Amazon's Kuiper prototype satellites launched earlier this month (see 2310110007) "are stable in orbit ... and communicating across all links from Earth to space and space to Earth," the company said Monday. It said commercial-scale satellite production will start by year end, with the first to be launched in the first half of 2024 and beta testing with early commercial customers in the second half.
The Satellite Industry Association echoed concerns the Aerospace Industries Association raised about pending activity to designate outer space as one of the nation's critical infrastructures (see 2309280011). In a letter last week to National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, SIA included AIA language about how such a designation could result in a "resource risk" for federal agencies and the space industry and that it also could grease the path to additional space industry regulation.
Rather than an either/or choice between geostationary orbit (GSO) or low earth orbit connectivity providers, the maritime shipping industry is increasingly taking a hybrid approach, Valour Consultancy blogged Thursday. Meanwhile, SpaceX's Starlink maritime service is growing, providing connectivity to thousands of maritime vessels and there has been a "definite slowdown" in the number of publicly announced GSO very small aperture terminal installations over the past year, it said. Danish shipping company Maersk said Thursday its 330-plus container vessels will have Starlink installed, after a pilot trial on more than 30 Maersk vessels.
The malfunctioning ViaSat-3 satellite (see 2307130003) won't need to be replaced, but the company expects to recover less than 10% of its planned throughput, Viasat said Thursday. It said the next two ViaSat-3 satellites, ground network mitigation and third-party bandwidth commitments, along with that limited capacity, should cover current and future mobility customer needs. Viasat said it has $420 million in insurance coverage on the satellite and will make a claim before year's end. It said it also will finalize a claim before year's end for the malfunction of its Inmarsat-6 F2 satellite (see 230825000). It said it has $348 million in insurance coverage for that one.
SpaceX plans to start offering mobile supplemental coverage from space starting next year, said its Starlink website. It said its SCS coverage will start with texting service in 2024, to be followed by voice and data service and IoT service in 2025.
Having launched two prototype satellites Friday, Amazon's Kuiper expects to start providing commercial broadband service by the end of 2024, Amazon blogged this week. It said its three customer terminals will offer speeds of up to 100 Mbps, 400 Mbps or 1 Gbps. It didn't give pricing details but said "affordability is a key principle of Project Kuiper."
GPS jamming is on the rise in Gaza and the West Bank, with the war between Israel and Hamas, the Resilient Navigation and Timing Foundation blogged Tuesday. It said the source of the increase in interference -- Israeli or Hamas forces -- is tough to pin down because each could be trying to degrade the effectiveness of the other's weapons and the ability of forces to coordinate and maneuver.
Any FCC Wireless Bureau authorization of commercial supplemental coverage from space (SCS) operations should be through a waiver-based approach, AT&T said Tuesday in docket 23-135. Citing SpaceX's proposed use of T-Mobile spectrum, AT&T said that requires waivers, and SpaceX's special temporary authority application filed last week contains none of the needed waiver requests. It said the novel testing SpaceX proposes should be handled by an experimental license. In its STA application, SpaceX asked for 60 days starting Dec. 1 to launch and test its second-generation satellites with direct-to-mobile payloads as they connect with unmodified mobile phones using T-Mobile's PCS G Block spectrum.
AT&T is deciding what to do with its 70% stake in DirecTV, including a dividend recapitalization, bringing in a new investor, or selling its stake, Bloomberg reported, citing unnamed sources. AT&T declined comment. It spun off part of the business two years ago, with TPG Capital picking up 30% (see 2107160069). AT&T expects declining cash flow from DirecTV, Chief Financial Officer Pascal Desroches said at a Bank of America financial conference last month. “Those cash flows are much more resilient than many believe,” he said: “We're really happy with the way the business is being managed.”
Dish Network "has a long track record of safely flying a large satellite fleet and takes seriously its responsibilities as an FCC licensee," the company emailed us Monday in response to the FCC Enforcement Bureau's $150,000 fine over disposal of the company's EchoStar-7 satellite (see 2310020049). "As the Enforcement Bureau recognizes in the settlement, the EchoStar-7 satellite was an older spacecraft (launched in 2002) that had been explicitly exempted from the FCC’s rule requiring a minimum disposal orbit. Moreover, the Bureau made no specific findings that EchoStar-7 poses any orbital debris safety concerns," it said.