FCC Space Bureau Reducing Backlog
As greater numbers of satellites are launched, the FCC is making progress trimming its backlog of satellite and earth station applications, FCC Space Bureau Chief Jay Schwarz said Tuesday as the Satellite Industry Association released its 2025 state of the satellite industry report. A record 11,539 operational satellites were in orbit as of the end of 2024, up more than 1,900 from year-end 2023, SIA said.
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According to the report, 2,502 commercial satellites were launched last year, along with 193 commercially procured government satellites. Of the total, 83% were U.S.-made and 9% Chinese, as Beijing began deploying mega constellations. With Amazon’s Kuiper at the beginning of its deployment, and those Chinese broadband and earth observation constellations coming, the pace of low earth orbit (LEO) satellite deployments is still growing, said Fletcher Franklin, an analyst with BryceTech, which prepared the report for SIA.
SIA said that counting launches since the beginning of the year, the number of operational satellites in orbit has topped 12,000. Of the 11,539 at the end of 2024, 72% were communications satellites, while an additional 10% were for remote sensing, it said. The big growth has come from LEO, it said: The number of operational geostationary orbit (GSO) satellites at the end of 2024 was 618, up 18 year over year.
Roughly 1 Tbps of satellite capacity was deployed in 2023, according to the report. As of 2024, operators had plans to deploy nearly 150 Tbps more through 2028 -- the vast majority of that in LEO.
SIA said 2024 saw 259 launches, up 18% over 2023, totaling 2,172 tons of satellites and other payloads, a 46% increase. U.S. launch operators launches rose fourfold since 2015, it added.
The FCC's Schwarz said the U.S. runs a risk of losing its dominance in commercial space, as it has in semiconductors and batteries. Rapid changes in the space industry are outpacing regulation, and the FCC has been "urgently retooling" in response, he said. Since Jan. 20, the FCC has received 98 satellite applications, while it addressed 117, and it received 581 earth station applications, processing 1,078.
Pointing to steps to help speed up application processing -- such as updated earth station guidance, issued in March -- Schwarz said the bureau "plan[s] on turning it up to 11." The FCC next needs to decide how to eliminate what can be a slow, bespoke review process and standardize it more, he said. "China is not going to be hampered by red tape."
Schwarz said that after the FCC adopted a GSO/non-GSO spectrum sharing NPRM in April (see 2504280038), Romania announced it's also looking at those limits.