The burgeoning small satellite launch industry sees signs of big commercial demand and increased U.S. government interest, but the federal regulatory structure hasn't caught up, said Richard DalBello, Virgin Galactic vice president-business development and government affairs, at a Washington Space Business Roundtable talk. The regulatory hurdles include uncertainty on oversight of payloads and "pretty archaic" rules for debris mitigation, he said Friday. If even a fraction of the planned small satellite and cubesat constellations end up getting launched, the smallsat launcher business "is going to be a great business to be in," DalBello said. Thirty-seven different entities are developing smallsat launchers, said Tauri Group Managing Partner Carissa Christensen. Given both commercial demand and increased U.S. government interest, DalBello said, "the market is big enough for multiple people to have great businesses." Vector Space Systems expects to be at operational capacity by the end of 2018, Chief Technology Officer John Garvey said. He said the company is trying to build its business around doing a minimum of 12 launches a year to be sustainable. Rocket Lab expects to begin commercial launches by Q2, said Brad Schneider, executive vice president-U.S. operations. "We will survive on well less" than 12 a year, he said. Virgin Galactic expects to begin launcher service by early 2018, and hopes to ramp up to a rate of a couple of launches a month, DalBello said. He said Virgin Galactic's current launch site is in Mojave, California, and it's scouting for a near-equatorial launch site. He said its Long Beach launcher assembly plant is being built for capacity of 24 launches a year.

The Obama administration is pledging $50 million toward small satellite technology development. A White House news release Thursday said NASA will put $30 million toward "public-private partnership opportunities" aimed at earth observations being provided by commercial smallsats, and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency just signed a $20 million data purchase agreement with smallsat startup Planet to buy earth observation imagery. The spending was announced as part of the daylong White House Frontiers Conference in Pittsburgh, with a focus on various technologies.

Private-equity firm Silver Lake Partners, which with BC Partners owns Intelsat (see 0708140111), is ending its representation on the satellite company's board. In a news release Wednesday, Intelsat said Silver Lake Managing Partner Egon Durban and Managing Director Simon Patterson will resign from the board effective Dec. 31. Intelsat said that after that the board will have seven members -- two from BC Partners, the CEO and executive chairman, and three independent directors. Silver Lake affiliates own about 12 percent of Intelsat, it said. In a statement, Silver Lake said it "remain[s] committed to our investment in Intelsat and while we are leaving the Board, we will continue to support Intelsat’s management team as it advances its business.”

Pointing to the FCC's update last year of its satellite rules, Boeing withdrew its 2014 petition asking the agency to revise its evidentiary rules that required satellite licensees to show compliance with the critical design review milestone. In a filing posted Wednesday in docket 12-267, Boeing said the Part 25 rules revamp (see 1512170036) made its petition "effectively moot."

Aviation, hydrological and meteorological critics of Ligado's LTE proposal have been pressing their case on the FCC's 8th floor, according to ex parte filings (see here and here) posted Wednesday in docket RM-11681. The filings recapped meetings involving Jessica Almond, an aide to Chairman Tom Wheeler, and Erin McGrath, an aide to Commissioner Mike O'Rielly, with representatives from Penn State University's Center for Solutions to Weather and Climate Risk, the American Meteorological Society, the National Hydrologic Warning Council, Aviation Spectrum Resources, and weather and climate policy consultancy Narayan Strategy. According to the twin filings, Penn State and others said sharing the 1675-1680 MHz band poses notable risks to the U.S. extreme event communication, forecast and warning capabilities, and that more research is needed. They also criticized Ligado's cloud-based content delivery network proposal as unacceptable since it lacks guarantees all current users of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration information will continue to have uninterrupted access to the real-time data regardless of access to the internet or power. They also warned of dozens of private and public users of NOAA data who require direct reception in the 1675-1680 MHz and 1675-1690 MHz bands unprotected since the Ligado proposal would only protect federal users from interference. And in a separate filing Tuesday in the docket, Garmin said Ligado's exclusion zone proposal isn't adequate for certified aviation devices and suggested the FCC look to the Federal Aviation Administration to set up the best course for interference protection. Garmin said an analysis by the Radio Technical Commission for Aeronautics indicated the size of exclusion zones would necessarily vary based on operational scenarios. The company also said even if the right-size exclusion zones could be defined, there's no agreement on determining the power limits that would apply to the thousands of Ligado base stations. Ligado didn't comment Wednesday.

Intelsat's Intelsat 36 satellite is now operational, providing broadcasting and direct-to-home services for DTH provider Africa's MultiChoice, the company said in a news release Thursday. It was launched in August and is colocated with Intelsat 20 at 68.5 degrees east, the company said.

Though the Galaxy 25 satellite's license term expires Dec. 31, it has another possible nine years of life, Intelsat said in an FCC International Bureau filing Tuesday, asking for extension of the license term through April 30, 2025. The satellite began operations in 1997, and the most recent estimate of its expected end of service life was April 2019 without inclined orbit operation, to as far out as April 2025 with inclined orbit operation, the company said.

Gogo subsidiary AC BidCo wants a waiver of the of the U.S. table of allocations to allow use of the 11.2-11.45 GHz band for earth stations aboard aircraft (ESAA). In an FCC International Bureau filing Tuesday, AC BidCo said the request is in conjunction with the company's request to add Intelsat 29e as a point of communication (see 1608250003). It also said, as part of the FCC's Part 25 rules revamping in 2015, it made clear that ESAA operations in the 10.95-11.2 GHz and 11.45-11.7 GHz bands were permitted on an unprotected basis but that carve-out didn't extend to 11.2-11.45 GHz, but the agency this summer authorized other ESAA operations in that band segment.

The FCC International Bureau is now allowing limited access to Iridium's technical analysis of how Ligado's proposed LTE service might cause interference to the satellite company's receivers (see 1609020029). In a protective order posted Tuesday in docket 11-109, the bureau set up procedures for accessing the technical analysis, plus parts of its request for conditional treatment, which Iridium had also said contains sensitive information (see 1609300067). Wednesday, Ligado outside counsel Gerard Waldron of Covington & Burling and two associates filed acknowledgements of confidentiality requesting copies of the Iridium filings.

With the satellite industry increasingly offering broadband speeds and direct-to-home services, it needs enough protected access to greenfield millimeter wave spectrum bands to enable those offerings, the Satellite Industry Association said Tuesday in a filing in FCC docket 14-177. Satellite commenters joined wireless and other interests responding to a spectrum frontiers Further NPRM (see 1610030047). SIA said the FCC needs to ensure satellite systems can locate individually licensed earth stations on a coordinated basis and can deploy user terminals in parts of the upper millimeter wave bands. It said the FCC needs to guarantee V-band satellite systems have enough access to uplink and downlink spectrum for those individually licensed earth stations and end user terminals. The 37.39 GHz, 47 GHz, 50 GHz and 70/80 GHz bands "have substantial existing FSS [fixed satellite service] allocations" and the industry "plans to make intensive use" of that spectrum, SIA said. It backed protection of feeder links in the 24.75-25.25 GHz band and for the FCC to specify that satellite use of that band isn't limited to broadcasting satellite service feeder links. It said rules for upper microwave flexible use (UMFU) in the 24, 47 and 50 GHz bands should, at least, identify aggregate interference to satellites as a possible risk "and commit to addressing it," akin to what it did with 28 GHz. Global VSAT Forum (GVF) said the V-band spectrum needs of broadband satellite systems preclude some of the spectrum sharing ideas in the NPRM for satellite end user terminals in parts of the 47 GHz band. Instead, GVF said, UMFU terminals could operate on an opportunistic basis, having full use of the band when FSS end user operations were small. Inmarsat said current satellite bands opened for UMFU use should keep primary satellite allocations and consideration should be given to opening the band to diverse satellite operations perhaps on a secondary basis if there's no pre-existing satellite allocation. It urged individual examination of the utility of each band for addressing future spectrum needs without first determining technical rules and licensing regimes: "In some cases, the best approach may be to introduce [UMFU service] on a secondary basis, if at all." Boeing, which is pursuing creation of a V-band non-geostationary orbit satellite constellation (see 1606230050), said the FCC should avoid any UMFU spectrum allocation in the 47 and 50 GHz bands and keep UMFU operations to the 28 GHz and 37/39 GHz bands. It urged letting satellite systems operate downlink transmissions in the 37/39 GHz band at ITU power flux density levels, saying the lower limits the FCC adopted are now outdated, given better technology. And it said any UMFU sharing in the 42 GHz band should be done on a shared basis, with satellite end user terminals able to receive signals there on a shared opportunistic basis with UMFU systems.