The lack of any government agency reporting their GPS devices needing replacement or repair due to Ligado's proposed operations suggests either no devices are affected or the agencies are ignoring the FCC directive, Ligado said in a docket 11-109 quarterly report Friday. It said it expects to start operations in the 1526-1536 MHz band on or after Sept. 30. It said L-band coverage would be in and around parts of the northern Virginia suburbs of Washington. Ligado said it set up a website where federal agencies can get information about the federal GPS device repair and replacement program.

SES, claiming there are flaws in SpaceX's equivalent power flux density data files for its proposed second-generation constellation (see 2202090002), could have resolved the issue by reaching out, SpaceX told the FCC International Bureau Wednesday. It said the problem came from SES using a freeware version of Transfinite's software made available on the ITU website, which lacks a table available in the commercial version. SpaceX said it gave SES a new version of the data. SES said the new files come "almost two months after SES first flagged that SpaceX’s EPFD files were incompatible with the ITU software." It said it's reviewing the files but it's too soon to say whether the anomalies have been eliminated. It said they "do not address the more fundamental defect with the SpaceX EPFD showing" or show the second-generation satellites together will meet EPFD limits, let alone whether the combined first- and second-gen constellations will.

International sharing of space situational awareness (SSA) data would help with space safety and sustainability, but it also could help lead to voluntary norms of responsible space behavior by allowing countries to assess how each other are adhering to voluntary space norms, Aerospace said in a paper Tuesday. In it, author Michael Gleason, Aerospace's Center for Space Policy and Strategy national security senior project engineer, argues the U.S. shouldn't care as much about sharing SSA data with China or Russia, which have independent capabilities to confirm responsible space behavior; instead an international SSA data sharing framework should focus on other nations and other U.N. Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space members. That would "maximize the chances of generating a critical mass of support for a space norm and stimulating a norm cascade," he said. Gleason said a verification framework using SSA data from multiple sources including the nascent Open Architecture Data Repository and SpaceTrack.org, the EU Space Surveillance and Tracking consortium, and civil society, commercial SSA and other entities "should promote buy-in for space norms among a wide swath of countries and enable space norms to become accepted by the majority of countries around the world."

Having exited the U.S. C-band market and surrendered its market access authorization for the Star One C1 satellite that provided that service, Embratel is ready to file its C-band Phase II accelerated relocation certification, the company said in docket 18-122 Tuesday. It urged the FCC to provide guidance on doing so.

SpaceX expects to have more than 4,200 Starlink satellites in operation within 18 months, which would be about two-thirds of all active satellites in orbit, CEO Elon Musk tweeted Monday.

OneWeb's pending application to modify its U.S. market access grant (see 2101130002) is under review, the Committee for the Assessment of Foreign Participation in the U.S. Telecommunications Services Sector told the FCC last week. The committee said it will notify the commission when the responses to the initial request for information are complete and the 120-day initial review period can start.

One of Sidus Space's LizzieSat satellites is slated to be launched from the International Space Station in Q4, the company said Tuesday. Sidus plans a constellation of low-earth orbit LizzieSat microsatellites that would be integrated with customers' sensors and technologies.

SNR Wireless exercised its put terms to transfer its licenses to a Dish Network subsidiary, the FCC confirmed Wednesday to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. In a docket 18-1209 filing, the agency filed a copy of SNR's March 18 application for its license transfers. Per the application, transfer of the licenses to Dish subsidiary American AWS-3 Wireless III would let it quickly deploy SNR's licensed spectrum as part of Dish's 5G broadband network development, "resulting in the SNR spectrum being put to use years ahead of its final construction benchmark. American consumers will benefit both from improved and expanded wireless services offered by DISH and from competition in the marketplace for mobile broadband services." The state of SNR's ownership came up during D.C. Circuit oral argument in January in Dish designated entities SNR and Northstar Wireless' appeal of the FCC denying them AWS-3 auction credits (see 2201140032).

An unlaunched spare of Intelsat's Intelsat 1 satellite, the first commercial geostationary orbit satellite, is going to the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum in Washington. The company said Wednesday the donation had been at its U.S. headquarters. It said after restoration and preparation, the satellite will go on display in 2025.

Eutelsat, which has an ownership stake in OneWeb (see 2110060014), is adding OneWeb services to its offerings, with the distribution partnership opening the door to the two collaborating on combined geostationary orbit/low earth orbit connectivity solutions, Eutelsat said Tuesday.