"It does not serve the public to hamstring Starlink today for an Amazon satellite system that is at best several years away from operation," SpaceX CEO Elon Musk tweeted Tuesday. He responded to a CNBC reporter's tweet about SpaceX's recent FCC lobbying on its pending modification to allow more than 2,800 planned satellites to orbit at a lower altitude (see 2101250037). Amazon raised red flags about orbital overlap with its planned Kuiper constellation (see 2012040001). "The facts are simple," Amazon later blogged. "We designed the Kuiper System to avoid interference with Starlink, and now SpaceX wants to change the design of its system. Those changes not only create a more dangerous environment for collisions in space, but they also increase radio interference for customers. Despite what SpaceX posts on Twitter, it is SpaceX’s proposed changes that would hamstring competition among satellite systems. It is clearly in SpaceX’s interest to smother competition in the cradle if they can, but it is certainly not in the public’s interest."
Eyeing a cloud service to let customers download and process earth observation data, Microsoft asked for FCC OK to operate an earth station in Washington state to communicate with Planet Labs' SkySat earth observation constellation, it said in an International Bureau application Wednesday. It might file other applications in the future for more points of communication, it said.
More than 100 Nexstar local broadcast stations in 42 states and Washington, D.C., are back on Dish Network after Dish announced a new multiyear carriage deal with the broadcaster Thursday, ending a massive blackout that started early this month (see 2012030049). Dish said Nexstar's WGN America will be available on Sling TV in early 2021 as part of an add-on package.
Given the likely "significant impacts" that SpaceX's pending license modification would have on the orbital environment, the National Environmental Policy Act requires the FCC to do an environmental impact statement as part of its consideration, or at the very least an environmental assessment, Viasat said in an International Bureau petition Tuesday. It said since its initial petition against SpaceX's request to move more than 2,800 planned satellites to a lower orbit (see 2007140001), "numerous studies, articles, and papers" have noted possible environmental harms from mega constellations, including exacerbating global warming, excessive light pollution affecting astronomers and stargazers, higher collision risks from orbital debris, and bigger threats of satellites not fully burning up on reentry. Smaller, more-routine satellite deployments might not raise the same issues, but SpaceX's plans do "given the sheer quantity of satellites at issue here, as well as the unprecedented nature of SpaceX’s treatment of them as effectively expendable," it said. SpaceX didn't comment.
Iridium's maritime distress and safety system mobile satellite service is active. There's real-time emergency voice calling and a distress alert, the company said Tuesday. The FCC OK'd the service in 2019 (see 1912270041).
SiriusXM's SXM-7 satellite, launched Sunday by SpaceX, will bolster the continuity and reliability of its U.S. coverage and let the service expand its coverage area in Canada and the Caribbean, SiriusXM said. Another Maxar-built satellite, SXM-8, is to be launched in 2021, and SXM-7 and SXM-8 together will replace XM-3 and XM-4, it said.
Challenges to AST's pending U.S. market access petition for its SpaceMobile broadband constellation (see 2011040003) ignore that it won't operate on exclusively terrestrial frequencies but will provide service through lease agreements with terrestrial licensees on their authorized frequencies, the company said in an FCC International Bureau filing Thursday. It said its V-band waiver is only to allow it to use the band for gateway services and transmit to only two U.S. earth station locations.
Dish Network now has the data files it sought (see 2009280002) underlying SpaceX's analysis of equivalent power flux density levels for its request to operate more than 2,800 satellites at a lower orbit, SpaceX said in an FCC International Bureau filing Thursday. In a conference call with Bureau Chief Tom Sullivan, SpaceX said its investment in its mega constellation "would be undermined" by uncertainty if the FCC allowed terrestrial mobile use of the 12 GHz band.
Flat-panel antennas (FPAs) are a must-have for low earth orbit (LEO) satellite constellations, and commercial success of FPAs faces such challenges as high costs and lesser bandwidth efficiency than traditional antenna types, reported Quilty Analytics Thursday. The industry not having a breakthrough in costs "is disappointing [and] will likely cloud the prospects" of emerging consumer LEO broadband for at least the next three years, it said.
Gogo, which operates a Ku-band earth stations aboard aircraft network, seeks FCC International Bureau OK to operate Ka-band ESAA terminals on flights. Its blanket license application Tuesday sought to start Ka-band ESAA operations in January.