Maxar Technologies' purchase by private equity firm Advent International and minority investor British Columbia Investment Management is finalized, Maxar said Wednesday. The $6.4 billion Advent deal was announced in December (see 2212190010).

The first step of OneWeb's two-part requested modification of its U.S. market access grant (see 2111050001), with slightly fewer satellites, was approved, but the second step, which would mean thousands more, is on hold, the FCC Space Bureau said in an order in Monday's Daily Digest. It said reducing the number of approved satellites in phase one from 720 to 716 doesn't raise spectrum availability concerns and won't materially affect competition in the U.S. It deferred acting on phase two, which would expand OneWeb's system to 6,372 satellites, and doesn't address phase two in the order.

SpaceX's urgings that numerous other satellite operators face the same conditions as its second-generation Starlinks did (see 2301180049) don't offer any specifics as to why Starlink conditions would be relevant to Telesat's proposed operations, the Canadian satellite operator said Monday in docket 18-313. The second-gen conditions are specific to SpaceX and its methods and history, it said. The tens of thousands of Starlinks planned are more than an order of magnitude larger than what Telesat is planning, so it would be "unreasonable and even ridiculous to apply SpaceX’s conditions" to it, Telesat said.

Saying ignoring FCC deadlines "has become DISH’s hallmark in this proceeding," SpaceX told the Space Bureau last week the agency should ignore the days-late Dish and EchoStar response to SpaceX's opposition to a Dish and EchoStar petition to deny. Dish didn't comment Monday. It and EchoStar petitioned the FCC to reject SpaceX's request to use the AWS-4 band and adjacent 2020-2025 MHz band for mobile satellite service direct to handsets (see 2303150048). Dish emailed us that its response filing "was not late: it was early. The Commission has not even placed SpaceX's application to use the 2 GHz band on Public Notice, or established a briefing schedule. Nor should it: granting SpaceX's modification would be contrary to more than a decade of Commission precedent, and would allow SpaceX to essentially block DISH from using the 2 GHz spectrum for the nation’s first greenfield 5G network.”

Viasat's ViaSat-3 high-throughput satellite serving the Americas launched Sunday on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Viasat said Monday. It said the satellite should reach its geostationary orbital slot in under three weeks. CEO Mark Dankberg said the satellite "will multiply our available bandwidth, and enable faster speeds and more coverage especially for our mobility customers." SES's O3b said Friday its third and fourth medium-orbit mPower satellites launched on a SpaceX Falcon 9. It said mPower commercial service is expected to begin in Q3. William Blair's Louie DiPalma said in a note to investors long ViaSat-3 delays have "taken a toll on ViaSat’s residential business' though the satellite should enable Viasat to offer faster residential downlink speeds and higher monthly data caps and potentially even eliminate data caps altogether in some areas. However, it might not be enough to overcome residential broadband competition from SpaceX and Amazon's Kuiper and fixed airless cellular providers, he said.

The FCC Space Bureau approved Viasat's request to move Sunday's launch and operation milestone for its ViaSat-3 satellite serving the U.S. to the end of May (see 2303270004), per a Space Bureau public notice Friday.

SpaceX seeks a blanket license for Ka-band earth stations that will each communicate simultaneously with up to eight of its first-generation satellites and up to 32 of its second-gen satellites, it told the FCC Space Bureau Wednesday. SpaceX said the earth stations would transmit in the 28.35-29.1 GHz and 29.5- 30.0 GHz bands and receive in the 17.8-18.6 GHz and 18.8-19.3 GHz bands. It said it already is licensed to operate more than 60 gateways using that spectrum, but the blanket license would give it more "flexibility to deploy earth stations where and as needed [and] relieve the burden on the Commission of processing SpaceX Services’ earth station applications."

A federal court again rejected a class-action suit claiming insider trading of Intelsat stock before the public found out the FCC wouldn't allow a private auction of the satellite company's C-band spectrum. In an order Wednesday granting the defendants' motions to dismiss (docket 4:20-cv-02341), U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White for the Northern District of California said the amended complaint surmises that Intelsat management must have updated then-Chairman David McGlade, one of the defendants, but doesn't include any information about specific communications around the time he made his stock sales. White said the amended complaint had no new allegations about defendant Silver Lake Group, and expanded allegations about defendant BC Partners still aren't sufficient to state a claim. He said with the latest amended complaint being the third iteration, "any further amendments would be futile," and ordered it dismissed with prejudice. The suit alleged McGlade and major Intelsat shareholders sold big blocks of their holdings after learning about the C-band auction decision.

Iceye's proposed multi-satellite system (see 2304050002) will share altitudes with SpaceX satellites, so before its application is processed, the company should clarify aspects of its orbital debris mitigation plan that could affect SpaceX operations, SpaceX told the FCC Space Bureau this week. Those clarifications should include that Iceye will maintain station-keeping and active collision avoidance until its satellites are safely below in-use spacecraft, SpaceX said. Grant of Iceye's application should carry the same conditions as SpaceX's second-generation constellation, including the filing of semi-annual reports on collision avoidance maneuvers and satellite disposal and use of a performance-based method for assessing disposal failures, it said. Iceye didn't comment Wednesday. SpaceX has repeatedly urged other satellite systems be subject to similar conditions as its second-gen system (see 2301180049).

The Wednesday launch of Viasat's ViaSat-3 Americas satellite from the Kennedy Space Center was rescheduled for Thursday night, the company said.