FCC Releases More Spectrum for Launches - SpaceNews This Week

Top Stories of the Week From SpaceNews

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01/03/2025 View in Browser Welcome to our roundup of top SpaceNews stories, delivered every Friday! This week, the FCC allocated additional spectrum for commercial launches, China's space agency faces a leadership change, an environmental study may support additional SpaceX launches from Vandenberg, and more. Our Top Story FCC allocates additional spectrum for commercial launches By Jeff Foust, Dec. 31, 2024 The Federal Communications Commission has formally allocated additional spectrum for launch applications, fulfilling a provision in a bill passed earlier this year. The FCC published Dec. 31 a report and order that allocated spectrum between 2360 and 2395 megahertz for use in communications to and from commercial launch and reentry vehicles on a secondary basis. That band currently has a primary use for aircraft and missile testing communications. The order satisfies language in the Launch Communications Act (LCA) of 2024, signed into law by President Biden Sept. 26 after Senate passage by unanimous consent and House passage on a voice vote. The act directed the FCC to make available three bands for use in commercial launches and reentries, finalizing such allocations no later than 90 days after enactment of the bill. Read More Other News From the Week LAUNCH Study to examine environmental impacts of increased SpaceX launches from Vandenberg A new environmental study is intended to support the continued increase of SpaceX launches from a California spaceport, but that growth faces potential obstacles. The Department of the Air Force announced Dec. 13 it would carry out an environmental impact statement (EIS) covering both an increase in SpaceX launches at Vandenberg as well as use of a second launch pad. The EIS will examine the environmental impacts from the redevelopment of Space Launch Complex (SLC) 6 for use by SpaceX for Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launches. Read More India eyes record year for space with 10 planned launches Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) chairman S. Somanath told Indian media that 10 orbital launches are planned across the year, including four Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) launches, an LVM-3 and a human-rated LVM-3 launch for the Gaganyaan human spaceflight program, as well as three Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) missions and a launch of the SSLV solid rocket. Read More COMMERCIAL Slam Corp extends Lynk Global merger deadline as cash reserves dwindle Slam Corp, the shell company founded by former MLB player Alex Rodriguez, extended its merger deadline with Lynk Global but must refund $81 million to investors who redeemed shares instead of seeking a stake in the direct-to-smartphone satellite operator. The three-month extension gives the shell company until March 25 to complete the transaction, according to a Dec. 26 regulatory filing. Read More Eutelsat resolves OneWeb leap year software glitch after two-day outage Eutelsat restored services across its low Earth orbit (LEO) OneWeb broadband network following a two-day outage, the French company said Jan. 2. Eutelsat, which also operates a fleet of 35 geostationary satellites, said in a brief news release the disruption was caused by a software issue within its ground segment. Delays to build and get approval for OneWeb's ground infrastructure have held back global services since the company deployed enough satellites for worldwide coverage in 2023. Read More CIVIL China to debut new Long March and commercial rockets in 2025 New Long March rockets and commercially-developed launch vehicles are expected to have their first flights in 2025, boosting China's overall launch capabilities. The various launchers will be reusable, adapted for reusability or be expendable but be designed for regular, cost-effective flights. The launchers will compete for contracts to launch satellites for China's megaconstellation projects—Thousand Sails and Guowang—space station cargo missions and commercial and other contracts, helping to boost the country's overall access to space and launch rate in the coming years. Read More China's space agency faces leadership change amid shake-up China appears set for a leadership transition at its national space agency, with Zhang Kejian expected to step down after being removed from a top position. Zhang, 63, who has been head of the China National Space Administration (CNSA) since May 2018, is to be removed as Party Secretary of the State Administration for National Defense Science, Technology, and Industry (SASTIND), the agency announced Dec. 26. Shan Zhongde, 54, has been appointed as his replacement. Read More OPINION NASA's Artemis program needs a new public relations angle By Matthew Beddingfield, Dec. 30, 2024 On March 7, 1967, a Red Bank, New Jersey, resident named F.C. Stetter sat down at their typewriter and wrote a letter to Sen. Clinton P. Anderson (D-N.M.), a fierce advocate for the United States space program and the chair of the Senate's Committee on Aeronautical and Space Sciences at the time.  "We were not the first to put a man in space, so why all this hurry to be first to put a man on the Moon?" the concerned citizen wrote, going on to question why America couldn't just cooperate with Russia or another country to reach the depths of space.  The letter came just over a month after the Apollo 1 launchpad fire at Cape Kennedy that killed astronauts Virgil "Gus" Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee. The accident left NASA and its Apollo contractors reeling in the face of their first tragedy. Perhaps more importantly, it raised significant questions as Congressional, media and public trust in NASA was shattered. Read More Noisy booster landings can impede spaceflight progress. Congress was right to step in By Jonathan H. Ward 2025 will be a year of slow but steady progress for climate monitoring satellites By Maksym Shuschuk The other space control: who does what in the national security space enterprise By Todd Pennington SpaceNews is committed to publishing our community's diverse perspectives. Whether you're an academic, executive, engineer or even just a concerned citizen of the cosmos, send your arguments and viewpoints to opinion@spacenews.com to be considered for publication online or in our next magazine. Publish your press release with SpaceNews' premier press release service and start seeing results today. 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Eutelsat’s OneWeb outage and leap year

Plus: New Long March rockets and India's launch cadence

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View in Browser A SpaceNews daily newsletter 01/03/2025 Top Stories Eutelsat's OneWeb network was out of service for two days because of a software glitch. The outage began Tuesday, with service from the low Earth orbit constellation not fully restored until Thursday. A company spokesperson said the outage was caused by the failure of software in ground systems to recognize that 2024 was a leap year. OneWeb is currently available across the Americas and large parts of Europe and Asia, with plans to begin full services for government and enterprise customers worldwide in the spring. [SpaceNews] Several new Chinese launch vehicles are scheduled to make their debut this year. Many of the rockets are intended to be reusable or can be adapted for reusability, while others are expendable but otherwise designed to be cost effective. Among the first of those new rockets scheduled to launch is the Long March 8A, expected to make its inaugural flight later this month. Many of the new rockets will be competing for contracts to deploy megaconstellations such as Thousand Sails and Guowang, or for commercial cargo missions to the Tiangong space station. [SpaceNews] India is planning a record number of launches in 2025. The chairman of the Indian space agency ISRO, S. Somanath, said the company was planning 10 launches in 2025, a figure that would set a record for annual launches by the country. Those launches include the first uncrewed orbital test flight of the Gaganyaan crewed spacecraft as soon as March. Other key events include a launch of the joint NASA-ISRO NISAR radar mapping satellite and a commercial launch of a communications satellite for AST SpaceMobile. [SpaceNews] The Space Force will hold meetings this month for an environmental study on increasing launches from Vandenberg Space Force Base. The service announced last month it would undertake an environmental impact study of modifications to Space Launch Complex (SLC) 6 at the California base to allow SpaceX to use the site for its Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets. The study will also examine increasing the overall Falcon launch rate at SLC-6 and SpaceX's existing SLC-4 to 100 missions per year. The increase in launches from Vandenberg faces opposition from some local residents and groups worried about environmental effects, including sonic booms. [SpaceNews] Other News Blue Origin appears to be moving ahead with a launch of its New Glenn rocket as soon as the early morning hours Monday. Airspace notices are in effect for a launch of the first New Glenn rocket from Cape Canaveral in a window that opens at 1 a.m. Eastern Monday, running until 4:45 a.m. Eastern. Jacklyn, the ship that serves as the landing platform for the New Glenn first stage, left Port Canaveral Thursday to take up position in the Atlantic. The company has not confirmed those launch plans or provided other details about the upcoming mission. [Florida Today] NASA's Parker Solar Probe has returned more data confirming a successful close approach to the sun last month. The spacecraft started returning telemetry Wednesday from its passage within 6.1 million kilometers of sun on Christmas Eve. That telemetry, NASA said, showed that the spacecraft and its science instruments operated as expected during the flyby. Parker will start transmitting the science data it collected later this month as it moves away from the sun, allowing for higher data rates. [NASA] China is starting to incorporate data from commercial satellites into its weather forecasting models. The China Meteorological Administration said it started this week to use data from the 23-satellite Tianmu-1 constellation and 12-satellite Yunyao-1 constellation. Both constellations provide radio occultation data, measuring Beidou and GPS navigation satellite signals that pass through the atmosphere. Several Western companies, such as GeoOptics, PlanetiQ and Spire, collect similar data, some of which is used by NOAA for weather forecasts. [Xinhua] Megazoom "Zooming in to a 10,000-kilometer region, from a distance of 200 million light years, is like being able to measure the width of a DNA helix, which is about 2 nanometers wide, on the surface of the moon." – Kiyoshi Masui, associate professor of physics at MIT, on observations that identified the exact source of a fast radio burst that took place 200 million light-years away. [MIT] What's New With SpaceNews? Register now for updates and new episodes of our upcoming podcast, Space Minds, beginning later this month. Join David Ariosto, Mike Gruss and journalists from the SpaceNews team for new episodes every Thursday on SpaceNews.com, YouTube and wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. Manage Preferences

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