The launch market is oversaturated, with room for two U.S. launchers in the medium and heavy payload space, United Launch Alliance CEO Tory Bruno said Tuesday at Satellite 2020. Those two would be alongside Arianespace and Russia's launch capabilities, since Europe and Russia will guarantee those two persist, he said. In the small payload space, SpaceX anticipates "two or so" launches a month this year, either for customers or its own StarLink satellites, said President Gwynne Shotwell. She said SpaceX pricing is about as low it can go for its existing rockets. She said its Starship under development could change the economics of crewed spaceflight.
Hughes Network and OneWeb agreed to commingle their networks. Hughes would act as a distribution partner for OneWeb and Hughes customers able to access low-latency connectivity via OneWeb's non-geostationary orbit constellation, Hughes said Monday. Hughes parent EchoStar is an OneWeb investor.
Space startups attracted $5.7 billion in financing in 2019, smashing the $3.5 billion record set in 2018, though it's still a handful of companies attracting the vast bulk of the funding, Bryce Space and Technology said Monday. SpaceX, Blue Origin, OneWeb and Virgin Galactic combined had more than $3.8 billion of that financing, it said. Bryce said 135 space startups received investment in 2019, up 34% from the 2018 previous record. Besides the big four, startup investments totaled $1.8 billion, down slightly from the $1.9 billion in investment excluding those companies the previous year, it said. But 2019 had a big increase in the number of rounds with undisclosed investments -- 38, compared with 15 in 2018 -- pointing to the actual total for the year topping $1.8 billion, it said. Seventy-nine non-U.S. startups got financing in 2019, up from 47 in 2018, while the number of U.S. firms leveled off, with 56 seeing financing, versus 53 in 2018, it said.
Comments are due April 6, replies April 16 on Myriota's waiver request as it seeks FCC OK for its 26-satellite non-voice non-geostationary orbit VHF mobile satellite service constellation, the International Bureau said Friday in a public notice. Comments are due May 4 on a processing round of other NVNG MSS satellite operations in the 137-138 MHz band for downloads and 148-150.5 MHz band for uploads, it said. The processing round was expected (see 1911260021).
The Satellite Industry Association said Friday it will postpone until Sept. 22 its annual Satellite Industry Leadership Dinner, originally scheduled for Monday, due to COVID-19 concerns.
In-orbit satellite servicing technology is proving ready to go, but the market is less clear, Northern Sky Research analyst Shagun Sachdeva blogged Thursday. She said the current cost-to-benefit ratio isn't attractive, though that will improve over time. Demand for life-extension services will likely plateau by decade's end as other technologies mature, she said.
The GPS Innovation Alliance, Deere, Garmin and Trimble met with an aide to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai to talk up the 1 dB noise floor power limit as an interference protection metric for GPS and global navigation satellite service receivers, recounted a docket 11-109 posting Thursday. The GPSIA and Ligado have been at odds over use of the 1 dB standard (see 1911250038).
Application and regulatory fees each are supposed to cover costs, yet the FCC recovers the cost of application processing twice, burdening every party that pays both fees, Satellite Industry Association representatives told FCC Office of General Counsel and Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau staffers. That's per a docket 19-105 posting Thursday. SIA discussed procedural mitigation approaches. Hughes, Intelsat, SES and Telesat also sent representatives.
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency chose Northrop Grumman's SpaceLogistics as commercial partner for its robotic servicing of geosynchronous satellites program, the parent company said Wednesday. The mission will use a commercial robotic servicing spacecraft and aims to expand the market for satellite servicing of commercial and government client satellites, it said. It said DARPA will provide the robotics payload to be used with SpaceLogistics' mission robotic vehicle bus, and be tasked with design, integration, launch and mission operations.
The FCC issued a proposal to prohibit most satellite providers from bidding in the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund auctions with claims of offering low-latency service, asking about an exception for SpaceX in a public notice on docket 20-34 in Tuesday's Daily Digest. "We propose prohibiting providers that intend to use geostationary or medium earth orbit satellites from selecting low latency in combination with any of the performance tiers." Comments are due March 27, replies April 10 on RDOF Auction 904 procedures, OK'd 3-2 by commissioners Friday (see 2002280002). "Some service providers that use these satellite technologies have acknowledged that they cannot meet the low latency requirement that 95% or more of all peak period measurements of network round trip latency are at or below 100 milliseconds," the PN said. "SpaceX contends that its low-earth orbit satellite service can meet the low-latency threshold." That's a modification in language from the draft (see 2002070056). Another PN offers a guide with technical and mathematical details on Auction 904 bidding procedures.