Astroscale is seeking FCC approval to launch and operate its Life Extension In-Orbit Prime (LEXI-P) vehicle, according to an application posted Tuesday. The company said LEXI-P would be the first service in Astroscale's life extension in-orbit program, providing life extension, maneuvering or fleet management services for satellites in or around geostationary orbit. A LEXI-P is under construction for an anticipated March 2027 launch to provide services to multiple client vehicles over an anticipated 15-year life, it added.
Amazon Leo is running a beta test of its enterprise satellite connectivity service with some customers ahead of wider commercial rollout in 2026, the company said Monday. It said it's shipping its Leo Ultra terminals to companies as part of the testing and will expand to more customers as its network adds coverage and capacity.
The ITU's existing equivalent power flux density (EPFD) power limits on non-geostationary orbit (NGSO) satellites protect SES' ability to offer service while giving NGSOs regulatory certainty, company representatives told the office of FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez last week. In a filing posted Friday, (docket 25-157), SES said that with thousands of NGSOs launched in the last five years, and NGSO total capacity exceeding geostationary orbit capacity, it's hard to see how the EPFD limits are too protective of GSOs. The EPFD limits might be 25 years old, but they're not automatically outdated, SES argued. In addition, the company said its EPFD concerns "are not hypothetical," as it has seen a yearlong harmful interference incident from an NGSO system operating well in excess of the EPFD limits. The NGSO operator is working to fix the problem, but the interference still hasn't been fully corrected, it added.
The FCC Space Bureau has approved Vast Space's request to operate a non-geostationary orbit demo spacecraft, Haven-Demo, which is intended to demonstrate the functionality of some components and systems that will be used in Vast's forthcoming Haven-1 habitable space station. The Haven-1 is being designed for a three-year mission, the company said.
AST SpaceMobile's BlueBird 6 satellite is scheduled for launch Dec. 15 from India's Satish Dhawan Space Center, the company said Friday. BlueBird 6 will be the first of its next-generation satellites, with 10 times the data capacity of its BlueBirds 1-5, AST said. It added that it plans to have 45-60 satellites in orbit by the end of 2026 to support continuous direct-to-device coverage across the U.S. and select markets.
Viasat said Monday that it struck a deal to use Telesat's Lightspeed low earth orbit satellite capacity in its JetXP in-flight broadband. Lightspeed, along with Viasat's geostationary orbit capabilities, will boost JetXP connectivity with additional redundancy and global coverage, the company said. The integrated service will be commercially available in late 2027.
ViaSat-3 Flight 2 satellite successfully launched Thursday night from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. Viasat said there was successful signal acquisition from the satellite shortly thereafter. F2 is to provide service to the Americas and double the overall bandwidth capacity of Viasat’s satellite fleet.
Amazon's Kuiper satellite system is now Amazon Leo, the company said Thursday. The rebranding is "a simple nod to the low Earth orbit satellite constellation that powers our network."
The lower court hearing Ligado's complaint against the federal government erred in not finding that the Communications Act displaced the trial court's jurisdiction over Ligado's takings claims, DOJ said this week in a reply brief (docket 25-1792). The U.S. has an interlocutory appeal before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit regarding a lower court's partial rejection of the government's motion to dismiss the Ligado suit (see 2411180023). Ligado alleged that the DOD is infringing on the company's L-band spectrum rights (see 2310130003).
After Viasat confirmed last week that it had received $436 million in cash in an initial payment from AST SpaceMobile as part of the latter's Ligado spectrum transaction, AST could potentially strike similar arrangements to lease spectrum in markets outside the U.S., William Blair's Louie DiPalma wrote investors Monday. In a call with analysts Friday, Viasat CEO Mark Dankberg also said United Launch Alliance anticipates putting up the ViaSat-3 Flight 2 satellite at the end of this week. Getting it and Flight 3 into service will be a big step for Viasat, he said, as each will enable more bandwidth capacity than Viasat's entire existing fleet.