Consumers may find they're using new satellite messaging on their iPhones more frequently than expected, LightShed’s Walter Piecyk told investors Tuesday, based on his experience. “We believe satellites will play a critical role in finally filling in the suburban coverage holes" that opponents of wireless deployments created, he said: “That will broaden the market opportunity beyond what has largely been perceived as limited to a distressed hiker lost in a national park. It’s possible that satellite connectivity will simply be used as a free service that device manufacturers and/or wireless operators use to differentiate their product and services.” Piecyk sees “a sizable revenue opportunity that could emerge globally.” LightShed estimates that about a quarter of Apple’s 1.5 billion active iPhone users have satellite-capable phones. Piecyk noted that an operating system update this fall will expand satellite connectivity to the iMessage app in the U.S.

Comments are due July 31, replies Aug. 30, on ways of expanding federal use of the bands used by commercial satellite networks that aren't currently allocated for the federal fixed satellite service and mobile satellite service, said a notice for Monday's Federal Register. The FCC Office of Engineering and Technology said it was especially seeking input on ways of providing federal earth stations with interference protection when they are communicating with commercial satellites in bands not allocated for federal FSS and MSS. OET said it also wanted to refresh the record concerning the addition of co-primary federal FSS or MSS allocations to several bands. The filing is in docket 24-121.

Amazon expects that its first launch of commercial Kuiper satellites will come in Q4 on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket, the company blogged last week. It expects to then ramp up satellite production and deployment in 2025, with it still anticipating to start commercial service that year. At its peak, Amazon's Kirkland, Washington, factory for Kuiper satellites will be able to produce five a day, it said.

A decommissioned Russian satellite, Resurs-P1, broke up in low earth orbit, creating more than 100 pieces of traceable debris, the U.S. Space Command said Thursday. However, it said there was no immediate orbital debris threat.

Lacking access to functioning GPS due to spoofing and jamming is becoming a semiregular occurrence for trans-Atlantic flights, the Resilient Navigation and Timing Foundation blogged Wednesday, citing an FAA advisory. It said that ultimately could mean increased flight times and delays as air traffic controllers limit the number of aircraft being tracked.

With SpaceX acknowledging its proposed G-block supplemental coverage from space (SCS) operations can't comply with the required aggregate out-of-band emissions limit, there is no reason for waiving the aggregate emissions limit, EchoStar said Thursday in docket 23-135. Even if the agency isn't ready to dismiss SpaceX's noncompliant application, the waiver at the very least necessitates a new public notice and pleading cycle because the amended waiver request is a major amendment, the filing argued. In its amended waiver request, filed earlier this month, SpaceX said the emissions limit set in the FCC's SCS order "is not practically achievable on an aggregate basis." SpaceX said the waiver, allowing for a different power flux density than the rules specify, would still protect adjacent band networks from harmful interference. The waiver also "would avoid placing artificial caps on the number of satellites that an operator may use to provide supplemental coverage," it said.

With 90 Starlinks in orbit that have direct-to-device capability, SpaceX is talking with the FCC about ensuring that testing in international markets doesn't run afoul of agency rules. The commission can facilitate testing by ensuring experimental authority defers to local authorities in those international markets, SpaceX said in a docket 23-135 filing posted Wednesday recapping meetings with FCC Space Bureau and Office of Engineering and Technology staff. It said applying the FCC's "one-size-fits-all out-of-band emissions limit" to supplemental coverage from space testing in international markets would undermine foreign regulators' development of their SCS frameworks and rules.

The space economy in 2022 accounted for $131.8 billion, or 0.5% of U.S. GDP, and supported 347,000 private-sector jobs, the Bureau of Economic Analysis said Tuesday. The agency said manufacturing accounted for 31.1% of total private employment in space, with information following at 21.9%.

SpaceX's second-generation Starlink satellites are proving more robust than expected and can operate easily a couple of hundred kilometers lower than their 525-535 km operational orbits without hardware changes, the company told the FCC Space Bureau last week. It said its pending request for operating in the 340-360 km range capitalizes "on the significant space sustainability and service improvements that lower-altitude operations allow." SpaceX said it has been coordinating with NASA and the National Science Foundation to ensure that the lower-altitude operations won't increase risk to federal space and science missions and in many cases will decrease risk. Earlier this month, the bureau posed a series of questions to SpaceX about its lower-altitude plans. Pointing to its partial approval of the company's second-generation constellation (see 2212010052), including a condition that it not deploy satellites that operate below the International Space Station -- roughly 400 km altitude --, the agency asked how many satellites SpaceX anticipates operating below the ISS at any one time. In its filing last week, SpaceX said the figure could vary, but potentially 600, though perhaps more. It said it hopes ultimately the FCC will sign off on 19,440 satellites at 340-360 km altitudes, as it requested in its second-generation application. However, for now it wants to include those orbital shells as an option for its first tranche of 7,500 second-gen satellites. SpaceX said its automated collision avoidance system "has proven its mettle on-orbit."

With the FCC signing off on four of Tomorrow Companies' planned non-geostationary orbit satellites and deferred action on 14 more, Tomorrow is asking the agency's Space Bureau to modify its grant, going to six satellites and allowing the company to move on the remaining 12. The Space Bureau application posted Thursday included updated re-entry casualty risk information; the agency in granting the four weather satellites had deferred action on the 14 pending updated re-entry casualty information (see 2405200049). Tomorrow said it's trying to make redesigns that are part of the updated re-entry casualty information, but they don't appear to be practical to be implemented before the seventh and eighth scheduled missions. It said it anticipates an October launch for its third and fourth satellites, with another 10 launching in Q1 2025.