The FCC's five-year deorbit rule for satellites in low earth orbit adopted in September (see 2209290017) will have little to no effect on large commercial LEO constellations since they all plan deorbits of less than five years anyway, and instead will primarily affect U.S. smallsat and cubesat missions lacking propulsion, said Aerospace Corp. In a docket 18-133 filing Friday on a meeting with FCC Space Bureau staffers, Aerospace said its analysis of 855 satellites launched since 2016 found 45 -- about 5% of commercial satellites -- likely wouldn't have complied with the five-year rule if that rule existed then. The political and policy impact "may be larger than practical impact," it said.

Once the Council of Environmental Quality finishes its update to its National Environmental Policy Act regulations, the FCC will likely review its own NEPA rules, including whether large satellite constellations typically have significant effects on the human environment, Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said in May 11 letters to Senate and House Commerce committees, Senate and House Appropriations committees and House Oversight Committee members released Friday. Rosenworcel said the agency, after the CEQ revisions, will also likely review its NEPA categorical exclusion, including whether to establish a time frame and process for periodic review of that exclusion. Rosenworcel's letter was in response GAO recommendations from November (see 2211030050).

Inmarsat plans to launch three small, geostationary L-band satellites by 2026 to add resilience to its safety services offerings, the company said Friday. It said Swissto12 will develop the satellites, using that company's HummingSat satellite platform. Intelsat said it also will start introducing its L-band capacity and transitioning services throughout this year to the I-6 satellite launched in 2021 (see 2302140005). It said the I-6 satellite launched earlier this year is expected to enter into operation in early 2024. Beyond the I-8s, Inmarsat said it hopes to launch two polar coverage satellites -- GX 10a and b -- in the first half of 2024 and three GlobalXpress satellites -- GX 7, 8 and 9 -- in 2025. Inmarsat last month suffered a temporary outage of its L-band maritime safety services over Asia (see 2304200061).

With Viasat's $7.3 billion buy of Inmarsat (see 2111080038) getting U.K. Competition and Markets Authority approval last week, the deal should close within the next two weeks, William Blair's Louie DiPalma wrote investors Thursday. In a call with analysts Wednesday as the company announced results for its most recent quarter, CEO Mark Dankberg said ViasSat-3 Americas satellite should start offering service in mid-summer. Noting Viasat's and Inmarsat's existing L-band mobile satellite service businesses, Dankberg said direct-to-handset service is "a really attractive growth market for us." Asked about SpaceX competition in the satellite-delivered broadband marketplace, he said that market today is maybe 10 million to 15 million homes needing service that can deliver speeds that will support streaming. He said that marketplace may decline to 5 million to 7 million homes over the next decade due to broadband infrastructure buildouts. Viasat should be able to capture a "reasonably conservative moderate ... share of that market," he said.

A one-year extension of the license for Spaceflight's Sherpa-AC1 hosted payload craft would allow more testing for Xona Space Systems' hosted payload technology to be used in an eventual commercial satellite-based position, navigation and timing service, Spaceflight said in an FCC Space Bureau application Tuesday. It said one of the key tests involves Xona transmitting in the L band, but authorization for those transmissions is pending while spectrum coordination efforts are underway, Spaceflight said, asking for an extension to June 9, 2024.

AST SpaceMobile is targeting Q1 2024 for launch of five of its Block 1 BlueBird satellites on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, it said in a call with analysts Monday as the company announced its Q1 2023 financial results. CEO Abel Avellan said each Block 1 satellite will have 10 times the direct-to-handset capacity of the company's BlueWalker 3 demonstration satellite, and its planned 25 Block 2 satellites will have 10 times the capacity of Block 1. The company said it's talking with a variety of launch operators about Block 2 launches. Avellan said AST has rough preliminary agreements and agreements of understanding with wireless carriers around the globe on use of AST service for supplemental coverage from space.

C-band satellite operators can submit their C-band accelerated clearing Phase II certifications starting June 1, the FCC Wireless Bureau said Monday in a docket 18-122 public notice laying out procedures. It also issued a PN opening what it said would be a final window for submitting C-band transition plan amendments. Those amendments also can be submitted starting June 1. C-band satellite operators pushed for certification procedures to be issued by mid-May for a June 1 filing window (see 2304180061).

The LoRa Alliance, established to support and promote the global adoption of the LoRaWAN standard, raised concerns about the supplemental coverage from space (SCS) NPRM that FCC approved in March (see 2303160009). “The LoRa Alliance agrees that the concept of supplemental coverage from space or via satellite allows important innovations not only in licensed but also in unlicensed bands,” said a filing posted Thursday in docket 23-65. The NPRM “overlaps in many aspects with a potential framework” for an extension of coverage of IoT services at 902-928 MHz, but “there are several aspects that differ,” the alliance said. It urged the FCC to consider potential changes in the 915 MHz band parallel to changes proposed in the NPRM.

Globalstar is starting to sign a variety of deals for use of its spectrum Band 53, including it and Qualcomm talking to the chipmakers global system integrator network with a private 5G service available over the band, company officials said Friday as Globalstar announced results for the quarter ending March 31. It said it's also pursuing a private network in Canada using Band 53, with that model to be replicated in other markets. Spain also granted terrestrial authority for the band, bringing the number of authorized countries to 11, it said. For the quarter, revenue was $58.6 million, up 79% year over year, driven by increases in service revenue and revenue from subscriber equipment sales, it said.

Earth observation startup Muon Space seeks FCC approval for a two-satellite non-geostationary orbit constellation for climate observation, it said in a Space Bureau application posted Friday.