Xplore hopes to launch its XCube-1 earth imaging satellite on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rideshare mission between October and the end of April, it told the FCC Space Bureau in an application posted Friday. Xplore said it plans a low earth orbit constellation that will offer remote sensing data products and edge computing using multiple payload computers, as well as payload hosting. It said XCube-1 will be its first commercial mission and use X-band downlinks.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a lower court's dismissal of a proposed class action suit that alleged Intelsat's then-chairman and two investor groups participated in insider trading (see 2304270005). In a docket 23-15822 order Wednesday, the appellate court said plaintiff Walleye hedge funds didn't adequately prove that David McGlade, Silver Lake Group and BC Partners possessed material nonpublic information. The three-judge panel said the Walleye funds also didn't adequately plead that Silver Lake and BC knew about Intelsat meeting with the FCC in November 2019 regarding the pending C-band clearing before the two funds sold big blocks of Intelsat shares. Walleye alleged the funds knew the FCC was leaning toward a public auction of the spectrum, and the FCC's subsequent announcement resulted in a big drop in Intelsat's stock price. Deciding were Judges Milan Smith, Andrew Hurwitz and Anthony Johnstone, with Smith penning the order.
Direct-to-device (D2D) market annual revenue will exceed $17 billion by 2032, according to an ABI Research analysis Thursday (see 2403260063). Apple's iOS 18 and Android 15 will add satellite messaging as a core feature in the coming months, it said. Also driving growth is SpaceX's D2D Starlink network, expected to launch commercial service in the second half of the year, ABI said. These advances will push the combined D2D markets to a compound annual growth rate of 39.8%. The satellite communication market is moving from narrowband emergency services to two-way messaging and data services and “this competition is reducing overall cost to these services while increasing accessibility to more users,” said Andrew Cavalier, ABI senior analyst. Updates to cellular technology will be coupled with increased satellite launch capacity, potentially unlocking a new era of abundance in lower-cost satellite services, ABI said. "We anticipate the seamless access of Starlink and Apple Satellite connectivity on devices will attract new and existing customers to leverage this technology when outside terrestrial coverage,” Cavalier predicted.
The FCC's treatment of space vehicles used principally for rendezvous and proximity operations and in-orbit servicing as small satellites for regulatory fee purposes (see 2406140064) goes into effect Sept. 13, said a notice for Friday's Federal Register. The fee structure will be effective for FY 2024 assessment and collection of regulatory fees, according to the notice.
Spire Global has plans for launching one of its Lemur-class earth observation satellites by early February on a SpaceX rideshare mission. In an FCC Space Bureau application posted Thursday seeking authorization for the Lemur mission, Spire said it would use the same frequencies and operating parameters as previously authorized Lemurs along with nonstandard imaging equipment that would make it larger than the other authorized Lemurs. The FCC in 2018 authorized Spire's Lemur constellation of up to 872 satellites.
Given the vast amount of capacity SpaceX's Starlink is bringing online and its moves into new markets, along with expectations that Amazon's Kuiper will take a similar approach, satellite incumbents and new entrants face reduced opportunities, Analysys Mason's Christopher Baugh blogged Tuesday. Starlink is moving into markets including military, mobility and backhaul, he said. It offers more than 102 Tbps of capacity today and Kuiper is expected to deliver more than 117 when fully deployed, Baugh said. Contrast that with worldwide high-throughput satellite capacity of just 2.3 Tbps in 2019, he noted. Yet neither constellation will have enough bandwidth to cover the total addressable market, Baugh said. Within three to five years, Kuiper's launch of full commercial service will force connectivity prices further downward. Moreover, pricing pressure and churn across their customer base will challenge most operators. The "plan B" for those competitors could include consolidation, multi-orbit strategies or new verticals such as earth observation.
Liberty Media's planned reorganization of SiriusXM's ownership structure (see 2406180005) should be complete by Sept. 9, Liberty said Wednesday. Liberty scheduled a shareholder meeting for Aug. 23 when it will vote on the reorganization's transactions.
Astranis is "one step closer" to launching 100 small geostationary orbit satellites by 2030 after having raised $200 million in its latest round of funding, CEO John Gedmark posted Wednesday on X. He said 10 of its communications satellites will be orbited within the next 18 months. Astranis has raised $750 million, the company said.
The best way of measuring short-term interference between non-geostationary orbit satellite systems is by looking at the absolute change in link availability, rather than a relative change in unavailability, according to SpaceX. In a docket 21-456 filing Monday, it submitted a 42-page technical study of spectrum sharing among NGSO systems that it said could help inform the FCC in setting a framework for assessing compatibility of earlier and later processing round satellite systems. It said 99% link availability without the interferer should be treated as the minimum benchmark for an efficient, well-designed NGSO system that warrants levels of protection without unduly empowering inefficient earlier-round systems.
SpaceX won't own the direct-to-device marketplace, due to the complexities and dependencies around regulation, spectrum uses and mobile value chains, Analysys Mason's Chris Baugh blogged Monday. However, SpaceX is leading the race to provide D2D commercial service, he noted. Baugh said that while SpaceX has indicated it plans to launch D2D service in Q4, that rollout will likely start in northern regions as did the Starlink broadband rollout. He said SpaceX could provide continuous coverage in the northern continental U.S. with 300 satellites, though southern U.S. coverage would be spotty. He said 800 satellites would likely provide 18/7 Mbps peak channel speeds for all user equipment in a beam area.