The initial group of Amazon's Kuiper satellites is set for launch April 9 on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket, Amazon said Wednesday. The 27 Kuipers will be deployed at an altitude of 450 kilometers, it added. Amazon expects to offer commercial satellite broadband service later this year, the company said, calling the 27 satellites "a significant upgrade" from the prototypes launched in 2023 (see 2310110007). Amazon said the satellites are coated in a mirror film that scatters reflected sunlight to make them less visible to ground-based astronomers. In the next several years, there are seven more Kuiper launches planned on Atlas V, along with 38 launches on ULA's larger Vulcan Centaur rocket and 30-plus launches by Arianespace, Blue Origin and SpaceX.

Not taking full advantage of the various global navigation satellite system (GNSS) signals available harms the U.S. "at no cost to America's foreign adversaries," authors said in an Apple-funded white paper filed at the FCC Tuesday (docket 25-110). John Raquet, senior vice president at Integrated Solutions for Systems, and Terry Burruss, a former senior intelligence officer in the CIA's Directorate of Digital Innovation, said that for internet-assisted navigation and timing systems, having access to multiple GNSS signals carries little risk. Allowing access to multiple GNSS constellations also lets U.S. companies compete better, they said. Investing in GPS "is paramount," but adopting open access to GNSS signals "will allow the U.S. to continue to lead in GNSS-related technology, as it has since the inception of GPS."

Geostationary orbit satellite operators writing down the value of their GSOs, along with underwhelming GSO orders, are starting to undermine claims for multi-orbit satellite systems, Quilty Space's Caleb Henry wrote Monday. In a call last week with analysts as Telesat announced its latest quarterly earnings, CEO Dan Goldberg acknowledged that the company hasn't ordered a GSO in nine years, even as some of its satellites are nearing the end of their lifespans, "because we haven't been able to close a compelling business case for a new [GSO] in quite some time." Telesat -- with a $187 million write-down -- is the second major GSO operator to disclose a significant impairment charge because of difficulty selling GSO capacity, with Eutelsat reporting a write-down in February, Quilty's Henry said. Both companies, meanwhile, are investing heavily in low earth orbit, with Telesat planning its Lightspeed constellation and Eutelsat buying OneWeb and participating in the EU's Iris2 constellation, he said.

Satellogic told the FCC Space Bureau on Monday that it was withdrawing its application seeking authorization for a planned 120-satellite X-band earth exploration service constellation (see 2403080002). The company didn't elaborate.

Regulatory fees for satellite and earth station licensing should be approved in a way that looks to the future, SpaceX said in comments posted Friday. Filings on a February Further NPRM were due Thursday in docket 24-85 (see 2502260017). SpaceX, a company led by Trump administration adviser Elon Musk, said “any changes to the existing framework” must meet what FCC Chairman Brendan Carr calls the “Gretsky [sic] Test.” NHL Hall of Famer Wayne Gretzky advised skating “to where the puck is going, not where it has been,” SpaceX noted.

Pointing to possible further limits on C-band capacity in the U.S., Eutelsat is seeking U.S. market access for its Brazil-licensed Eutelsat 65 West A geostationary orbit satellite as an alternate way of serving U.S. customers. In an FCC Space Bureau application posted Thursday, Eutelsat said it wants to make use of the satellite -- launched in 2016 -- to receive uplinks in the 6725-7025 MHz band from U.S. earth stations and to downlink those transmissions in the 4500-4800 MHz band to a single earth station in Pittsburgh. The FCC commissioners in February approved an upper C-band notice of inquiry looking at ways of freeing up spectrum there for new services (see 2502270042).

Regulatory fees assessed on all authorized satellites and earth stations, not just operational ones, help better distribute the fee burden to everyone benefiting from FCC Space Bureau employee resources, the Satellite Industry Association said. In docket 24-85 comments posted Wednesday, SIA said this would also mean lower per-station and per-satellite fees. The group backs assessing satellite regulatory fees based on how much a particular type of operator likely benefits from "full-time employee resources" and constellation size. But it opposes alternative approaches that use a subjective analysis of a system's design and operations, it said. If the FCC takes a fee approach that looks at the number of authorized satellites in a fleet, it must use consistent methodology across satellite operators for what constitutes an authorized satellite, SIA added.

SpaceX's opposition to Globalstar's C-3 constellation plans (see 2503070006) is baseless, Globalstar told the FCC in a letter Tuesday. The agency's March 2024 denial of SpaceX operating in Globalstar's licensed big low earth orbit mobile satellite service (MSS) spectrum didn't set a new big LEO rulemaking as a precondition to FCC consideration and grant of C-3, Globalstar said. Instead, it said, the 2024 denial sets up a rulemaking precondition for applications for additional non-geostationary orbit MSS systems from other parties. C-3 doesn't represent an additional NGSO MSS system, but a next-generation deployment request from the longtime operator and exclusive MSS licensee in this spectrum, Globalstar said.

With SES and Intelsat hoping to close the former's purchase of the latter by June, the companies met with FCC Space Bureau Chief Jay Schwarz to discuss the deal's rationale and benefits. In a docket 24-267 filing Tuesday, they recapped a meeting with Schwarz where they said that building scale is necessary to compete in the satcom marketplace.

The FCC Space Bureau has signed off on SpaceX's first-generation Starlinks using parts of the 137-138 MHz unlink and 148-150.05 MHz downlink bands during launch, in early operations and in mobile satellite service, said a notice in Friday's Daily Digest. It said no more than 150 of SpaceX's Starlinks or Swarm satellites can operate in the bands simultaneously.