U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Keith Phillips of Richmond denied SES' motion for summary judgment (see 2106170043) in its C-Band Alliance-related litigation against Intelsat, and took Intelsat's motion for summary judgment under advisement, per notations last week in docket 20-32299 (in Pacer).
Tariff classification rulings
OneWeb launched another 34 satellites Saturday, bringing its total in-orbit constellation to 288, it said Monday. Those 288 are part of its plans for a 648-satellite broadband fleet, it said, saying it remains on target to start offering global service in 2022.
The FCC Wireless Bureau opened docket 21-333 for C-band clearinghouse disputes on cost estimates, invoices, and payment or cost-sharing obligations, said a notice listed in Thursday’s Daily Digest.
Telesat will likely be publicly traded by the end of Q3 or sometime in Q4, CEO Dan Goldberg said Friday as the company announced its Q2 financial results. Telesat in November announced a deal with Loral Space & Communications to take it public (see 2011240043). The FCC approved related license transfers earlier this month. Goldberg said a combined Dish Network/DirecTV wouldn't affect the prospects of renewing Dish's capacity contract with Telesat that expires in Q2 2022. For the quarter, Telesat said consolidated revenue was $150.3 million; down 3% year over year when adjusted for changes in foreign exchange rates. It said the revenue drop was due to a reduction in Dish service and non-renewals of some maritime and aeronautical connectivity contracts.
Spaceflight is seeking FCC OK for deployment and launch of its Sherpa-LTC1 spacecraft in December or January. In a request for special temporary authority filed Thursday with the International Bureau, Spaceflight said the Sherpa mission will last up to 180 days, deploying its manifest of customers' satellites and doing a demonstration of its control and propulsion, a rapid deorbit and data collection. Onboard the Sherpa mission would be 13 cubesats or micro-satellites from operators including NASA, Spacemanic and HawkEye 360, it said.
SES hopes to launch four geosynchronous C-band satellites in Q3 2022 as part of the clearing of the 3.7-4 GHz band, per a series of FCC International Bureau filings on Thursday (for example, see here). It said SES-18 will replace AMC-11 and the C-band capacity of AMC-1, SES-20 will replace AMC-8 and the C-band capacity of AMC-4, SES-21 for the C-band capacity of SES-3 and SES-19 will be an on-orbit spare.
The FCC needs to make clear that commercially available off-the-shelf RF devices, particularly those operating at low power, are authorized for operation in outer space, said Axiom Space in a filing posted Friday in docket 13-115. Axiom plans to build a commercial addition to the International Space Station. Commercial space flight will face an undue burden if the FCC requires licensing for every two-way compatible consumer device, while the likelihood of harmful interference to terrestrial devices from low-power unlicensed devices "is vanishingly small," it said.
The Canadian government will provide a $790 (Canadian) million loan and make a $650 million preferred equity investment in Telesat's forthcoming Lightspeed low earth orbit broadband constellation, Telesat said Thursday. Telesat said it committed to creating at least 700 full-time equivalent positions in Canada and to $1 billion in capital spending there for the initial constellation, plus further spending toward its subsequent constellation. Telesat CEO Dan Goldberg said the Canadian government loan and investment, atop other investments including from the government of Quebec (see 2102190002), gives it about $4 billion to put toward Lightspeed, with the remaining commitments expected in the near term. ($1 Canadian = $.80 U.S.)
The Commerce, NASA and DOD memo Ligado submitted to the FCC (see 2108030054) "plainly recognized" that Interdepartment Radio Advisory Committee (IRAC) and the National Space-Based Positioning, Navigation and Timing Executive Committee (PNTEC) hadn't reached a decision about the feasibility of its terrestrial low power service plans, Iridium said in docket 12-340 Thursday. The memo instead designates the proposed uplinks to IRAC and the lower 10 MHz to PNTEC for review, and wasn't final agency input on Ligado's plans, Iridium said. Iridium said the 2013 email Ligado filed from then principal director within the DOD Office of Chief Information Officer mischaracterized the memo. The memo "clearly" shows interference effects from Ligado's uplinks to GPS, and the memo itself is irrelevant to the pending reconsideration petitions of the 2020 Ligado approval, it said. Ligado didn't comment.
The FCC International Bureau signed off on Orbcomm license transfers as part of a $1.1 billion acquisition by investment firm GI Partners (see 2105240003), said a bureau grant this week.