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The FCC votes Thursday, April 30, to replace 1990s EPFD limits with a performance-based coordination framework. SpaceX got its waiver January 9; Amazon Kuiper followed in February. By the time the Commission codifies the new rules, the two largest LEO operators will have been running under them for three to four months. The vote is not the starting gun. It is the regularization of a head start.
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On March 31, 2026, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) aimed at expanding spectrum access for what it categorizes as emergent space operations. The […]
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The FCC faces its most consequential regulatory moment in commercial satellite communications since the original Starlink licensing approval.
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The commercial satellite communications sector has reached a structural turning point. The assumption of a borderless sky, where global mesh networks and technical neutrality defined market access, no longer holds. The industry has entered a new phase in which states intervene directly to enforce what amounts to orbital sovereignty.
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Dispatch from SmallSat Symposium. Dr. Jay Schwarz, Chief of the FCC Space Bureau, delivered a direct message to the industry during the Navigating Global Space Regulations session this afternoon. The Bureau is pivoting its operational philosophy from adjudication to mass production.
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Dispatch from SmallSat Symposium. With over 14,000 satellites in orbit and filings for hundreds of thousands more flooding the International Telecommunication Union [ITU], the industry has hit a wall. Success is no longer determined by who can launch the fastest. Instead, it depends on who can find a clear frequency to talk back to Earth without being drowned out by the noise.
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In Part 2 of this series, we examine the second bottleneck facing the Orbital Data Center (ODC) : Data Gravity. We will explore why moving exabytes to and from orbit is harder than processing them, and how this specific constraint fractures the market into two mutually exclusive compute types: the high-speed "Real-Time Reduction Hub" and the massive "Batch Trainer." We will also examine other computing challenges unique to space.
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This is the second in a continuing series on the strategic evolution of space regulation. Part one, “The 200,000-Satellite Filing: When Commercial Loopholes Become State Weapons,” examined how speculative filings distort global coordination. Part two examines the U.S. regulatory response.
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WASHINGTON, D.C. — On Wednesday, January 14, 2026, U.S. Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Senator Peter Welch (D-Vermont) introduced the Satellite and Telecommunications Streamlining Act. The bipartisan […]
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SatNews Editorial Analysis Executive Summary The Event: The FCC’s December 16, 2025, grant of the SpaceX/T-Mobile Supplemental Coverage from Space (SCS) license officially graduated Direct-to-Device (D2D) from a beta experiment […]
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