Space Norway's ASBM-1 and ASBM-2 satellites, which include Viasat's GX10A and GX10B Ka-band payloads, successfully launched Sunday from Vandenburg Space Force Base in California, Viasat said. The two satellites will deploy in a highly elliptical orbit, and Viasat said it will use them to extend its broadband network to Arctic region coverage. It said the Ka-band payloads are expected to enter service in early to mid 2025.

Eutelsat expects to close in Q1 2026 on a partial sale of its passive ground infrastructure assets to a fund that EQT Partners investment firm manages, the satellite operator said Friday. Those assets would be incorporated into a stand-alone ground-station-as-a-service business, with EQT owning 80% and Eutelsat taking a 20% stake, it said. The ground station business would be operator neutral, it said. Eutelsat said proceeds from the $862 million deal would help finance its multi-orbit fleet.

Viasat ended its FY 2025 Q1 with 257,000 U.S. broadband subscribers, the company said as it announced earnings Wednesday. The number marked a notable drop from the 603,000 it had in 2020 -- the last time it reported that number, space consultant Tim Farrar posted Wednesday on X. "Between the emergence of Starlink, Viasat's delays with bringing new capacity online, and the 90% failure of ViaSat-3 F1 due to a botched antenna, this really was a perfect storm that sent consumer broadband subscribers packing," Quilty Space analyst Caleb Henry posted on X. Viasat said it ended the quarter with 3,750 connected aircraft customers, up 16% year over year, and a contracted backlog of another 1,460. In an earnings call with analysts, CEO Mark Dankberg said Viasat expects it will have 4,200 connected aircraft in service by the end of the fiscal year. Asked about the company's aims in direct-to-device service, Dankberg said it already supports emergency location and signaling devices and similar chips will be rolling out soon in handsets. President Guru Gowrappan said Viasat expects FY 2025 revenue will be flat compared with FY 2024's $4.5 billion and would have been up a handful of percentage points if not for the expected decline in U.S. fixed broadband associated with the ViaSat-3 F1 antenna anomaly. Viasat announced this week that the satellite began offering commercial service (see 2408050002). Dankberg said the company expects it can access about 10% of the satellite's capacity. He said when the other two ViasSat-3 satellites are launched, they will deploy to cover the Americas and East Asia and the impaired one will move to cover the Middle East and Africa. William Blair analyst Louie DiPalma wrote Thursday that while aviation and government customer revenue remains strong, SpaceX's Starlink is pressuring Viasat in residential and maritime.

Albedo Space Corp.'s pending application to deploy and operate an earth observation satellite lacks the required materials, the FCC Space Bureau said Monday in a dismissal. It said the dismissal was without prejudice to refiling. Albedo didn't comment Tuesday.

Amazon's Kuiper continues to lobby the 10th floor, urging the FCC to wrap up its proceeding on spectrum sharing among earlier and later round non-geostationary orbit satellite systems. In a docket 21-456 filing posted Tuesday, it recapped a meeting with Commissioner Anna Gomez. Amazon previously discussed the same issue with Commissioners Geoffrey Starks and Nathan Simington (see 2408020034).

Intelsat reiterated its call for phasing in the regulatory fee hike FCC Space Bureau payers are facing. It met with Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel's office, according to a filing posted Tuesday in docket 24-85. The company similarly has lobbied the office of Commissioner Anna Gomez (see 2408020039).

The FAA expects nearly triple the number of commercial launches and reentries in FY 2027 than there were in FY 2023, Associate Administrator-Commercial Space Transportation Kelvin Coleman blogged Monday. Driving that growth will be increased use of reusable vehicles, more demand for commercial satellite services and more commercial human spaceflight missions, he said. With two months left in FY 2024, the FAA has already passed the record -- 106, set in FY 2023 -- for licensed launch and reentry operations, he said. So far this FY, the FAA has issued 121 licenses.

The FCC giving the green light to partial deployment of AST SpaceMobile's direct-to-device satellite constellation is "a significant step to targeting 100% nationwide coverage from space of the continental United States on premium cellular spectrum,” President Scott Wisniewski said Monday as the company announced the approval. Under the FCC Space Bureau authorization order in Monday's Daily Digest, AST may operate feeder links and telemetry, tracking and command operations in the V, S and UHF bands. The approval defers on additional frequencies, inducing terrestrial bands that it would use to provide supplemental coverage from space (SCS). The agency said the approval lets AST begin deployment, with the goal of testing a system capable of providing SCS service, subject to additional approvals. "While this grant does not authorize any operations or testing for SCS, we believe that the deployment of five satellites under this limited grant ... will enable AST to request authority to further test this still emerging technology," the agency said. The FCC conditioned the approval on AST making "a good faith effort" to reduce optical brightness of its satellites, choose lower orbital elevations when feasible, and provide orbital information to astronomy sites and astronomers. SpaceX had sought conditions on AST satellites that matched those the agency imposed on the second-generation Starlink satellites. The commission agreed, saying that would let it monitor AST operations continuously. But the agency rejected a 100 object-years metric for measuring AST satellite failures, as Amazon's Kuiper was seeking. The approval covers five BlueBird satellites, with the FCC deferring on 243 others. AST said its first five BlueBirds have completed environmental testing and are ready for shipment to Cape Canaveral this week for a seven-day launch window in September.

The ViaSat-3 F1 commenced offering commercial in-flight connectivity service over North America, the company said Monday. Viasat said its ViaSat-3 F2 and F3 high-throughput satellites are in the late stages of testing. It said antenna deployment problems that developed after F1's April 2023 launch (see 2307130003) caused a significant reduction in capacity, but it can support aviation connectivity over North America.

FCC rules changes intended to expedite processing of satellite and earth station applications and new spectrum allocations for space launches go into effect Sept. 4, said a notice for Monday's Federal Register. The commissioners adopted the changes and allocations at their September 2023 meeting (see 2309210055). The application processing order among other things sets time frames for placing satellite and earth station applications on notice for public comment and lets non-geostationary orbit licensees have more than one unbuilt system without facing the possible dismissal of applications. The spectrum order sets an allocation in the 2025-2110 MHz band and makes the 2200-2290 MHz band available for launch telemetry.