Access Partnership: Update of ITU-R's SpaceCap Needed

The ITU Radiocommunication Sector's SpaceCap software for filing satellites and earth stations needs updating that would allow for more detailed coordinates of earth stations' locations, Access Partnership Engineering Manager-Space & Connectivity Abubakar Manzo blogged Thursday. Geographical coordinates are mandatory for earth station filings, but SpaceCap goes down only to geographic minutes and seconds, he said. That can create licensing, coordination and protection problems when dealing with antennas close to one another, such as at antenna farms, he said. SpaceCap accepting fractions of seconds would make for better notification and coordination procedures, he said.