constellation lost maneuverability above injection altitude on Aug. 8 and 10 and Sept. 6, the company told the FCC International Bureau in a status report last week. SpaceX said sensitive components leading to the altitude control or communications systems failures were replaced for future designs. It said its past status reports over-reported the number of Starlink satellites that lost maneuverability. SpaceX said the erroneously reported satellites are more than 25% of the total failures reported.
Amazon's Kuiper and SpaceX back a reduction of the 25-year post-mission disposal requirement if the proposal on the FCC's Sept. 29 commissioners' meeting agenda (see 2209080057) is tweaked. Representatives of Amazon's Kuiper told aides to FCC Commissioner Nathan Simington there should be exceptions for some failure scenarios that prevent deorbit and reentry maneuvers, per a docket 18-313 post Monday. SpaceX representatives, meeting with an aide to Commissioner Brendan Carr, said the agency doesn't need to require satellite operators to file a modification when a license or market access grant doesn't already specify a five-year disposal because it would inundate agency staff with filings. They said ambiguous language in the draft order about possibly different post-mission disposal requirements someday for mega constellations "hangs an unnecessary cloud of uncertainty over the industry."