Satellite startup Swarm was granted an experimental license for launch of more cubesats, according to an FCC Office of Engineering and Technology approval Monday. The FCC said Thursday its Enforcement Bureau investigation into an unauthorized previous launch of Swarm cubesats (see 1807180020) remains ongoing and the license was issued without prejudice to any enforcement action. The agency in August approved Swarm receiving orbital tracking data from those cubesats (see 1808300014).

Intelsat, SES, Eutelsat and Telesat formed the C-Band Alliance in a move aimed at accelerating access to midband spectrum for 5G. A July FCC NPRM sought comment on the band (see 1807120037). “The formation of the CBA is a significant achievement and demonstrates the industry alignment necessary to make this mid-band spectrum available quickly, thus supporting the U.S. objective of winning the race to introduce terrestrial 5G services,” the companies said. “The proposal establishes a commercial and technical framework that would enable terrestrial mobile operators to quickly access spectrum in a portion of the 3,700 to 4,200 MHz frequency band in the U.S., speeding the deployment of next-generation 5G services.” The coalition includes Head-Advocacy and Government Relations Preston Padden, a key player in the TV incentive auction, and CEO Bill Tolpegin, who was co-founder and CEO of OTA Broadcasting. The announcement “appears to be a great step to quickly and orderly reallocate the spectrum to commercial wireless use,” said Commissioner Mike O’Rielly.

Ligado’s proposed terrestrial operations could cause harmful interference, said users of data from satellites for positioning, weather information and communications, in meetings last week with aides to FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel and Commissioner Mike O’Rielly, recounted a filing posted Friday in docket 12-340. Consumer benefits of services provided by “the GPS, SATCOM, aviation and real-time environmental satellite data communities are too important to jeopardize,” said Iridium, the National Emergency Number Association, Airlines for America and others. Benefits of Ligado’s “constantly evolving proposals” are “speculative,” they said. Deny the license modification application unless the company can show it addressed the interference problem, the filing said.

President Donald Trump's pledge to create a separate Space Force military branch (see 1806180028) needlessly politicized and muddied a pressing national security issue, House Armed Services Committee member Jim Cooper, D-Tenn., said at an Aspen Institute talk Thursday. He said a separate armed forces branch isn't needed, just a more capable U.S. Air Force. Cooper said Congress and the Air Force have been aware for close to 20 years about the threat of a militarized space, but have done nothing. He said GPS has made much of the world satellite-dependent, but with China and Russia developing rival global navigation satellite systems, that dependence is “a vulnerability that could render us deaf, dumb and blind in seconds.” House Armed Services Committee member Mike Rogers, R-Ala., said Russia and China see space as an area where they can compete head-to-head with the U.S. militarily, and both have been devoting bigger parts of their defense budgets to space capabilities than the U.S. has. He said the Air Force bureaucracy is "beyond repair," necessitating a carve-out of space capabilities and personnel into a Space Corps that would focus on space issues. He said the Air Force regularly takes money from space programs for aeronautic programs. Rogers said Armed Services' vision is a corps within the Air Force, akin to the Marines under the Navy, with its own budget and own channels for promotion. He said it might not be necessary to have an entire sixth military branch that also incorporates space operations from other military branches. Rogers said a Space Corps by 2020 is possible if its structure is kept narrow like what House Armed Services is proposing.

Earth observation-via-radar satellite startup Capella Space received $19 million Series B funding led by Spark Capital and Data Collective, it said Wednesday. It said the money will go toward the first operational launches of its cloud-penetrating radar satellites. It said the first test launch is scheduled for November, with the first operational launches of its 38-satellite network for 2019.

By 2027, machine-to-machine and IoT applications will likely represent 37 percent of all satcom terminals, Northern Sky Research said Tuesday. A variety of small satellite constellations -- Astrocast, Hiber and Kepler Communications among them -- will target those applications, leading to new connectivity demands, it said. Low average revenue per user will mean "modest" opportunities, but smallsat constellations targeting M2M/IoT are more viable than low earth orbit telecom constellations due to lower capital costs, NSR said. Most connected IoT devices will rely on terrestrial connectivity, but low-cost satcom services have a niche opportunity with devices operating outside terrestrial network footprints or moving in and out of terrestrial networks, it said.

Telesat and ThinKom Solutions will jointly develop a Ka-band user terminal for Telesat's planned low earth orbit constellation, ThinKom said Monday. It said ThinKom's Ka2517 phased array antenna system will be used for over-the-air testing on Telesat’s Phase 1 LEO satellite over the next few months.

The FCC Office of Engineering and Technology signed off on Iridium's low earth orbit Technical Educational Satellite-8 tests, in a special temporary authority grant Monday. Iridium said it plans to start testing Jan. 2, with NASA operating an Iridium satellite phone on TechEdSat-8 that will transmit to and from satellites in Iridium's low earth orbit constellation. The company said TechEdSat-8 is to launch Dec. 1 on SpaceX-16, which is to deliver cargo to the International Space Station.

DirecTV wants to temporarily move its T8 satellite from 100.85 degrees west to 100.75 degrees west to make way for T15, which is drifting to 100.85 degrees west to temporarily fill additional demand for direct broadcast satellite capacity (see 1808200003). In an FCC International Bureau application Friday, AT&T's DirecTV said it hopes to start T8's three-day drift about Oct. 2. It said it also plans to file a special temporary authority request to keep operating T8 at 100.75 degrees west until it returns to its permanently licensed orbital slot.

Since there's no international frequency allocation for inter-satellite links, the FCC should dismiss ViaSat's seeking to use part of the Ka-band for that, Hughes said in a docket 18-86 posting Monday. It urged the FCC in its small satellite proceeding shoot down ViaSat seeking rules to allow inter-satellite service spectrum use when there's no allocation for such use. Hughes said at least defer authorizing Ka-band fixed satellite service spectrum for inter-satellite links until after technical studies. ViaSat didn't comment. Hughes has opposed ViaSat's inter-satellite links plans in the past (see 1706270014).