Geostationary orbit satellite startup Astranis' Arcturus satellite, launched in April to bring broadband to Alaska, "abruptly experienced an anomaly" with its solar array drive assembly, CEO John Gedmark tweeted Friday. As a result, it can't maintain full power constantly and the company will have to delay starting service in Alaska while repurposing the satellite for secondary missions, Gedmark said. The faulty component came from a contractor, and all Astranis-designed hardware "works perfectly," he said. Astranis knows "exactly how to quickly solve this issue on future spacecraft that are in production as we speak," he added. The Astranis problems, following technical problems with Viasat's ViaSat-3 Americas satellite (see 2307130003), are "tough blows for the industry," Northern Sky Research analyst Dallas Kasaboski tweeted Friday. "Thankfully, manufacturing is increasing in responsiveness, allowing replacements to be more easily deployed," he said. "Also acts as evidence supporting in-orbit servicing one day."
The FCC effectively gave first Ka-/Ku-band processing round applicants a seven-year sunset of their interference projections by backdating it to 2020 for first-round operators, OneWeb said Friday in a docket 21-456 petition for partial reconsideration. With many second processing round grants still pending, first-round operators would ultimately get little to no protection interference from second-round grantees after the latter are fully deployed, it said. That "undermines the Commission’s rationale that First Round operators should be ensured some period of time during which they will be protected from second-round systems even after the latter have deployed and offered service." OneWeb said, asking the agency to reconsider the sunset provision in its non-geostationary orbit satellite spectrum sharing order approved in April (see 2304200039).
Hyped for years, shipments of flat-panel satellite antennas are ratcheting up and manufacturers are moving from design and development to being production-ready, Valour Consultancy said Friday, forecasting a total of 100,000 units being shipped by year's end for connectivity applications like aviation, maritime and land mobility. It said non-geostationary orbit satellite capacity growth will drive antenna demand.
New Viasat counter-arguments to SpaceX seeking rescinding the order allowing Viasat to acquire Inmarsat's authorizations (see 2307060019) rely on "misconceived arguments and misapplication of case law," SpaceX said Thursday in a docket 22-153 reply. It said Viasat's examples of past cases are all focused on competition-related allegations rather than license compliance.
Capella Space hopes to launch two more earth exploration satellite service satellites, Arcadia-3 and -4, in Q4 of this year and Q1 2024 respectively, it told the FCC Space Bureau Tuesday in an application to launch the two. The satellites would join nine of its EESS satellites already in orbit, Capella said. It said it signed a coordination agreement with NASA, the Air Force and other federal agencies for its X-band downlinks to ensure Capella operations don't interfere with the federal systems.
Alongside its pending request to provide supplemental coverage from space (SCS) services using the V band, AST SpaceMobile is asking the FCC for permission to use parts of the 850 MHz cellular A and B block and lower 700 MHz B and C block. In Space Bureau filing Monday seeking to amend its pending U.S. market access application (see 2004140001), AST said it would use that spectrum between 704 and 894 MHz, leased from AT&T, to provide SCS services for AT&T subscribers. AST said it plans to launch five of its BlueBird commercial satellites in Q1 2024 for its SCS constellation, with a second block of BlueBirds to follow later that year.
Telesat's LEO 3 demonstration microsatellite launched Sunday on a Rocket Lab Electron rocket in a rideshare mission launched from New Zealand, the satellite operator said Tuesday. Telesat said it will provide continuity for customers and do vendor testing work following the decommissioning of its Phase 1 LEO satellite.
The reflector malfunction on Viasat's newly launched ViaSat-3 Americas satellite (see 2307130003) could have a "pronounced effect" on the company's overall growth trajectory as the satellite was to bring exponentially more network capacity to its already capacity-constrained existing satellites, S&P Global said Monday. It now appears unlikely Viasat will return to subscriber growth in the next couple of years, S&P Global said.
Since SpaceX's proposed operations in the VHF band (see 2212160006) could mean large exclusion zones where commercial service in the band consistently receives interference, the FCC should grant SpaceX's proposed operations on only a noninterference basis, Myriota said Friday in docket 22-271, recapping a meeting with Space Bureau staff. SpaceX didn't comment.
A problem with a reflector on ViaSat-3 Americas "may materially impact" the satellite's performance, Viasat said Wednesday. The reflector event happened during deployment, it said. Viasat said it's looking at contingency plans to minimize the economic effect, including redeploying satellites from Viasat’s fleet to optimize global coverage, and reallocating a subsequent ViaSat-3 class satellite to provide additional Americas bandwidth. “We’re disappointed by the recent developments,” said CEO Mark Dankberg. “We’re working closely with the reflector’s manufacturer to try to resolve the issue." ViaSat-3 Americas' service priority is growing the company's North American broadband service, and Viasat said the reflector problem isn't disrupting customers and isn't affecting coverage or capacity of the Viasat or Inmarsat constellations in service now. ViaSat-3 launched at the end of April (see 2305010013).