Firefly Aerospace anticipates a November launch for its BGM1 lunar lander, which plans to deliver commercial, scientific and government payloads to the moon's surface as part of NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services program, the company said in an FCC Space Bureau application Friday. Firefly said it expects the lander to reach the moon about six weeks later, by year's end.

The FCC license for 112 non-geostationary orbit remote sensing satellites granted to Theia Group in 2019 is now EMTech Global's. That license was satellite startup Theia's "largest asset by far," U.S. District Judge Kevin Castel for the Southern District of New York said in 2021 in a docket 1:21-cv-06995 order appointing a receiver for Theia as part of litigation that investors FCS Advisors brought against the company. LTS Systems bought Theia's assets, including the license, at auction in 2023, with EMTech Global then acquiring the assets from LTS and subsequently seeking FCC OK on transferring the license to an EMTech subsidiary, according to EMTech's transfer application. The Space Bureau approved the transfer Friday, said a notice in Friday's Daily Digest.

SpaceX is winning the wholesale satellite data capacity price war, with prices dramatically lower than what geostationary orbit (GSO) competitors are charging in areas such as enterprise, backhaul and maritime mobility, Analysys Mason analyst Luke Wyles wrote Friday. Shielded by multiyear contracts with customers, GSO operators have time to adapt by adding managed services, he said. GSO high throughput satellite capacity prices for maritime and for oil and gas are down 5.3% this year, and are forecast to decline a further 4.5% in 2025, he said. In-flight connectivity is seeing less price pressure from Starlink so far, but that will change starting in a couple of years, he said.

NASA's Office of Technology, Policy and Strategy is seeking feedback for creating a framework that addresses contamination and interference from lunar activity, including RF interference, the agency said Wednesday. It said its questionnaire asks about the breadth of interference and contamination concerns, and it looks to clarify community usage around terms like "interference." It said responses are due June 7.

The growing pace of space launches is prompting more conversations between the U.S. and other countries about space objects' state of register, Ryan Guglietta, lead foreign affairs officer at the State Department's Office of Space Affairs, said Thursday during an FCC Space Bureau-hosted workshop about U.S. interagency payload reviews. Establishing a payload's registering state is becoming increasingly complex, Guglietta said. For example, a payload could be built in one nation, assembled in another and have other multinational touchpoints. He said the U.S. is trying to create a shared understanding with other nations of what constitutes a payload's registering state. The FAA spearheads the Interagency payload review, and Stacey Zee, FAA operations support branch manager, said if one agency raises a concern during that review, then the agency aims to resolve it early in the process. Sabrina Jawed, FAA commercial space law team manager, said in a worst-case scenario -- there's no payload approval, even though the payload has been integrated into the launch vehicle and is ready to go -- "we have the authority to say 'hold up.' However, we do not want to do that." Space Bureau Special Counsel Karl Kensinger said integrating a payload into a launch vehicle marks a critical point, and it's tough to move backward from there. The satellite operator must have a license by then or face "significant risks," he said.

Move the Transportation Department's Office of Commercial Space Transportation (AST) out of FAA oversight, the National Space Society said Wednesday, endorsing a Commercial Space Transportation Advisory Committee recommendation. Elevating AST in DOT hierarchy "would address concerns that it currently does not receive the resources and priority it needs to regulate a rapidly growing and increasingly complex space launch industry," NSS said.

With the record showing non-geostationary orbit fixed satellite service systems can coexist in the 17 GHz band with incumbents, there's no reason to delay allowing NGSO FSS services in the band, according to Amazon's Kuiper. In a meeting with FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez's office, recapped Wednesday in docket 20-330, Kuiper representatives also urged that the FCC implement its NGSO FSS spectrum-sharing framework.

SpaceX's Qatar Airways in-flight connectivity deal announced last fall marks a tipping point for the satellite broadband operator, as it's SpaceX's largest airline partner thus far, Analysys Mason analyst Kerry Vincent-Viry said Tuesday in a podcast. She said other airlines will likely pay attention to Qatar's feedback on the deal. Airlines don't change in-flight connectivity providers quickly, so Starlink's next deals probably will come with airlines that currently lack providers, she said. Airlines' in-flight connectivity contracts formerly lasted some 10 years. That time period is shrinking as airlines anticipate the arrival of non-geostationary orbit players like Starlink.

The FCC plans to update its orbital debris mitigation docket, its Space Bureau said in a docket 18-313 public notice Thursday. It said it especially wanted comments about whether to analyze collision risks for non-geostationary orbit systems aggregately or per satellite, and about the use of U.S. Orbital Debris Mitigation Standard Practices’ probability of collision metric as a threshold or safe harbor as a means of identifying systems that may need further review. In addition, it said it was seeking updated input evaluating the likelihood of individual satellite maneuvering failures within a multisatellite system.

Mega constellation operators are pushing back on an FCC proposal that would charge more regulatory fees for big non-geostationary orbit (NGSO) constellations. Docket 24-85 reply comments this week also saw numerous calls for imposing fees on authorized systems that aren't yet operational and for phasing in any big fee hikes. The FCC in March adopted an NPRM on regulatory fee changes for satellite and earth stations due to the agency reorganization that created the Space Bureau, with initial comments received last month (see 2404150040). Amazon's Kuiper said the agency should reject proposals such as putting a particularly big share of NGSO fees' burden on large constellations that are not backed by full-time equivalent (FTE) staff allocations. SpaceX said the relative activity in licensing dockets isn't a reasonable proxy for apportioning fees. As a result, the agency shouldn't impose higher fees on NGSO mega constellations based on the number of filings in those NGSO licensing dockets. Increased fees would reward obstructionist competitors gaming the comment system, SpaceX said. FCC records show the largest NGSO constellations are responsible for a disproportionate share of the regulatory burden, Telesat said. It said the record shows substantial support for allocating a share of at least 30% of aggregate Space Bureau regulatory fees to earth station regulation. Phase in any new or hiked Space Bureau regulatory fees over years to ease the financial burden, NCTA said. It said the FCC should stick to its calculations for how many FTEs work on earth station matters, rather than considering unsubstantiated arguments for shifting more of the Space Bureau's regulatory fee burden onto earth station operators. It said no one has offered an argument for putting regulatory fees on receive-only earth stations, and thus the agency shouldn't do so. Eutelsat/OneWeb called "reasonable" the proposed 60/40 allocation between geostationary and NGSO systems, respectively. Also backing tiers of NGSO regulatory fees based on constellation size, it said larger constellations "raise additional issues that require more FTE time," such as orbital debris and larger earth station networks. EchoStar and DirecTV also backed the NGSO subcategories based on constellation size and assessing fees on authorized but not yet operational systems, as did SES/O3b, which also urged a several-year phase-in of fee increases due to the Space Bureau's creation. Viasat also urged that NGSOs cover a greater allocation of satellite fees and backed the NGSO subcategories. The $400,000 annual regulatory fee that small non-voice, non-geostationary mobile satellite systems are facing under the FCC proposal is "unsustainable" and make operating NVNG MSS systems in the U.S. a challenge, Myriota said. NVNG MSS systems consume fewer FCC resources than other small NGSO constellations, it added.