Providers covered under the FCC's rules regarding line separation requests in the Safe Connections Act are required to comply with the provision by July 15 (see 2311160080). A Wireline Bureau public notice Wednesday in docket 22-238 said OMB completed its review of the rules May 3.
Intuitive Machines hopes it can send its second lunar lander to the moon's surface sometime in Q4. In an FCC Space Bureau application posted Tuesday, it sought approval for that NOVA-C Lunar Lander mission. It would land at the moon's South Pole and carry out a variety of missions, including testing an LTE communications system on the moon. The company's first lunar lander mission, part of NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services program, was carried out in February.
Ligado urged the FCC to reallocate the 1675-1680 MHz band for shared commercial use, licensed on a nationwide basis, “but limited to uplink-only operations,” said a filing posted Tuesday in docket 19-116. Representatives spoke with staff from the Wireless Bureau and Office of Engineering and Technology. The proposal “would allow the spectrum to be put to good use supporting 5G IoT services and be consistent with the key conclusion of the in-depth spectrum sharing study conducted by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that it is feasible to open the band to sharing with commercial uplink-only operations,” Ligado said. The FCC sought comment on the band in 2019 (see 2006010057). Ligado said it envisions the band “being used to provide free-standing 5G IoT services to critical infrastructure industries such as electric utilities” and that it could be paired with the adjacent 1670-1675 MHz band.
The FCC Public Safety Bureau will conduct a voluntary exercise of the disaster information reporting system (DIRS) for all communications providers June 10-12, according to a public notice in Tuesday's Daily Digest. The exercise is intended to help communications providers test and practice accessing and filing DIRS reports, training employees on DIRS reporting, and updating DIRS contact info, the PN said. It will begin with a mock activation letter to all registered DIRS participants from the Public Safety Bureau June 10, the PN said. “The activation letter will clearly state that this is only an exercise and not a real DIRS activation.” The letter will include a list of preselected counties that form the affected area for the mock-DIRS activation, and providers will be asked to report data on any communication assets they have in those counties. “As this is only an exercise, the Bureau does not expect to receive actual counts of outages,” the PN said. “If a provider does not have any communications assets in the affected counties, it can still participate in the exercise by reporting mock data for the pre-selected counties.” The agency wants initial data by 10 a.m. EDT June 11 and an updated report by the same time on June 12. The bureau will send a deactivation letter by 3 p.m. EDT June 12 "letting all participants know that the exercise has been completed,” the PN said.
Pixxel Space Technologies anticipates launching its FFLY constellation of three low earth orbit earth-imaging satellites as part of an Oct. 1 SpaceX rideshare launch mission, the satellite imaging company said in an FCC Space Bureau application posted Friday.
Comments are due June 27, replies July 12, as the FCC Space Bureau seeks a refresh of the record on proposed orbital debris mitigation rules, said a notice for Tuesday's Federal Register. The bureau said it was seeking a refresh on such issues as whether to measure collision risks in the aggregate for a non-geostationary orbit constellation or on a per satellite basis and what factors would be relevant in conducting an aggregate risk analysis. It also seeks input on using a 100 object-years metric -- the number of years each failed satellite remains in orbit, added across all the satellites -- for assessing the risk of derelict satellites in orbit from a constellation. The rules came from a Further NPRM that was adopted in 2020 alongside the FCC's orbital debris order (see 2004230040). Comments are due in docket 22-271.
Viasat's argument that assessing a satellite constellation's regulatory complexity should consider factors beyond altitude (see 2405170032) ignores that there is "a direct, physics-based relationship" between altitude and regulatory complexity issues, such as spectrum efficiency and complexity of orbital debris, SpaceX representatives told FCC Space Bureau staffers, according to a filing Friday in docket 24-85. A large system at a lower orbit can present much less complexity than a smaller, higher one, it said. It said the FCC repeatedly rejected constellation size as a good proxy for system complexity and the work burden on staff. "Using a proceeding to determine regulatory fees to reverse this long-standing policy, while rejecting an altitude-based proxy that directly aligns with system complexity, would be arbitrary and capricious," it said.
The FCC is inexplicably inconsistent about conditions it places on satellite constellations, SpaceX representatives told the offices of the five agency commissioners, said a filing Friday in docket 18-313. SpaceX said that while the agency has put 100 object-year caps -- that's the number of years each failed satellite remains in orbit, added up across all the satellites -- on some constellations, it has not done so with Amazon's proposed 3,232-satelite Kuiper constellation. Nor has it required that Kuiper report cumulative object-years any failures represent, though it has required such reporting of some other constellations, SpaceX said. "Now that a greater number of operators are beginning to deploy their systems in earnest, the Commission must ensure that the Bureau applies Commission-level precedent consistently and avoids providing special treatment," SpaceX said.
The FCC Public Safety Bureau asked for comment on the effects of the May 7-11 geomagnetic storm, which peaked on the 11th. Comments should be filed in docket 24-161 and are due June 24. Coronal mass ejections from the sun can distort the propagation of RF waves, the Friday notice said. On May 11, the FCC High Frequency (HF) Direction Finding Center “observed significant disturbance in the propagation of HF radio signals,” the bureau said. The bureau encouraged commenters “to provide any available evidence, particularly electromagnetic spectrum analyses, imagery, or chronological logs relating the storm’s impacts.” Comments should “include the description of the impacts; make and model of affected communications equipment, which could include transmitters, receivers, transceivers, switches, routers, amplifiers etc.; make, model, and type of affected antennae and their composition; frequencies affected; type and composition of cable adjoining communications equipment and the antennae, if applicable; duration of the impact; and any residual effects observed in the hours following restoration,” the notice said.
Mission Broadcasting’s withdrawal from its proposed $75 million purchase of WADL Mount Clemens, Michigan, from Adell Broadcasting likely means the matter won’t end up in a hearing before the FCC’s administrative law judge, broadcast attorneys told us. Mission submitted notice to the agency on Wednesday that the deal would not be consummated (see 2405220074).