SpaceX, GE and Pilots Remain at Odds Over Upper S-Band Use in Launches
GE Healthcare Technologies and the Aerospace and Flight Test Radio Coordinating Council continue to try to "inject needless complexity" into a launch spectrum coordination process that the FCC wants to streamline, SpaceX said in a filing posted Monday (docket 13-115). GEHC and AFTRCC raised concerns about space launch use of the 2360-2395 MHz band (see 2506170053). In response to SpaceX's opposition to an AFTRCC petition, the council said last month that it seeks only limited clarification of the framework that extends space launch services to the upper S band, "not a major revisitation as one reading the Opposition might conclude." In its reply to SpaceX's opposition, GEHC said its petition wouldn't halt launch access to 2360-2395 MHz but would seek "necessary, reasonable safeguards" protecting medical body area networks (MBANs).
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SpaceX this week said GEHC has "a ready-to-use coordination framework" that lets MBAN devices frequency-hop to eliminate interference risk from any aeronautical mobile operation. Yet instead, GEHC "insists that launch operators must create a needlessly complex and slow process for no good technical reason," SpaceX said. In addition, it said AFTRCC is trying to impose "a spectrally inefficient and unnecessary process [as] an incumbent-led spectrum gatekeeper for all next-generation launch service providers and the customers they serve."