FCC Guidance On Radio For Commercial Space Operations Falls Short

RocketAcademy writes "The Federal Communications Commission has issued a Public Notice to help commercial space companies obtain use of communications frequencies for launch, operations, and reentry. Commercial space companies can obtain the use of government frequencies on a temporary, non-interference basis through the FCC's Experimental Authorization process. Experimental Authorizations are valid for a six-month period from the date of grant and are renewable, but applicants must obtain a new authorization for each launch and must apply 90 days in advance. Unfortunately, this requirement does not meet the needs of suborbital launch providers who expect to fly several times per day and schedule launches as needed, on very short notice."

Comments

Wrong application

[Brett Buck]

Call it an airplane, get an aircraft RT license and license the pilots. It *is* an airplane, it's not really a spacecraft since it's at most, a hop.

        In any case, no one is coming close to doing multiple flights A MONTH, much less multiple flights a day.

Um, that's why it's experimental.

[slimjim8094]

Rather than guesstimating a timeframe for when these "suborbital launch providers" might in theory potentially begin "fly[ing] several times per day", they're allowing for current needs without over-provisioning or over-promising. They're already being forward looking with these rules, so presumably when needs change, or are about to change, they'll adjust them to meet the upcoming requirements.

Troll article is troll

Nope.

[Gazoogleheimer]

The FCC, while perhaps not being as enthusiastic as I would like, has stood up for consumers against Congress and their lobbyists' wills repeatedly lately, and the spectrum auction helped fund an underfunded agency -- while making sure those that purchased the spectrum would seriously use it. The huge sums of money were a drop in the bucket for those wireless companies.

With the Internet, you have no reason to broadcast music; regardless, new changes in LPFM have made it easier than ever to get a non-profit radio station, particularly in rural areas. I am a DJ at a radio station in Cleveland, OH that was given to the people, as our fees are virtually nothing compared to commercial stations. We give back by offering diverse programming (no top 40 allowed!)

You want everything, but don't realize that this shared resource can't be decided by the selfish. The system has worked, continues to work, and will work in the future. I just suggest against biting the hand that feeds you!

These commercial kids also need to learn planning and contingencies.

Re:Nope.

[slimjim8094]

AM doesn't suffer from the capture effect. The "range" of a low-power "highway advisory" type station is limited because in order to clearly hear the low-power station, you need a strong enough signal that the main user of that frequency is completely overpowered. This limits the range, and "transition" is linear (the further you get, the more you hear the main user). By comparison, if one FM signal is stronger than another by even a bit, that's *all* you hear. Furthermore if there are periodic changes in which signal is the strongest in a fringe area, it's extremely disruptive because there's an abrupt transition back and forth - not a gentle fading. So the fact that the AM band is full of crap that doesn't seem to affect things doesn't prove very much.

Furthermore, it appears that the FCC has always supported LPFM just as GP claims. The Congress made it more difficult for stations to be licensed in 2000 (of that legislation: "Basically, this act shifts policy making from the FCC to Congress, which was considered an insult against the FCC."), but since then there's been a shift back to making it easier. You should update your arguments. Federal Communications Commission Chair Julius Genachowski said, "Low power FM stations are small, but they make a giant contribution to local community programming. This important law eliminates the unnecessary restrictions that kept these local stations off the air in cities and towns across the country."

Re:Dedicated worldwide spectrum is hard to get

[Teancum]

I would generally agree with your assessment, other than the fact that there are many commercial operators planning on getting into the game real soon with much more frequent flights than has been the case in the past. By far and away most of those flights are going to be sub-orbital (typically only going to 100 km in altitude) and the bulk of these flights will even be working with air traffic in some fashion or another.

Orbital spacecraft are going to be a much tougher problem, particularly for things like nanosatellites. They will be using that spectrum for prolonged periods of time (years at a time or longer), and if there are crews in spacecraft like a Bigelow module or some other "orbital hotel", they may even need a global "clear channel" of some sort.

Allowing everybody to have the luxury of a global clear channel communications link like the Apollo astronauts enjoyed in the 1960's isn't going to be possible if large numbers of people start using space and seek their own "private communications channel". It will be interesting to see how this will all work out, and I don't think there is a single realistic solution to this mess but rather a whole bunch of compromises and even rethinking how communications between ground stations and spacecraft will take place in the coming decades.