[ { "name": "Amazon Leo Direct-to-Device", "slug": "amazon-leo-d2d", "family": "amazon-leo", "aka": [ "Amazon Leo D2D", "Kuiper direct-to-device" ], "operator": "Kuiper Systems LLC", "parent": "Amazon.com, Inc.", "country": "US", "jurisdiction": [ "US" ], "system_class": "direct-to-device", "status": "filed", "status_detail": "Application filed with the FCC on 24 July 2026 for up to 5,105 satellites, using the L- and S-band spectrum held by Globalstar, whose acquisition by Amazon was announced in April 2026 and is expected to close in 2027. No grant. Service stated as no earlier than 2028.", "status_asof": "2026-07", "services": [ "direct-to-device", "voice", "messaging", "broadband", "iot" ], "orbit_regimes": [ "LEO" ], "dual_use": "civil", "filing": { "authority": "FCC", "administration": "USA", "file_number": "SAT-LOA-20260601-00224", "call_sign": "S00917", "document": "Kuiper Systems LLC, application for the Amazon Leo D2D System, filed 24 July 2026, status Pending Review", "src": "fcc-sat-loa-20260601-00224", "note": "The date in the file number is the ICFS series, and not the filing date: Schedule S records the filing at 2026-07-24 21:35:44." }, "counts": { "filed": { "value": 5105, "asof": "2026-07-24", "src": "fcc-sat-loa-20260601-00224" } }, "regulatory": [ { "authority": "FCC", "country": "US", "kind": "application", "action": "pending", "date": "2026-07-24", "satellites": 5105, "scope": "Application for authority to launch and operate a non-geostationary system of 5,105 satellites providing mobile-satellite service, with an estimated operational lifetime of 7 years from launch. Schedule S states frequencies of 1427-2690 MHz in both directions, with the service described as SCS and flagged as non-conforming. Altitudes of 510 to 580 km, the Globalstar L- and S-band allocations specifically, and services to unmodified 4G and 5G handsets no earlier than 2028 are press-reported and are not stated in Schedule S.", "src": "fcc-sat-loa-20260601-00224" } ], "shells": [ { "label": "d2d-510-580", "status": "proposed", "geometry_kind": "unknown", "code_status": "unknown", "code_note": "Schedule S declares one orbital plane and one simultaneously operating satellite for a 5,105-satellite system, so those fields carry no usable geometry. The parameters are in a separate attachment, \"Amazon Leo D2D Application - Orbital Parameters Attachment.zip\", which has not been opened. The 510-580 km altitude range is press-reported. No inclination, plane count or per-plane population is traced to the filing.", "src": "fcc-sat-loa-20260601-00224" } ], "spectrum": [ "L", "S" ], "spectrum_detail": "Schedule S states a single band pair, 1427-2690 MHz, in both directions, which spans the L- and S-band allocations Globalstar holds. The filing describes the service as SCS and flags it as non-conforming. This is the first record in the registry where the spectrum rationale is an acquisition and not a processing round: Amazon is buying the spectrum position along with the operator that holds it.", "isl": "unknown", "target_completion_kind": "operator-target", "sources": [ { "id": "fcc-sat-loa-20260601-00224", "grade": "primary", "kind": "fcc-application", "title": "FCC ICFS, Kuiper Systems LLC, \"Amazon Leo D2D System\", application SAT-LOA-20260601-00224, call sign S00917: application summary and Schedule S", "url": "https://fccprod.servicenowservices.com/icfs?id=ibfs_application_summary&number=SAT-LOA-20260601-00224", "date": "2026-07-24", "retrieved": "2026-08-03" }, { "id": "viasat-amazon-d2d-2026", "grade": "secondary", "kind": "trade-press", "title": "Via Satellite, \"Amazon Leo Files for 5,105 Satellites in Globalstar Spectrum for D2D\"", "url": "https://www.satellitetoday.com/connectivity/2026/07/27/amazon-leo-files-for-5105-satellites-in-globalstar-spectrum-for-d2d/", "date": "2026-07-27", "retrieved": "2026-07-30" }, { "id": "amazon-leo-d2d-explainer", "grade": "secondary", "kind": "operator-web", "title": "Amazon, \"Amazon Leo direct-to-device satellite service explained\"", "url": "https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/amazon-leo/amazon-leo-direct-to-device-satellite-service-explained", "retrieved": "2026-07-30" }, { "id": "york-email-2026-07-29", "grade": "secondary", "kind": "presentation", "title": "Dan York (Internet Society), correspondence with the registry maintainers, 29 July 2026, flagging this filing as post-dating the IETF 126 survey", "url": "https://datatracker.ietf.org/rg/space/about/", "date": "2026-07-29", "retrieved": "2026-07-30" } ], "notes": "Contributed by Dan York on 29 July 2026, having been filed after his IETF 126 survey was presented. The first entry in the registry to come from the community rather than the initial sweep, and the first whose provenance was upgraded by a contributor: Dan supplied the ICFS file number on 3 August 2026, and the count, the band edges and the lifetime now come from Schedule S instead of trade press. Provenance gap: the orbital geometry is in an attachment, \"Amazon Leo D2D Application - Orbital Parameters Attachment.zip\", which has not been opened, and the public version of Exhibit C (technical attachment and ODAR) has not been read. A confidential version of Exhibit C is withheld, so some technical detail will not become public. This record and globalstar-c3 will need reconciling if the Amazon acquisition of Globalstar completes: two systems, one spectrum position, one eventual owner. Whether the D2D constellation supersedes the C-3 plan or runs alongside it is not yet stated anywhere this registry has found.", "added": "2026-07", "verified": "2026-08-03", "contributor": "Dan York (Internet Society), via correspondence" }, { "name": "Amazon Leo Gen1", "slug": "amazon-leo-gen1", "family": "amazon-leo", "aka": [ "Project Kuiper", "Kuiper Gen1" ], "operator": "Kuiper Systems LLC", "parent": "Amazon.com, Inc.", "country": "US", "jurisdiction": [ "US" ], "system_class": "broadband", "status": "deploying", "status_detail": "Production satellites launching since April 2025 and enterprise beta service from 2025, but far short of the interim deployment milestone, which the FCC waived in part with conditions in June 2026.", "status_asof": "2026-07", "services": [ "broadband", "backhaul" ], "orbit_regimes": [ "LEO" ], "dual_use": "civil", "filing": { "authority": "FCC", "administration": "USA", "file_number": "SAT-LOA-20190704-00057", "call_sign": "S3051", "document": "DA 26-553", "src": "fcc-kuiper-waiver-2026" }, "counts": { "launched": { "value": 398, "asof": "2026-07", "src": "york-ietf126" }, "licensed": { "value": 3232, "asof": "2026-06-05", "src": "fcc-kuiper-waiver-2026", "note": "Reduced from the 3,236 originally authorised by a 2024 orbital parameters modification." }, "filed": { "value": 3236, "asof": "2020-07-30", "src": "fcc-kuiper-waiver-2026" } }, "regulatory": [ { "authority": "FCC", "country": "US", "kind": "license-grant", "file_number": "SAT-LOA-20190704-00057", "call_sign": "S3051", "document": "FCC 20-102 (35 FCC Rcd 8324)", "action": "granted", "date": "2020-07-30", "satellites": 3236, "scope": "Gen1 authorisation: 3,236 NGSO FSS satellites in the first Ku-/Ka-band processing round, in three shells at 590 km / 33 deg (784 satellites, 28 planes), 610 km / 42 deg (1,296 satellites, 36 planes) and 630 km / 51.9 deg (1,156 satellites, 34 planes).", "milestones": [ { "fraction": 0.5, "count": 1616, "due": "2026-07-30", "status": "waived-in-part" }, { "fraction": 1.0, "count": 3232, "due": "2029-07-30", "status": "pending" } ], "src": "fcc-kuiper-waiver-2026" }, { "authority": "FCC", "country": "US", "kind": "modification", "document": "39 FCC Rcd 2180 (SB 2024)", "action": "granted", "date": 2024, "satellites": 3232, "scope": "Gen1 orbital parameters modification. Reduced the total number of authorised space stations from 3,236 to 3,232.", "src": "fcc-kuiper-waiver-2026" }, { "authority": "FCC", "country": "US", "kind": "waiver", "file_number": "SAT-MOD-20260129-00065", "call_sign": "S3051/3105", "document": "DA 26-553", "action": "granted-in-part", "date": "2026-06-05", "scope": "Amazon Leo applied on 30 January 2026 to extend the interim milestone by 24 months or, alternatively, to waive it. The Space Bureau granted a limited waiver with conditions: it waived the section 25.161(a)(2) automatic-termination cap and part of section 25.164(b)(2), while temporarily demoting the spectral priority of satellites launched after the July 2026 milestone date until the build rate improves. The 100 per cent milestone of 30 July 2029 was not disturbed and the surety bond obligation was not waived.", "src": "fcc-kuiper-waiver-2026" } ], "shells": [ { "label": "gen1-s1", "status": "authorised", "geometry_kind": "walker", "altitude_km": 590, "inclination_deg": 33.0, "planes": 28, "sats_per_plane": 28, "satellites": 784, "walker": "D", "code_status": "unknown", "code_note": "Phasing factor not in the authorisation, and the ABNF makes it mandatory, so no code can be emitted from the primary source alone.", "src": "fcc-kuiper-gen1-2020" }, { "label": "gen1-s2", "status": "authorised", "geometry_kind": "walker", "altitude_km": 610, "inclination_deg": 42.0, "planes": 36, "sats_per_plane": 36, "satellites": 1296, "walker": "D", "code_status": "unknown", "src": "fcc-kuiper-gen1-2020" }, { "label": "gen1-s3", "status": "deploying", "geometry_kind": "walker", "altitude_km": 630, "inclination_deg": 51.9, "planes": 34, "sats_per_plane": 34, "satellites": 1156, "walker": "D", "code_status": "unknown", "code_note": "First deployment phase (578 satellites) targets this shell.", "src": "fcc-kuiper-gen1-2020" } ], "spectrum": [ "Ku", "Ka", "V" ], "spectrum_detail": "Ku-/Ka-band under the first Ku-/Ka-band processing round. V-band added to the Gen1 authorisation on 10 February 2026 under the 2021 V-band processing round grant (see amazon-leo-gen2), subject to the same Gen1 milestone schedule.", "isl": "optical", "isl_detail": "Optical inter-satellite links demonstrated on prototype satellites; parameters not published in the filings.", "first_launch": "2023-10-06", "service_start": 2025, "target_completion": "2029-07-30", "target_completion_kind": "regulatory-milestone", "launch": { "providers": [ "United Launch Alliance", "Arianespace", "Blue Origin", "SpaceX" ], "cadence": "Amazon contracted the largest commercial launch procurement on record across every provider except SpaceX, which was added later, but the vehicles have not flown at the rate the milestones assume. This is the proximate cause of the June 2026 waiver and the clearest case in the registry of launch capacity, not capital or licensing, being the binding constraint.", "src": "york-ietf126" }, "sources": [ { "id": "fcc-kuiper-gen1-2020", "grade": "primary", "kind": "fcc-order", "title": "FCC, Order and Authorization, FCC 20-102, 35 FCC Rcd 8324 (Kuiper Systems LLC, ICFS SAT-LOA-20190704-00057)", "url": "https://fcc.report/IBFS/SAT-LOA-20190704-00057/2608982", "date": "2020-07-30", "retrieved": "2026-07-29" }, { "id": "fcc-kuiper-waiver-2026", "grade": "primary", "kind": "fcc-order", "title": "FCC Space Bureau, Order, DA 26-553 (Kuiper Systems LLC, application for extension or waiver of the milestone deadline, ICFS SAT-MOD-20260129-00065)", "url": "https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DA-26-553A1.pdf", "date": "2026-06-05", "retrieved": "2026-07-29" }, { "id": "york-ietf126", "grade": "secondary", "kind": "presentation", "title": "Dan York (Internet Society), \"Beyond Starlink: Understanding the Coming Waves of LEO Satellite Deployments\", IRTF SPACE RG, IETF 126, Vienna", "url": "https://datatracker.ietf.org/meeting/126/materials/slides-126-space-york-beyond-starlink-understanding-the-coming-waves-of-leo-satellite-deployments-00", "date": "2026-07-21", "retrieved": "2026-07-29" } ], "discrepancies": [ { "field": "counts.licensed", "claim": "Gen1: 3,236, 2020", "claimed_by": "york-ietf126", "registry_value": "3,232 licensed (reduced from 3,236 in 2024); 3,236 filed", "note": "A four-satellite difference that matters only as a demonstration: the authorised figure moved in 2024 and the commonly cited one did not." }, { "field": "regulatory.milestones", "claim": "Gen1 50% deadline waived Jun 2026", "claimed_by": "york-ietf126", "registry_value": "Limited waiver with conditions; spectral priority of post-milestone satellites temporarily demoted; surety bond obligation not waived", "note": "Reported variously as a clean waiver and as an extension to July 2027 or July 2028. DA 26-553 grants neither: it waives specific provisions while imposing spectrum-priority conditions designed to keep pressure on the build rate. Press figures of \"1,618 satellites by July 2026\" are also wrong; the order says 1,616." } ], "notes": "Amazon renamed Project Kuiper to Amazon Leo in 2026 and the FCC order adopts the new name for both constellation and licensee, while the licensee of record remains Kuiper Systems LLC. Provenance gap: FCC 20-102 is cited through the fcc.report mirror of the grant attachment rather than a docs.fcc.gov permanent URL, and the 2024 orbital parameters modification (39 FCC Rcd 2180) has not been read. The shells recorded here are the 2020 configuration, so the current authorised geometry may differ. This is why each shell carries its own src.", "added": "2026-07", "verified": "2026-07-29", "contributor": "Juan A. Fraire (Inria)" }, { "name": "Amazon Leo Gen2 and Polar", "slug": "amazon-leo-gen2", "family": "amazon-leo", "aka": [ "Kuiper Gen2", "Amazon Leo Polar system", "Amazon 2026 V-band Grant" ], "operator": "Kuiper Systems LLC", "parent": "Amazon.com, Inc.", "country": "US", "jurisdiction": [ "US" ], "system_class": "broadband", "status": "licensed", "status_detail": "Authorised 10 February 2026 in the 2021 V-band processing round. Nothing launched under this authorisation; the first milestone is six years out.", "status_asof": "2026-07", "services": [ "broadband", "backhaul" ], "orbit_regimes": [ "LEO" ], "dual_use": "civil", "filing": { "authority": "FCC", "administration": "USA", "file_number": "SAT-LOA-20211104-00145", "call_sign": "S3105", "document": "Grant Stamp, 10 February 2026 (Amazon 2026 V-band Grant)", "src": "fcc-kuiper-waiver-2026" }, "counts": { "licensed": { "value": 4504, "asof": "2026-02-10", "src": "fcc-kuiper-waiver-2026", "breakdown": [ { "label": "Gen2 system", "value": 3212, "src": "fcc-kuiper-waiver-2026" }, { "label": "Polar system", "value": 1292, "src": "fcc-kuiper-waiver-2026" } ] } }, "regulatory": [ { "authority": "FCC", "country": "US", "kind": "application", "file_number": "SAT-LOA-20211104-00145", "action": "pending", "date": "2021-11-04", "scope": "Application in the 2021 V-band processing round (cut-off established by Public Notice DA 21-941, 4 August 2021), later amended by SAT-AMD-20250311-00068.", "src": "fcc-kuiper-waiver-2026" }, { "authority": "FCC", "country": "US", "kind": "license-grant", "file_number": "SAT-LOA-20211104-00145", "call_sign": "S3105", "action": "granted-in-part", "date": "2026-02-10", "satellites": 4504, "scope": "Grant stamp, granting in part, deferring in part, with conditions. Authorises Gen1 operations in the 37.5-42.0 GHz and 42.0-42.5 GHz (space-to-Earth, the latter outside the US and possessions only) and 47.2-52.0, 50.4-51.4 and 51.4-52.4 GHz (Earth-to-space) bands, and authorises the Gen2 system (3,212 satellites) and the Polar system (1,292 satellites) on a milestone schedule separate from Gen1's.", "milestones": [ { "fraction": 0.5, "count": 2252, "due": "2032-02-10", "status": "pending" }, { "fraction": 1.0, "count": 4504, "due": "2035-02-10", "status": "pending" } ], "src": "fcc-kuiper-waiver-2026" } ], "shells": [ { "label": "gen2-and-polar", "status": "authorised", "geometry_kind": "unknown", "code_status": "unknown", "code_note": "The grant is known to this registry only through its citation in DA 26-553, which gives the satellite counts and milestone dates but not the orbital parameters. The Polar system's defining characteristic is its inclination, which is exactly the field not yet recorded. Left empty rather than inferred.", "src": "fcc-kuiper-waiver-2026" } ], "spectrum": [ "V" ], "spectrum_detail": "37.5-42.0 GHz and 42.0-42.5 GHz space-to-Earth (the latter outside the US and possessions only); 47.2-52.0, 50.4-51.4 and 51.4-52.4 GHz Earth-to-space. Granted under the 2021 V-band processing round.", "target_completion": "2035-02-10", "target_completion_kind": "regulatory-milestone", "sources": [ { "id": "fcc-kuiper-waiver-2026", "grade": "primary", "kind": "fcc-order", "title": "FCC Space Bureau, Order, DA 26-553 (Kuiper Systems LLC milestone waiver), paragraph 3 and notes 7-8, which describe the 10 February 2026 V-band grant and its milestone schedule", "url": "https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DA-26-553A1.pdf", "date": "2026-06-05", "retrieved": "2026-07-29" }, { "id": "york-ietf126", "grade": "secondary", "kind": "presentation", "title": "Dan York (Internet Society), \"Beyond Starlink: Understanding the Coming Waves of LEO Satellite Deployments\", IRTF SPACE RG, IETF 126, Vienna", "url": "https://datatracker.ietf.org/meeting/126/materials/slides-126-space-york-beyond-starlink-understanding-the-coming-waves-of-leo-satellite-deployments-00", "date": "2026-07-21", "retrieved": "2026-07-29" } ], "discrepancies": [ { "field": "counts.licensed", "claim": "Gen2: +4,500, approved Feb 10, 2026", "claimed_by": "york-ietf126", "registry_value": "4,504 across two systems: Gen2 3,212 and Polar 1,292", "note": "The family total on the slide (7,736) is right. The breakdown is not: the February 2026 grant covers two distinct systems with their own milestone schedule, not a single increment to Gen1. Widely rounded to \"4,500\" in the press. Splitting them matters because the Polar system is a different orbital regime serving a different coverage problem." } ], "notes": "Provenance gap: this record is built entirely from the description of the 10 February 2026 grant contained in a *later* order (DA 26-553). The grant stamp itself, under ICFS SAT-LOA-20211104-00145 and SAT-AMD-20250311-00068, has not been read. Reading it would supply the orbital parameters for both the Gen2 and Polar systems, which are the main gap in this record. Note the source grading subtlety: DA 26-553 is a primary source, and it is a primary source *for what it says*, which is the counts and the milestone dates. It is not a source for the shell geometry, which it does not discuss. A source's grade does not extend beyond its contents.", "added": "2026-07", "verified": "2026-07-29", "contributor": "Juan A. Fraire (Inria)" }, { "name": "AST SpaceMobile", "slug": "ast-spacemobile", "family": "ast-spacemobile", "aka": [ "SpaceMobile", "BlueBird", "BlueWalker", "FM-1 / FM-2" ], "operator": "AST & Science, LLC", "parent": "AST SpaceMobile, Inc.", "country": "US", "jurisdiction": [ "US" ], "system_class": "direct-to-device", "status": "deploying", "status_detail": "Fully authorised for 248 satellites as of April 2026, including supplemental coverage from space and direct-to-cell operations, with spectrum leases from AT&T, Verizon and FirstNet granted the same day. A small number of satellites are in orbit.", "status_asof": "2026-07", "services": [ "direct-to-device", "broadband" ], "orbit_regimes": [ "LEO" ], "dual_use": "civil", "filing": { "authority": "FCC", "administration": "USA", "file_number": "SAT-LOA-20200413-00034", "call_sign": "S3065", "document": "DA 26-391", "src": "fcc-ast-2026" }, "counts": { "launched": { "value": 9, "asof": "2026-07", "src": "york-ietf126" }, "licensed": { "value": 248, "asof": "2026-04-21", "src": "fcc-ast-2026", "breakdown": [ { "label": "Previously authorised", "value": 25, "src": "fcc-ast-2026" }, { "label": "Additional in DA 26-391", "value": 223, "src": "fcc-ast-2026" } ] }, "filed": { "value": 248, "asof": "2026-04-21", "src": "fcc-ast-2026" } }, "regulatory": [ { "authority": "FCC", "country": "US", "kind": "license-grant", "file_number": "SAT-LOA-20200413-00034", "call_sign": "S3065", "document": "DA 26-391", "action": "granted", "date": "2026-04-21", "satellites": 248, "scope": "Authorisation and Order granting, with conditions, the application as amended nine times (SAT-AMD-20200727-00088, SAT-AMD-20201028-00126, SAT-AMD-20230717-00172, SAT-AMD-20240311-00053, SAT-MOD-20250612-00145, SAT-AMD-20250718-00181, SAT-AMD-20250903-00248, SAT-MOD-20251205-00370, SAT-AMD-20251211-00379, SAT-MOD-20260121-00037). Authority to deploy 223 additional LEO space stations, for 248 in total, and to perform SCS and direct-to-cell operations plus feeder link and TT&C. Issued jointly by the Space Bureau, Wireless Telecommunications Bureau, Office of Engineering and Technology, and Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau. SB Docket No. 25-201.", "src": "fcc-ast-2026" } ], "shells": [ { "label": "bb1-520", "status": "deployed", "geometry_kind": "irregular", "planes": 1, "sats_per_plane": 5, "satellites": 5, "inclination_deg": 53.0, "code_status": "not-representable", "code_note": "The authorisation specifies an apogee of 520 km (+/- 30 km) and a perigee of 515 km (+/- 30 km), with operations permitted down to 425 km. The constellation code carries a single circular altitude and has no field for apogee, perigee or a station-keeping tolerance, so the authorised orbit cannot be expressed without discarding information.", "src": "fcc-ast-2026" }, { "label": "bb2-520-6planes", "status": "authorised", "geometry_kind": "irregular", "planes": 6, "sats_per_plane": 4, "inclination_deg": 53.0, "code_status": "not-representable", "code_note": "22 satellites in 6 planes: not evenly divisible, so the code's requirement that satellites be divisible by planes cannot be met. Apogee 520 km, perigee 515 km. sats_per_plane recorded as the floor; the grant does not state the distribution.", "src": "fcc-ast-2026" }, { "label": "fm2-460", "status": "authorised", "geometry_kind": "irregular", "satellites": 1, "inclination_deg": 50.0, "code_status": "not-representable", "code_note": "A single satellite at apogee and perigee 460 km (+/- 30 km), inclination 50 deg, under its own modification (SAT-MOD-20251205-00370).", "src": "fcc-ast-2026" }, { "label": "main-690-685", "status": "authorised", "geometry_kind": "irregular", "satellites": 192, "inclination_deg": 53.0, "code_status": "not-representable", "code_note": "192 satellites \"operating each in 1 plane\" at an apogee of 690 km and a perigee of 685 km, inclination 53 deg, deployed at 530 km and raised. One satellite per plane is a degenerate Walker configuration, and the orbit is elliptical. Neither is expressible.", "src": "fcc-ast-2026" }, { "label": "polar-685-680", "status": "authorised", "geometry_kind": "irregular", "planes": 2, "satellites": 28, "sats_per_plane": 14, "inclination_deg": 98.1318, "code_status": "not-representable", "code_note": "28 satellites in 2 planes at apogee 685 km, perigee 680 km, inclination 98.1318 deg. Elliptical, and the inclination is specified to four decimal places, which the code's float syntax can carry but which no other record in this registry needs.", "src": "fcc-ast-2026" } ], "spectrum": [ "V", "S", "L" ], "spectrum_detail": "V-band feeder links and TT&C in 37.5-42.0 GHz (space-to-Earth), 47.2-50.2 and 50.4-51.4 GHz (Earth-to-space) under the August 2024 grant. Service links are supplemental coverage from space using terrestrial cellular spectrum leased from AT&T and Verizon, plus FirstNet spectrum by agreement; the leases were granted the same day as DA 26-391.", "isl": "unknown", "first_launch": "2022-09-10", "launch": { "providers": [ "SpaceX", "Blue Origin" ], "vehicles": [ "Falcon 9", "New Glenn" ], "src": "york-ietf126" }, "sources": [ { "id": "fcc-ast-2026", "grade": "primary", "kind": "fcc-order", "title": "FCC, Authorization and Order, DA 26-391 (AST & Science, LLC, ICFS SAT-LOA-20200413-00034 and amendments, Call Sign S3065, SB Docket 25-201)", "url": "https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DA-26-391A1.pdf", "date": "2026-04-21", "retrieved": "2026-07-29" }, { "id": "mcdowell-conlist", "grade": "secondary", "kind": "tracker", "title": "Jonathan McDowell, \"Jonathan's Space Report\" constellation list (enormous constellations, more than 1,000 satellites), planet4589.org", "url": "https://planet4589.org/space/con/conlist.html", "date": "2026-07-25", "retrieved": "2026-07-30" }, { "id": "york-ietf126", "grade": "secondary", "kind": "presentation", "title": "Dan York (Internet Society), \"Beyond Starlink: Understanding the Coming Waves of LEO Satellite Deployments\", IRTF SPACE RG, IETF 126, Vienna", "url": "https://datatracker.ietf.org/meeting/126/materials/slides-126-space-york-beyond-starlink-understanding-the-coming-waves-of-leo-satellite-deployments-00", "date": "2026-07-21", "retrieved": "2026-07-29" } ], "discrepancies": [ { "field": "counts.licensed", "claim": "~100 satellites planned", "claimed_by": "york-ietf126", "registry_value": "248 licensed", "note": "Resolved. Dan York confirmed on 29 July 2026 that the \"~100\" on the slide has no source in his notes and was an error on his part; McDowell's tracker gave 243, close to the authorised 248. The 248-satellite authorisation was granted on 21 April 2026, three months before the talk. Recorded rather than removed because the registry's purpose is to make such things visible and correctable, and because this one was corrected by its own author within a week of being asked." } ], "notes": "This record is the registry's worked example of orbital geometry that the constellation code cannot express for a reason unrelated to phasing: every authorised shell here is elliptical, with apogee and perigee stated separately and a station-keeping tolerance attached. The code assumes a single circular altitude. Four of the five shells also fail the code's divisibility or plane-count assumptions independently. AST's satellites are physically very large, which is why the constellation size is small relative to its coverage ambition. Recording sat_mass_kg for this system would be valuable and has not been done.", "added": "2026-07", "verified": "2026-07-29", "contributor": "Juan A. Fraire (Inria)" }, { "name": "Blue Origin Project Sunrise", "slug": "blue-origin-sunrise", "family": "blue-origin", "aka": [ "Project Sunrise", "Blue Origin Orbital Data Center System" ], "operator": "Blue Origin, LLC", "parent": "Blue Origin, LLC", "country": "US", "jurisdiction": [ "US" ], "system_class": "orbital-compute", "status": "filed", "status_detail": "Application filed 19 March 2026; no grant. NASA filed an objection in May 2026. Nothing launched.", "status_asof": "2026-07", "services": [ "orbital-compute" ], "orbit_regimes": [ "LEO" ], "dual_use": "civil", "filing": { "authority": "FCC", "administration": "USA", "document": "Blue Origin application for the Project Sunrise orbital data center system, filed 19 March 2026 (ICFS file number not retrieved)", "src": "geekwire-sunrise-2026", "note": "The application is public and its filing date is consistently reported, but its ICFS file number has not been retrieved in this pass. Recorded as a document description so the record still anchors on a specific, findable act." }, "counts": { "filed": { "value": 51600, "asof": "2026-03-19", "src": "geekwire-sunrise-2026" } }, "regulatory": [ { "authority": "FCC", "country": "US", "kind": "application", "action": "pending", "date": "2026-03-19", "satellites": 51600, "scope": "Application for up to 51,600 orbital data centre satellites in sun-synchronous orbits between 500 km and 1,800 km, with between 300 and 1,000 satellites per orbital plane. Ka-band requested for telemetry, tracking and command; user data to move over optical inter-satellite links into Blue Origin's TeraWave network and thence to the ground.", "src": "geekwire-sunrise-2026" }, { "authority": "FCC", "country": "US", "kind": "application", "action": "pending", "date": "2026-05", "scope": "NASA filed an objection to the application. The grounds have not been read; NASA objections to large constellations have historically concerned conjunction risk with science missions and with the ISS.", "src": "satnews-nasa-sunrise-2026" } ], "shells": [ { "label": "sso-500-1800", "status": "proposed", "geometry_kind": "sso-band", "max_sats_per_plane": 1000, "code_status": "not-representable", "code_note": "Sun-synchronous orbits from 500 to 1,800 km with 300 to 1,000 satellites per plane. Both the altitude and the per-plane population are ranges, so there is no (T, P, F) triple. Sun-synchronous orbits also carry a local time of the ascending node that the code cannot express. Note the per-plane figure: 1,000 satellites in a single plane is two orders of magnitude beyond anything in the operational shells in this registry, and worth flagging to anyone modelling intra-plane topology.", "src": "geekwire-sunrise-2026" } ], "spectrum": [ "Ka", "optical" ], "spectrum_detail": "Ka-band for TT&C only. No service spectrum of its own; user traffic is to travel by optical link into TeraWave.", "isl": "external", "isl_detail": "Optical links into Blue Origin's own TeraWave constellation, which is itself only announced and has no filing reference in this registry. The compute system's path to the ground therefore depends on a system whose existence is not yet documented in a docket.", "sources": [ { "id": "geekwire-sunrise-2026", "grade": "secondary", "kind": "trade-press", "title": "GeekWire, \"51,600 more satellites? Blue Origin adds another twist to the data center space race with Project Sunrise\"", "url": "https://www.geekwire.com/2026/blue-origin-data-center-space-race-project-sunrise/", "date": "2026-03", "retrieved": "2026-07-29" }, { "id": "satnews-nasa-sunrise-2026", "grade": "secondary", "kind": "trade-press", "title": "SatNews, \"NASA Objects to Blue Origin's Project Sunrise\"", "url": "https://satnews.com/2026/05/05/nasa-objects-to-blue-origins-project-sunrise/", "date": "2026-05-05", "retrieved": "2026-07-29" }, { "id": "york-ietf126", "grade": "secondary", "kind": "presentation", "title": "Dan York (Internet Society), \"Beyond Starlink: Understanding the Coming Waves of LEO Satellite Deployments\", IRTF SPACE RG, IETF 126, Vienna", "url": "https://datatracker.ietf.org/meeting/126/materials/slides-126-space-york-beyond-starlink-understanding-the-coming-waves-of-leo-satellite-deployments-00", "date": "2026-07-21", "retrieved": "2026-07-29" } ], "discrepancies": [ { "field": "counts.filed", "claim": "51,600 planned; FCC filing Mar 19, 2026", "claimed_by": "york-ietf126", "registry_value": "51,600 requested; application pending", "note": "Count and date both agree with the reporting. The registry adds only that NASA has objected, which the deck does not mention and which is material to whether the filing becomes an authorisation." } ], "notes": "Provenance gap: no primary source, and the ICFS file number has not been retrieved. Reading the application would give the shell structure, the satellite design and the basis for the 51,600 figure, and reading NASA's objection would give the first documented instance in this registry of a federal science agency contesting a constellation filing on operational grounds. Both are worth doing.", "added": "2026-07", "verified": "2026-07-29", "contributor": "Juan A. Fraire (Inria)" }, { "name": "Blue Origin TeraWave", "slug": "blue-origin-terawave", "family": "blue-origin", "aka": [ "Tera Wave" ], "operator": "Blue Origin, LLC", "parent": "Blue Origin, LLC", "country": "US", "jurisdiction": [ "US" ], "system_class": "broadband", "status": "announced", "status_detail": "Announced January 2026, with deployment stated to begin Q4 2027. No FCC file number has been retrieved for TeraWave itself, though it is referred to in the Project Sunrise filing as the optical backbone that system depends on.", "status_asof": "2026-07", "services": [ "broadband", "backhaul" ], "orbit_regimes": [ "LEO", "MEO" ], "dual_use": "civil", "filing_absent": "No filing reference retrieved. TeraWave is described in trade press as an announced constellation and is referenced in Blue Origin's Project Sunrise FCC application as the communications network Sunrise will relay through, but no application or grant for TeraWave itself has been located in this pass. It may well exist; this is a gap in our work, not a statement that none exists.", "counts": { "announced": { "value": 5408, "asof": "2026-03", "src": "spacenews-blue-sunrise-2026", "note": "Reported alongside the Project Sunrise filing. The IETF 126 deck gives 5,348, with a breakdown of 5,310 LEO and 128 MEO that sums to 5,438. Three mutually inconsistent figures; see discrepancies." } }, "shells": [ { "label": "leo-meo", "status": "proposed", "geometry_kind": "unknown", "code_status": "unknown", "code_note": "Multi-orbit, with a LEO majority and a small MEO component. No altitudes, inclinations or plane structure traced.", "src": "spacenews-blue-sunrise-2026" } ], "isl": "optical", "isl_detail": "Optical downlinks reported to provide up to 6 Tbps. TeraWave is the intended optical backbone for Blue Origin's Project Sunrise orbital data centres, which makes the two systems a coupled pair: Sunrise has no independent path to the ground.", "target_completion": 2027, "target_completion_kind": "operator-target", "launch": { "providers": [ "Blue Origin" ], "vehicles": [ "New Glenn" ], "cadence": "In-house launch on New Glenn, which had flown twice as of the March 2026 Sunrise filing.", "src": "york-ietf126" }, "sources": [ { "id": "spacenews-blue-sunrise-2026", "grade": "secondary", "kind": "trade-press", "title": "SpaceNews, \"Blue Origin joins the orbital data center race\"", "url": "https://spacenews.com/blue-origin-joins-the-orbital-data-center-race/", "date": "2026-03", "retrieved": "2026-07-29" }, { "id": "york-ietf126", "grade": "secondary", "kind": "presentation", "title": "Dan York (Internet Society), \"Beyond Starlink: Understanding the Coming Waves of LEO Satellite Deployments\", IRTF SPACE RG, IETF 126, Vienna", "url": "https://datatracker.ietf.org/meeting/126/materials/slides-126-space-york-beyond-starlink-understanding-the-coming-waves-of-leo-satellite-deployments-00", "date": "2026-07-21", "retrieved": "2026-07-29" } ], "discrepancies": [ { "field": "counts.announced", "claim": "5,348 total; 5,310 LEO; 128 MEO", "claimed_by": "york-ietf126", "registry_value": "5,408 announced (also disputed)", "note": "The deck's own figures do not reconcile: 5,310 + 128 = 5,438, not 5,348. Trade press reporting the Sunrise filing gives 5,408. Three numbers, no filing, no way to choose between them. Recorded as 5,408 only because that figure appears in reporting tied to a document, and flagged here so the uncertainty is visible rather than averaged away." } ], "notes": "Provenance gap: no primary source and no filing reference. Everything here is trade press and a conference slide, and the headline count is disputed three ways. Locating a TeraWave application in ICFS would fix all of it. Recorded despite that because Project Sunrise, which does have a filing, depends on TeraWave for its ground path. A registry that carried Sunrise but not TeraWave would hide the dependency.", "added": "2026-07", "verified": "2026-07-29", "contributor": "Juan A. Fraire (Inria)" }, { "name": "China Mobile L1 and M1", "slug": "china-mobile-l1", "family": "china-mobile", "aka": [ "CHINAMOBILE-L1", "CHINAMOBILE-M1" ], "operator": "China Mobile", "parent": "China Mobile Communications Group, state-owned", "country": "CN", "jurisdiction": [ "CN" ], "system_class": "broadband", "status": "filed", "status_detail": "Advance publication information received by the ITU on 30 December 2025 and published 14 April 2026, one day after the CTC-1 and CTC-2 filings and part of the same wave. API/A only: no coordination request, no national authorisation identified, nothing launched.", "status_asof": "2026-07", "services": [ "broadband", "direct-to-device" ], "orbit_regimes": [ "VLEO", "LEO", "MEO" ], "dual_use": "unknown", "filing": { "authority": "other", "administration": "CHN", "file_number": "API/A 14312 (notice ID 125545461)", "document": "BR IFIC 3069", "src": "itu-snl-chinamobile-l1" }, "counts": { "filed": { "value": 2664, "asof": "2025-12-30", "src": "itu-ific-3069-cm", "breakdown": [ { "label": "CHINAMOBILE-L1 (VLEO/LEO)", "value": 2520, "src": "itu-ific-3069-cm" }, { "label": "CHINAMOBILE-M1 (MEO)", "value": 144, "src": "itu-ific-3069-cm" } ], "note": "Summed from the orbit table of BR IFIC 3069: 1,031 planes for L1 totalling 2,520 satellites, and 24 planes for M1 totalling 144." } }, "itu": [ { "administration": "CHN", "network_name": "CHINAMOBILE-L1", "stage": "API", "date": "2025-12-30", "satellites": 2520, "src": "itu-snl-chinamobile-l1", "note": "API/A 14312, notice ID 125545461, received 30 December 2025, published in BR IFIC 3069 on 14 April 2026. No coordination request on file." }, { "administration": "CHN", "network_name": "CHINAMOBILE-M1", "stage": "API", "date": "2025-12-30", "satellites": 144, "src": "itu-ific-3069-cm", "note": "Notice ID 125545462, published in the same IFIC. Recorded here rather than as a separate record because the two were filed together as the LEO and MEO layers of one system; the schema's one-record-per-authorisation rule arguably wants them split, and that is worth revisiting." } ], "shells": [ { "label": "l1-vleo-251", "status": "proposed", "geometry_kind": "irregular", "altitude_km": 251, "inclination_deg": 55.0, "planes": 960, "sats_per_plane": 1, "satellites": 960, "code_status": "not-representable", "code_note": "960 orbital planes carrying one satellite each at 251 km. A single satellite per plane is a degenerate Walker configuration, and 251 km is far below anything else in this registry: atmospheric drag at that altitude implies either continuous propulsion or a very short life.", "src": "itu-ific-3069-cm" }, { "label": "l1-300", "status": "proposed", "geometry_kind": "walker", "altitude_km": 300, "inclination_deg": 55.0, "planes": 36, "sats_per_plane": 25, "satellites": 900, "code_status": "unknown", "code_note": "Phasing factor not in the ITU declaration.", "src": "itu-ific-3069-cm" }, { "label": "l1-650", "status": "proposed", "geometry_kind": "walker", "altitude_km": 650, "inclination_deg": 55.0, "planes": 25, "sats_per_plane": 24, "satellites": 600, "code_status": "unknown", "src": "itu-ific-3069-cm" }, { "label": "l1-1250", "status": "proposed", "geometry_kind": "walker", "altitude_km": 1250, "inclination_deg": 55.0, "planes": 10, "sats_per_plane": 6, "satellites": 60, "code_status": "unknown", "src": "itu-ific-3069-cm" }, { "label": "m1-meo", "status": "proposed", "geometry_kind": "irregular", "inclination_deg": 55.0, "planes": 24, "satellites": 144, "code_status": "not-representable", "code_note": "Two MEO groups of 12 planes each carrying 6 satellites, at 8,200 km and 6,391 km, both at 55 degrees. Two distinct altitudes in one notice, and outside the LEO regime the constellation code is normally applied to.", "src": "itu-ific-3069-cm" } ], "isl": "unknown", "sources": [ { "id": "itu-snl-chinamobile-l1", "grade": "primary", "kind": "itu-filing", "title": "ITU Radiocommunication Bureau, Space Network List (SNL) Part B, filing history for satellite network CHINAMOBILE-L1 (notifying administration CHN)", "url": "https://www.itu.int/net/ITU-R/space/snl/bresult/radvance.asp?sel_satname=CHINAMOBILE-L1", "retrieved": "2026-07-29" }, { "id": "itu-ific-3069-cm", "grade": "primary", "kind": "itu-publication", "title": "ITU BR IFIC (Space Services) No. 3069, non-GSO notice data for CHINAMOBILE-L1 (notice ID 125545461) and CHINAMOBILE-M1 (notice ID 125545462), tables non_geo and orbit", "url": "https://www.itu.int/sns/ific10/ific3069.zip", "date": "2026-04-14", "retrieved": "2026-07-29" } ], "notes": "Found by scanning the non-GSO tables of the downloaded BR IFICs for Chinese networks with large plane counts, while looking for something else. It appears in no secondary source consulted for this registry and was not in the IETF 126 survey. A 2,664-satellite filing by the largest mobile operator in the world is not a marginal entry, and the fact that it surfaced only by reading the ITU publication directly is the clearest argument this registry has for doing so routinely. The 251 km shell is worth attention on its own: 960 satellites in 960 separate planes at an altitude where drag is severe. Whether that is a serious deployment plan or a spectrum placeholder is exactly the question the API/A stage cannot answer.", "added": "2026-07", "verified": "2026-07-29", "contributor": "Juan A. Fraire (Inria)" }, { "name": "Cowboy Space Stampede", "slug": "cowboy-space-stampede", "family": "cowboy-space", "aka": [ "Stampede" ], "operator": "Cowboy Space", "parent": "Cowboy Space (San Carlos, California)", "country": "US", "jurisdiction": [ "US" ], "system_class": "orbital-compute", "status": "filed", "status_detail": "Application filed 14 May 2026. The company states the satellite design is unfinished and that a licence modification will be needed before service, which is unusually explicit about how provisional the filing is.", "status_asof": "2026-07", "services": [ "orbital-compute" ], "orbit_regimes": [ "LEO" ], "dual_use": "civil", "filing": { "authority": "FCC", "administration": "USA", "document": "Cowboy Space application for the Stampede orbital data centre constellation, filed 14 May 2026 (ICFS file number not retrieved)", "src": "spacenews-cowboy-2026", "note": "The ICFS file number has not been retrieved." }, "counts": { "filed": { "value": 20000, "asof": "2026-05-14", "src": "spacenews-cowboy-2026" } }, "regulatory": [ { "authority": "FCC", "country": "US", "kind": "application", "action": "pending", "date": "2026-05-14", "satellites": 20000, "scope": "Application for up to 20,000 orbital data centre satellites in dawn-dusk sun-synchronous orbits in shells between 700 and 1,000 km. The application provides few details because the satellite design is not finished, and states that a licence modification will be required before service. Launches are said to begin in 2028.", "src": "spacenews-cowboy-2026" } ], "shells": [ { "label": "dawn-dusk-700-1000", "status": "proposed", "geometry_kind": "sso-band", "code_status": "not-representable", "code_note": "Dawn-dusk sun-synchronous shells between 700 and 1,000 km. Altitude range, no plane structure, and a local time of the ascending node with no representation in the code. The dawn-dusk choice is the whole point of the design, since it maximises solar exposure, and it is precisely the parameter the notation cannot carry.", "src": "spacenews-cowboy-2026" } ], "isl": "unknown", "first_launch": 2028, "target_completion_kind": "operator-target", "sources": [ { "id": "spacenews-cowboy-2026", "grade": "secondary", "kind": "trade-press", "title": "SpaceNews, \"Cowboy files plans for up to 20,000 orbital data centers\"", "url": "https://spacenews.com/cowboy-files-plans-for-up-to-20000-orbital-data-centers/", "date": "2026-05-15", "retrieved": "2026-07-29" }, { "id": "york-ietf126", "grade": "secondary", "kind": "presentation", "title": "Dan York (Internet Society), \"Beyond Starlink: Understanding the Coming Waves of LEO Satellite Deployments\", IRTF SPACE RG, IETF 126, Vienna", "url": "https://datatracker.ietf.org/meeting/126/materials/slides-126-space-york-beyond-starlink-understanding-the-coming-waves-of-leo-satellite-deployments-00", "date": "2026-07-21", "retrieved": "2026-07-29" } ], "discrepancies": [ { "field": "counts.filed", "claim": "20,000 planned; year started/planned operation unknown", "claimed_by": "york-ietf126", "registry_value": "20,000 requested 14 May 2026; launches stated to begin 2028", "note": "Count agrees, and the registry can fill in the timeline the deck left blank." } ], "notes": "Provenance gap: no primary source and no file number. This record is worth keeping in view for a reason beyond its size. The company told the regulator that the satellite design is unfinished and that a modification will be needed before service. That is a filing made to hold a place in a processing round, stated as such, by the applicant. It is the cleanest documented instance in this registry of the mechanism Dan York and Nitinder Mohan discussed at IETF 126: filings as spectrum positioning rather than deployment commitments. Recording it as `filed` and never as `licensed` is exactly the distinction the registry exists to preserve.", "added": "2026-07", "verified": "2026-07-29", "contributor": "Juan A. Fraire (Inria)" }, { "name": "CTC-1", "slug": "ctc-1", "family": "ctc", "aka": [ "China Radio Spectrum next-generation constellation 1" ], "operator": "Institute of Radio Spectrum Utilization and Technological Innovation", "parent": "Chinese state research institute", "country": "CN", "jurisdiction": [ "CN" ], "system_class": "other", "status": "filed", "status_detail": "Advance publication information received by the ITU on 29 December 2025 and published on 17 March 2026. API/A is the earliest and weakest stage of the ITU process: it precedes the coordination request and confers no coordination priority. Nothing launched and no deployment programme identified.", "status_asof": "2026-07", "services": [ "other" ], "orbit_regimes": [ "LEO" ], "dual_use": "unknown", "filing": { "authority": "other", "administration": "CHN", "file_number": "API/A 14285 (notice ID 125545446)", "document": "BR IFIC 3067", "src": "itu-snl-CTC-1" }, "counts": { "filed": { "value": 96714, "asof": "2025-12-29", "src": "itu-ific-3067", "note": "Confirmed against the ITU publication itself: the orbit table of BR IFIC 3067 lists 3,660 orbital planes for this notice, and their per-plane populations sum to exactly 96,714." } }, "itu": [ { "administration": "CHN", "network_name": "CTC-1", "stage": "API", "date": "2025-12-29", "satellites": 96714, "src": "itu-snl-CTC-1", "note": "API/A 14285, notice ID 125545446, received 29 December 2025, published in BR IFIC 3067 on 17 March 2026. No coordination request (CR/C) has been filed, so the network is at the first of the three ITU stages." } ], "shells": [ { "label": "declared-3660-planes", "status": "proposed", "geometry_kind": "irregular", "planes": 3660, "satellites": 96714, "code_status": "not-representable", "code_note": "3,660 orbital planes in one notice, spanning altitudes from 300 km to 1,280 km and inclinations from 21 to 98.7 degrees. Most planes carry 30 satellites; the 300 km / 88 degree group carries 79. This is not a constellation in the sense the code models: it is a filing that blankets the LEO shell space. 96,714 is not divisible by 3,660, and no single (T, P, F) triple could describe it even if it were.", "src": "itu-ific-3067" } ], "isl": "unknown", "sources": [ { "id": "itu-snl-CTC-1", "grade": "primary", "kind": "itu-filing", "title": "ITU Radiocommunication Bureau, Space Network List (SNL) Part B, filing history for satellite network CTC-1 (notifying administration CHN)", "url": "https://www.itu.int/net/ITU-R/space/snl/bresult/radvance.asp?sel_satname=CTC-1", "retrieved": "2026-07-29" }, { "id": "itu-ific-3067", "grade": "primary", "kind": "itu-publication", "title": "ITU BR IFIC (Space Services) No. 3067, non-GSO notice data for CTC-1 (tables non_geo and orbit of the published database)", "url": "https://www.itu.int/sns/ific10/ific3067.zip", "date": "2026-03-17", "retrieved": "2026-07-29" }, { "id": "spacenews-china-itu-2026", "grade": "secondary", "kind": "trade-press", "title": "SpaceNews, \"China files ITU paperwork for megaconstellations totaling nearly 200,000 satellites\"", "url": "https://spacenews.com/china-files-itu-paperwork-for-megaconstellations-totaling-nearly-200000-satellites/", "date": "2026-06", "retrieved": "2026-07-29" }, { "id": "york-ietf126", "grade": "secondary", "kind": "presentation", "title": "Dan York (Internet Society), \"Beyond Starlink: Understanding the Coming Waves of LEO Satellite Deployments\", IRTF SPACE RG, IETF 126, Vienna", "url": "https://datatracker.ietf.org/meeting/126/materials/slides-126-space-york-beyond-starlink-understanding-the-coming-waves-of-leo-satellite-deployments-00", "date": "2026-07-21", "retrieved": "2026-07-29" } ], "discrepancies": [ { "field": "counts.filed", "claim": "96,714 satellites planned", "claimed_by": "york-ietf126", "registry_value": "96,714 declared in API/A 14285", "note": "No longer a discrepancy: the deck's figure is exactly right, and this registry can now say so from the ITU publication rather than take it on trust. Retained as an entry because the deck marked the source as \"no confirmed official site\", and the point of recording it is that the number has since been confirmed. What the deck's \"planned\" column still cannot convey is the stage: this is advance publication information, the first and weakest of the three ITU steps." } ], "notes": "Upgraded from secondary to primary on 2026-07-29 by querying the ITU Space Network List for the filing identity and then reading the declared orbit data out of BR IFIC 3067 directly. See scripts/itu_query.sh, which reproduces both steps. CTC-1 and CTC-2 together account for about 193,000 of the roughly 200,000 satellites in the December 2025 Chinese filing wave, and therefore for a large share of any global aggregate. A reader deciding how much weight to put on a 2.3 million total should know that roughly 8 per cent of it comes from two filings by a single research institute, with a stated purpose that nobody has confirmed. Making that visible is the point of keeping the record.", "added": "2026-07", "verified": "2026-07-29", "contributor": "Juan A. Fraire (Inria)" }, { "name": "CTC-2", "slug": "ctc-2", "family": "ctc", "aka": [ "China Radio Spectrum next-generation constellation 2" ], "operator": "Institute of Radio Spectrum Utilization and Technological Innovation", "parent": "Chinese state research institute", "country": "CN", "jurisdiction": [ "CN" ], "system_class": "other", "status": "filed", "status_detail": "Advance publication information received by the ITU on 29 December 2025 and published on 17 March 2026. API/A is the earliest and weakest stage of the ITU process: it precedes the coordination request and confers no coordination priority. Nothing launched and no deployment programme identified.", "status_asof": "2026-07", "services": [ "other" ], "orbit_regimes": [ "LEO" ], "dual_use": "unknown", "filing": { "authority": "other", "administration": "CHN", "file_number": "API/A 14288 (notice ID 125545445)", "document": "BR IFIC 3067", "src": "itu-snl-CTC-2" }, "counts": { "filed": { "value": 96714, "asof": "2025-12-29", "src": "itu-ific-3067", "note": "Confirmed against the ITU publication itself: the orbit table of BR IFIC 3067 lists 3,660 orbital planes for this notice, and their per-plane populations sum to exactly 96,714." } }, "itu": [ { "administration": "CHN", "network_name": "CTC-2", "stage": "API", "date": "2025-12-29", "satellites": 96714, "src": "itu-snl-CTC-2", "note": "API/A 14288, notice ID 125545445, received 29 December 2025, published in BR IFIC 3067 on 17 March 2026. No coordination request (CR/C) has been filed, so the network is at the first of the three ITU stages." } ], "shells": [ { "label": "declared-3660-planes", "status": "proposed", "geometry_kind": "irregular", "planes": 3660, "satellites": 96714, "code_status": "not-representable", "code_note": "3,660 orbital planes in one notice, spanning altitudes from 300 km to 1,280 km and inclinations from 21 to 98.7 degrees. Most planes carry 30 satellites; the 300 km / 88 degree group carries 79. This is not a constellation in the sense the code models: it is a filing that blankets the LEO shell space. 96,714 is not divisible by 3,660, and no single (T, P, F) triple could describe it even if it were.", "src": "itu-ific-3067" } ], "isl": "unknown", "sources": [ { "id": "itu-snl-CTC-2", "grade": "primary", "kind": "itu-filing", "title": "ITU Radiocommunication Bureau, Space Network List (SNL) Part B, filing history for satellite network CTC-2 (notifying administration CHN)", "url": "https://www.itu.int/net/ITU-R/space/snl/bresult/radvance.asp?sel_satname=CTC-2", "retrieved": "2026-07-29" }, { "id": "itu-ific-3067", "grade": "primary", "kind": "itu-publication", "title": "ITU BR IFIC (Space Services) No. 3067, non-GSO notice data for CTC-2 (tables non_geo and orbit of the published database)", "url": "https://www.itu.int/sns/ific10/ific3067.zip", "date": "2026-03-17", "retrieved": "2026-07-29" }, { "id": "spacenews-china-itu-2026", "grade": "secondary", "kind": "trade-press", "title": "SpaceNews, \"China files ITU paperwork for megaconstellations totaling nearly 200,000 satellites\"", "url": "https://spacenews.com/china-files-itu-paperwork-for-megaconstellations-totaling-nearly-200000-satellites/", "date": "2026-06", "retrieved": "2026-07-29" }, { "id": "york-ietf126", "grade": "secondary", "kind": "presentation", "title": "Dan York (Internet Society), \"Beyond Starlink: Understanding the Coming Waves of LEO Satellite Deployments\", IRTF SPACE RG, IETF 126, Vienna", "url": "https://datatracker.ietf.org/meeting/126/materials/slides-126-space-york-beyond-starlink-understanding-the-coming-waves-of-leo-satellite-deployments-00", "date": "2026-07-21", "retrieved": "2026-07-29" } ], "discrepancies": [ { "field": "counts.filed", "claim": "96,714 satellites planned", "claimed_by": "york-ietf126", "registry_value": "96,714 declared in API/A 14288", "note": "No longer a discrepancy: the deck's figure is exactly right, and this registry can now say so from the ITU publication rather than take it on trust. Retained as an entry because the deck marked the source as \"no confirmed official site\", and the point of recording it is that the number has since been confirmed. What the deck's \"planned\" column still cannot convey is the stage: this is advance publication information, the first and weakest of the three ITU steps." } ], "notes": "Upgraded from secondary to primary on 2026-07-29 by querying the ITU Space Network List for the filing identity and then reading the declared orbit data out of BR IFIC 3067 directly. See scripts/itu_query.sh, which reproduces both steps. CTC-1 and CTC-2 together account for about 193,000 of the roughly 200,000 satellites in the December 2025 Chinese filing wave, and therefore for a large share of any global aggregate. A reader deciding how much weight to put on a 2.3 million total should know that roughly 8 per cent of it comes from two filings by a single research institute, with a stated purpose that nobody has confirmed. Making that visible is the point of keeping the record.", "added": "2026-07", "verified": "2026-07-29", "contributor": "Juan A. Fraire (Inria)" }, { "name": "Eutelsat OneWeb", "slug": "eutelsat-oneweb", "family": "oneweb", "aka": [ "OneWeb", "WorldVu", "OneWeb Ku/Ka NGSO FSS system" ], "operator": "WorldVu Satellites Limited", "parent": "Eutelsat Group (merged with OneWeb 2023)", "country": "GB", "jurisdiction": [ "GB", "US" ], "system_class": "broadband", "status": "operational", "status_detail": "First-generation constellation complete and in wholesale service. Authorised by the United Kingdom; US market access granted by the FCC and modified in 2023 from 720 to 716 satellites. A requested expansion to 6,372 satellites was deferred, not granted.", "status_asof": "2026-07", "services": [ "broadband", "backhaul" ], "orbit_regimes": [ "LEO" ], "dual_use": "civil", "filing": { "authority": "FCC", "administration": "G", "file_number": "SAT-MPL-20200526-00062", "call_sign": "S2963", "document": "DA 23-362", "src": "fcc-oneweb-2023", "note": "The underlying authorisation is British, held by WorldVu Satellites Limited. The file number recorded here is the US market access petition, which is the citable public docket; the UK authorisation itself has not been retrieved. `administration` is the ITU code for the United Kingdom." }, "counts": { "launched": { "value": 660, "asof": "2026-07", "src": "york-ietf126" }, "licensed": { "value": 716, "asof": "2023-04-28", "src": "fcc-oneweb-2023", "note": "Reduced from 720 to 716 in the 2023 modification. This is the figure for which US market access is granted; the UK authorisation is assumed to match but has not been read." }, "filed": { "value": 6372, "asof": "2023-04-28", "src": "fcc-oneweb-2023", "note": "OneWeb's modification petition requested an expansion of the system to 6,372 satellites. The FCC granted the reduction to 716 and expressly deferred consideration of the expansion. Under this registry's convention filed is cumulative of everything requested, so the 6,372 stands here and only 716 is licensed." } }, "regulatory": [ { "authority": "FCC", "country": "US", "kind": "license-grant", "call_sign": "S2963", "document": "FCC 17-77", "action": "granted", "date": 2017, "satellites": 720, "scope": "Grant of OneWeb's April 2016 petition for declaratory ruling for US market access for a 720-satellite constellation in 18 near-polar planes with 40 satellites per plane at approximately 1,200 km, 87.9 degrees inclination. The petition triggered the NGSO processing round that Starlink, Telesat and others later joined.", "src": "fcc-oneweb-2023" }, { "authority": "FCC", "country": "US", "kind": "modification", "file_number": "SAT-MPL-20200526-00062", "call_sign": "S2963", "document": "DA 23-362", "action": "granted-in-part", "date": "2023-04-28", "satellites": 716, "scope": "Order and Declaratory Ruling granting in part and deferring in part (with SAT-APL-20210112-00007). Reduces the constellation from 720 to 716 satellites and changes the architecture from 40 satellites in each of 18 planes at 87.9 degrees to 49 satellites in each of 12 planes at 87.9 degrees plus 16 satellites in each of 8 planes at 55 degrees, with no change to operational altitude. Consideration of the requested expansion to 6,372 satellites is deferred.", "src": "fcc-oneweb-2023" } ], "shells": [ { "label": "phase1-polar", "status": "deployed", "geometry_kind": "walker", "altitude_km": 1200, "inclination_deg": 87.9, "planes": 12, "sats_per_plane": 49, "satellites": 588, "walker": "S", "code_status": "unknown", "code_note": "Phasing factor not in the order. The altitude is recorded as the \"approximate\" 1,200 km stated in the FCC's description of the original petition, and the modification states the operational altitude is unchanged.", "src": "fcc-oneweb-2023" }, { "label": "phase1-inclined", "status": "deployed", "geometry_kind": "walker", "altitude_km": 1200, "inclination_deg": 55.0, "planes": 8, "sats_per_plane": 16, "satellites": 128, "walker": "D", "code_status": "unknown", "code_note": "The 55 degree \"inclined satellites\" added by the 2023 modification. The order does not restate the altitude for this group; 1,200 km is carried over from the statement that operational altitude is unchanged, and is therefore an inference rather than a quoted value.", "src": "fcc-oneweb-2023" }, { "label": "original-18x40", "status": "superseded", "geometry_kind": "walker", "altitude_km": 1200, "inclination_deg": 87.9, "planes": 18, "sats_per_plane": 40, "satellites": 720, "walker": "S", "code_status": "unknown", "code_note": "The configuration authorised in 2017 and superseded in 2023. Retained because it is the configuration the constellation-code draft's example table appears to be approximating, and because the NGSO processing round it triggered was defined against it.", "src": "fcc-oneweb-2023" } ], "spectrum": [ "Ku", "Ka" ], "spectrum_detail": "10.7-12.7 GHz (space-to-Earth), 14-14.5 GHz (Earth-to-space), 17.8-18.6 GHz (space-to-Earth), 18.8-19.3 GHz (space-to-Earth), 27.5-29.1 GHz (Earth-to-space), 29.5-30 GHz (Earth-to-space).", "isl": "none", "isl_detail": "No inter-satellite links in the first generation; the architecture is bent-pipe through a dense gateway network.", "first_launch": "2019-02-27", "service_start": 2023, "launch": { "providers": [ "Arianespace", "SpaceX", "ISRO" ], "vehicles": [ "Soyuz", "Falcon 9", "LVM3" ], "cadence": "Deployment completed after switching launch providers following the 2022 suspension of Soyuz launches.", "src": "york-ietf126" }, "sources": [ { "id": "fcc-oneweb-2023", "grade": "primary", "kind": "fcc-order", "title": "FCC Space Bureau, Order and Declaratory Ruling, DA 23-362 (WorldVu Satellites Limited, petition to modify the US market access grant for the OneWeb Ku- and Ka-band NGSO FSS system, IBFS SAT-MPL-20200526-00062 and SAT-APL-20210112-00007, Call Sign S2963)", "url": "https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DA-23-362A1.pdf", "date": "2023-04-28", "retrieved": "2026-07-29" }, { "id": "piraux-code-draft", "grade": "secondary", "kind": "academic", "title": "draft-piraux-space-constellation-code-02, example table (OneWeb as S:1200:87.9:672/12/11)", "url": "https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-piraux-space-constellation-code/", "date": "2026-07", "retrieved": "2026-07-29" }, { "id": "york-ietf126", "grade": "secondary", "kind": "presentation", "title": "Dan York (Internet Society), \"Beyond Starlink: Understanding the Coming Waves of LEO Satellite Deployments\", IRTF SPACE RG, IETF 126, Vienna", "url": "https://datatracker.ietf.org/meeting/126/materials/slides-126-space-york-beyond-starlink-understanding-the-coming-waves-of-leo-satellite-deployments-00", "date": "2026-07-21", "retrieved": "2026-07-29" } ], "discrepancies": [ { "field": "shells", "claim": "OneWeb: S:1200:87.9:672/12/11", "claimed_by": "piraux-code-draft", "registry_value": "588 satellites in 12 planes at 87.9 deg plus 128 in 8 planes at 55 deg (authorised 2023); previously 720 in 18 planes at 87.9 deg (2017)", "note": "The constellation-code draft's own example table does not match either authorised configuration. Its 672/12 has the right plane count for the current polar group but the wrong satellite count (672 against 588), and it omits the 55 degree inclined group entirely. Worth correcting in the draft, and a useful illustration of why examples in specifications need the same provenance discipline as registry entries." }, { "field": "counts.filed", "claim": "660 launched; 528 (Next) planned", "claimed_by": "york-ietf126", "registry_value": "716 licensed; 6,372 requested and deferred", "note": "The deck's 660 launched is consistent. Its \"528 (Next)\" refers to Eutelsat Next, an announced successor system that needs its own record and does not yet have one. What neither the deck nor most coverage mentions is the deferred request for 6,372 satellites, which is nearly nine times the authorised constellation and is the single largest unremarked number found in this pass." } ], "notes": "Provenance gap: the UK authorisation held by WorldVu Satellites Limited has not been retrieved, so the licensed figure recorded here is strictly the number for which US market access is granted. Eutelsat Next, the announced successor constellation, is not recorded and needs its own record once a filing or a firm figure can be traced.", "added": "2026-07", "verified": "2026-07-29", "contributor": "Juan A. Fraire (Inria)" }, { "name": "Globalstar C-3", "slug": "globalstar-c3", "family": "globalstar", "aka": [ "Globalstar-C3 MSS System", "Globalstar third generation", "AST-NG-C-3" ], "operator": "Globalstar France SAS", "parent": "Globalstar, Inc. (acquisition by Amazon.com, Inc. filed with the FCC 26 May 2026; pleading cycle open as of June 2026)", "country": "US", "jurisdiction": [ "FR" ], "system_class": "direct-to-device", "status": "filed", "status_detail": "Licensed by France and notified to the ITU. US market access is sought through a pending petition for declaratory ruling, not a US licence, so the system has no FCC authorisation. Nothing launched.", "status_asof": "2026-07", "services": [ "voice", "messaging", "direct-to-device", "iot" ], "orbit_regimes": [ "LEO", "MEO" ], "dual_use": "civil", "filing": { "authority": "other", "administration": "F", "file_number": "SAT-PDR-20250214-00047", "call_sign": "S3233", "document": "Petition for Declaratory Ruling Granting Access to the U.S. Market for the Globalstar-C3 MSS System; ITU network AST-NG-C-3", "src": "fcc-globalstar-amazon-2026", "note": "Two instruments, deliberately not conflated. The ITU network AST-NG-C-3 is notified by France and is recorded under itu: below. The file number here is the US market access petition, which is what makes the system visible in a searchable national docket. `authority` is \"other\" because the licensing administration is France and the registry's authority enum has no French satellite regulator entry; the French decision itself has not been retrieved." }, "counts": { "licensed": { "value": 48, "asof": "2026-06-04", "src": "fcc-globalstar-amazon-2026", "note": "The system as the FCC describes it: \"48 NGSO satellites, licensed by the Republic of France\". This is the operational plan, not the size of the ITU filing that backs it. See discrepancies." }, "filed": { "value": 6221, "asof": "2025-08-22", "src": "itu-ific-3069", "note": "Declared in the ITU notification. The orbit table of BR IFIC 3069 lists 401 orbital planes for notice 325500157, and their per-plane populations sum to 6,221. Recorded under filed rather than licensed because the declaration is what was filed with the ITU, not what any regulator has authorised anyone to operate." } }, "regulatory": [ { "authority": "other", "country": "FR", "kind": "license-grant", "action": "granted", "date": 2025, "satellites": 48, "scope": "French authorisation of the Globalstar-C3 MSS system of 48 NGSO satellites, held by Globalstar France SAS. The French decision itself has not been retrieved; this entry records its existence as stated by the FCC.", "src": "fcc-globalstar-amazon-2026" }, { "authority": "FCC", "country": "US", "kind": "application", "file_number": "SAT-PDR-20250214-00047", "call_sign": "S3233", "action": "pending", "date": "2025-02-14", "satellites": 48, "scope": "Petition for declaratory ruling seeking access to the US market for the Globalstar-C3 MSS system. Accepted for filing and placed on public notice (Report No. SAT-01923). Still pending as of June 2026.", "src": "fcc-globalstar-amazon-2026" }, { "authority": "FCC", "country": "US", "kind": "application", "file_number": "ITC-T/C-20260417-00114", "document": "DA 26-550, GN Docket No. 26-134", "action": "pending", "date": "2026-05-26", "scope": "Application by Globalstar and Amazon for consent to assign and transfer control of all Globalstar space station, earth station and section 214 authorisations to Amazon. Accepted for filing 4 June 2026; petitions to deny due 6 July 2026.", "src": "fcc-globalstar-amazon-2026" } ], "itu": [ { "administration": "F", "network_name": "AST-NG-C-3", "stage": "notification", "date": "2025-08-22", "satellites": 6221, "src": "itu-snl-ast-ng-c-3", "note": "Full filing chain in SNL Part B: API/A 9629 received 20 June 2016 (published WIC 2825, 2 August 2016); CR/C 4149 received the same day (WIC 2837, 24 January 2017), modified three times through September 2022; Resolution 49 due diligence 2422 in 2021; notification Part I-S, Part II-S and Part III-S from December 2021 onward. The most recent act is a Part I-S received 22 August 2025 and published in BR IFIC 3069 on 14 April 2026, notice ID 325500157, which is the one read for the satellite count." } ], "shells": [ { "label": "declared-401-planes", "status": "proposed", "geometry_kind": "irregular", "planes": 401, "satellites": 6221, "code_status": "not-representable", "code_note": "401 orbital planes at 680, 800, 1000, 1400 and 1414 km, at inclinations stepped every two degrees from 60 to 90 plus sun-synchronous cases at 98.1, 98.5, 99.4 and 101.4 degrees, mostly 16 satellites per plane with a few carrying 4 or 1. A single notice covering five altitudes and more than twenty inclinations is not one Walker constellation and cannot be reduced to a (T, P, F) triple. Note also that the 1400 and 1414 km groups are above the LEO band this registry is mostly concerned with.", "src": "itu-ific-3069" } ], "isl": "unknown", "sources": [ { "id": "fcc-globalstar-amazon-2026", "grade": "primary", "kind": "fcc-public-notice", "title": "FCC, Public Notice DA 26-550, \"Globalstar, Inc. and Amazon.com, Inc. Seek FCC Consent and Approval of the Proposed Assignment and Transfer of Control of Licenses and Authorizations Held by Globalstar to Amazon\" (GN Docket No. 26-134), notes 15-16", "url": "https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DA-26-550A1.pdf", "date": "2026-06-04", "retrieved": "2026-07-29" }, { "id": "itu-snl-ast-ng-c-3", "grade": "primary", "kind": "itu-filing", "title": "ITU Radiocommunication Bureau, Space Network List (SNL) Part B, filing history for satellite network AST-NG-C-3 (notifying administration F)", "url": "https://www.itu.int/net/ITU-R/space/snl/bresult/radvance.asp?sel_satname=AST-NG-C-3", "retrieved": "2026-07-29" }, { "id": "itu-ific-3069", "grade": "primary", "kind": "itu-publication", "title": "ITU BR IFIC (Space Services) No. 3069, non-GSO notice data for AST-NG-C-3, notice ID 325500157 (tables non_geo and orbit of the published database)", "url": "https://www.itu.int/sns/ific10/ific3069.zip", "date": "2026-04-14", "retrieved": "2026-07-29" }, { "id": "mcdowell-conlist", "grade": "secondary", "kind": "tracker", "title": "Jonathan McDowell, \"Jonathan's Space Report\" constellation list (enormous constellations, more than 1,000 satellites), planet4589.org", "url": "https://planet4589.org/space/con/conlist.html", "date": "2026-07-25", "retrieved": "2026-07-30" }, { "id": "york-ietf126", "grade": "secondary", "kind": "presentation", "title": "Dan York (Internet Society), \"Beyond Starlink: Understanding the Coming Waves of LEO Satellite Deployments\", IRTF SPACE RG, IETF 126, Vienna", "url": "https://datatracker.ietf.org/meeting/126/materials/slides-126-space-york-beyond-starlink-understanding-the-coming-waves-of-leo-satellite-deployments-00", "date": "2026-07-21", "retrieved": "2026-07-29" } ], "discrepancies": [ { "field": "counts", "claim": "1,946 satellites (C-3)", "claimed_by": "york-ietf126", "registry_value": "48 satellites as the FCC describes the system; 6,221 declared in the ITU notification that backs it", "note": "Three numbers for one system, all now documented. The FCC, in a public notice issued six weeks before the talk, calls this \"the Globalstar C-3 MSS system of 48 NGSO satellites, licensed by the Republic of France ... pursuant to its AST-NG-C-3 filing at the ITU\". Read the AST-NG-C-3 filing and it declares 6,221 satellites across 401 planes. So the same instrument supports a 48-satellite operational plan and a 6,221-satellite international declaration, a ratio of about 130 to 1. The slide's 1,946 matches neither and its origin is still unknown. This record is the registry's cleanest measurement of a general effect: ITU declarations are envelopes staked out for coordination priority, and reading them as deployment intentions overstates by orders of magnitude. Any aggregate that sums ITU-declared figures alongside nationally licensed ones is adding numbers that do not mean the same thing." } ], "notes": "Globalstar's operational second-generation service is a separate system and has its own record, globalstar-hibleo. The deck's \"97 launched\" and \"~85 planned\" belong there, not here. This record is also the registry's worked example of the flag-of-convenience pattern: a US operator's constellation licensed by a European administration and reaching the US market through a declaratory ruling rather than a licence. It is why `country` and `jurisdiction` are separate fields. Provenance gap: the French authorisation has not been retrieved, so the 48-satellite figure rests on the FCC's description of it rather than on the French decision itself.", "added": "2026-07", "verified": "2026-07-29", "contributor": "Juan A. Fraire (Inria)" }, { "name": "Globalstar second generation", "slug": "globalstar-hibleo", "family": "globalstar", "aka": [ "HIBLEO-4", "HIBLEO-X", "Globalstar 2nd generation" ], "operator": "Globalstar Licensee LLC; GUSA Licensee LLC", "parent": "Globalstar, Inc. (acquisition by Amazon.com, Inc. filed 26 May 2026; pleading cycle open)", "country": "US", "jurisdiction": [ "US", "FR" ], "system_class": "direct-to-device", "status": "operational", "status_detail": "In commercial service, and the backbone of Apple's Emergency SOS. Operates as one system across a US-licensed component (HIBLEO-4) and a France-licensed component (HIBLEO-X) reached through a US market access grant.", "status_asof": "2026-07", "services": [ "voice", "messaging", "iot", "direct-to-device" ], "orbit_regimes": [ "LEO" ], "dual_use": "civil", "filing": { "authority": "FCC", "administration": "USA", "document": "Globalstar Licensee LLC space station licence for HIBLEO-4, plus a US market access grant for the France-licensed HIBLEO-X satellites (file numbers not retrieved)", "src": "fcc-globalstar-amazon-2026", "note": "Two authorisations under two administrations operating as one system, as the FCC itself describes it. Neither file number has been retrieved; both are listed in Exhibit A to the Amazon transfer application, which would be the fastest way to get them." }, "counts": { "launched": { "value": 97, "asof": "2026-07", "src": "york-ietf126" }, "announced": { "value": 85, "asof": "2026-07", "src": "york-ietf126", "note": "The deck's \"~85 planned\". Recorded as announced because no authorised figure has been retrieved for either the HIBLEO-4 or HIBLEO-X licence." } }, "regulatory": [ { "authority": "FCC", "country": "US", "kind": "license-grant", "action": "granted", "scope": "Space station licence for the HIBLEO-4 satellites, plus fixed feeder link earth station licences at six US gateway sites and a domestic section 214 authorisation. Globalstar Inc. separately holds an experimental licence (File No. 0334-EX-CN-2026, granted 13 April 2026).", "src": "fcc-globalstar-amazon-2026" }, { "authority": "FCC", "country": "US", "kind": "license-grant", "action": "granted", "scope": "US market access grant allowing Globalstar's fixed and mobile earth stations in the US and its territories to communicate with the HIBLEO-X satellites, which are licensed by France. Not part of the Amazon transfer application because prior consent is not required for such assignments.", "src": "fcc-globalstar-amazon-2026" }, { "authority": "FCC", "country": "US", "kind": "application", "file_number": "ITC-T/C-20260417-00114", "document": "DA 26-550, GN Docket No. 26-134", "action": "pending", "date": "2026-05-26", "scope": "Application for consent to assign and transfer control of all Globalstar licences and authorisations to Amazon. Petitions to deny were due 6 July 2026.", "src": "fcc-globalstar-amazon-2026" } ], "shells": [ { "label": "hibleo", "status": "deployed", "geometry_kind": "unknown", "code_status": "unknown", "code_note": "Orbital parameters not retrieved. Globalstar's original architecture is well documented in the literature but no primary source has been consulted for this record, and the second-generation configuration differs from the first.", "src": "fcc-globalstar-amazon-2026" } ], "isl": "none", "isl_detail": "Bent-pipe architecture with no inter-satellite links, which is why the system needs a dense gateway network and is a useful contrast case against Iridium in the same service class.", "sources": [ { "id": "fcc-globalstar-amazon-2026", "grade": "primary", "kind": "fcc-public-notice", "title": "FCC, Public Notice DA 26-550 (Globalstar/Amazon transfer of control, GN Docket No. 26-134), description of Globalstar's authorisations", "url": "https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DA-26-550A1.pdf", "date": "2026-06-04", "retrieved": "2026-07-29" }, { "id": "york-ietf126", "grade": "secondary", "kind": "presentation", "title": "Dan York (Internet Society), \"Beyond Starlink: Understanding the Coming Waves of LEO Satellite Deployments\", IRTF SPACE RG, IETF 126, Vienna", "url": "https://datatracker.ietf.org/meeting/126/materials/slides-126-space-york-beyond-starlink-understanding-the-coming-waves-of-leo-satellite-deployments-00", "date": "2026-07-21", "retrieved": "2026-07-29" } ], "notes": "Split from globalstar-c3 so that the operational system and the planned next-generation system are not conflated: they have different satellite counts, different licensing administrations and different regulatory states. The deck's \"~85 planned / 97 launched\" belongs here and its \"1,946 (C-3) / 0\" belongs on globalstar-c3. Provenance gap: no file numbers for either the HIBLEO-4 licence or the HIBLEO-X market access grant, and no orbital parameters. Exhibit A to the Amazon transfer application lists every Globalstar authorisation and would close most of this in one read. If the Amazon transaction completes, this system and Amazon Leo come under one owner, alongside Amazon's stated intention to file for a global direct-to-device system. Worth tracking as a concentration question rather than only a technical one.", "added": "2026-07", "verified": "2026-07-29", "contributor": "Juan A. Fraire (Inria)" }, { "name": "Guowang GW-2", "slug": "guowang-gw-2", "family": "guowang", "aka": [ "GW-2", "Guowang high shell", "Xingwang", "SatNet" ], "operator": "China Satellite Network Group Co., Ltd. (China SatNet)", "parent": "State-owned, established April 2021", "country": "CN", "jurisdiction": [ "CN" ], "system_class": "broadband", "status": "deploying", "status_detail": "The higher of Guowang's two ITU networks, and the one being deployed. A notification (Part I-S) received 7 November 2025 declares 1,728 satellites, roughly a quarter of the figure in the earlier coordination request.", "status_asof": "2026-07", "services": [ "broadband", "government-secure" ], "orbit_regimes": [ "LEO" ], "dual_use": "unknown", "filing": { "authority": "other", "administration": "CHN", "file_number": "Part I-S (notice ID 125500219); CR/C 5486; API/A 12664", "document": "BR IFIC 3064", "src": "itu-snl-gw-2" }, "counts": { "launched": { "value": 216, "asof": "2026-07", "src": "york-ietf126", "note": "Family-level figure across both Guowang networks. Launch reporting does not split them." }, "licensed": { "value": 1728, "asof": "2025-11-07", "src": "itu-ific-3064", "note": "Notified to the ITU for recording in the Master International Frequency Register. The orbit table of BR IFIC 3064 lists 48 planes of 36 satellites at 1,145 km, 50 degrees, for notice 125500219. Recorded as licensed because notification is the stage at which an administration declares assignments actually to be brought into use, which is the closest ITU analogue to a national authorisation." }, "filed": { "value": 6912, "asof": "2023-05-16", "src": "spacenews-guowang-2026", "note": "The figure in the coordination request, as reported. CR/C 5486 M2 was published in BR IFIC 2996, which is outside the downloadable window, so this one number could not be confirmed against the ITU publication and remains secondary." } }, "itu": [ { "administration": "CHN", "network_name": "GW-2", "stage": "notification", "date": "2025-11-07", "satellites": 1728, "src": "itu-snl-gw-2", "note": "API/A 12664 and CR/C 5486 received 11 September 2020, the coordination request modified twice through May 2023. Notification Part I-S received 7 November 2025 and published in BR IFIC 3064 on 3 February 2026, notice ID 125500219. A separate Part I-S and Part III-S in 2025 cover the Jiamusi 4.5 m Q-band earth station." } ], "shells": [ { "label": "gw-2-1145", "status": "deploying", "geometry_kind": "walker", "altitude_km": 1145, "inclination_deg": 50.0, "planes": 48, "sats_per_plane": 36, "satellites": 1728, "code_status": "unknown", "code_note": "Phasing factor not in the ITU declaration. Altitude, inclination, plane count and per-plane population are all from BR IFIC 3064, so this is the best-documented Chinese shell in the registry.", "src": "itu-ific-3064" } ], "isl": "unknown", "first_launch": "2024-12", "launch": { "providers": [ "China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC)" ], "vehicles": [ "Long March 5B", "Long March 8A", "Long March 12", "Long March 6A" ], "cadence": "Roughly 216 satellites in about 18 months across both networks, against a notified 1,728 for this one and a coordination request several times larger. Reporting notes an intent to accelerate.", "src": "york-ietf126" }, "sources": [ { "id": "itu-snl-gw-2", "grade": "primary", "kind": "itu-filing", "title": "ITU Radiocommunication Bureau, Space Network List (SNL) Part B, filing history for satellite network GW-2 (notifying administration CHN)", "url": "https://www.itu.int/net/ITU-R/space/snl/bresult/radvance.asp?sel_satname=GW-2", "retrieved": "2026-07-29" }, { "id": "itu-ific-3064", "grade": "primary", "kind": "itu-publication", "title": "ITU BR IFIC (Space Services) No. 3064, non-GSO notice data for GW-2, notice ID 125500219 (tables non_geo and orbit of the published database)", "url": "https://www.itu.int/sns/ific10/ific3064.zip", "date": "2026-02-03", "retrieved": "2026-07-29" }, { "id": "spacenews-guowang-2026", "grade": "secondary", "kind": "trade-press", "title": "SpaceNews, \"China adds new satellites to Guowang constellation, eyes accelerated launch rate\"", "url": "https://spacenews.com/china-adds-new-satellites-to-guowang-constellation-eyes-accelerated-launch-rate/", "date": 2026, "retrieved": "2026-07-29" }, { "id": "york-ietf126", "grade": "secondary", "kind": "presentation", "title": "Dan York (Internet Society), \"Beyond Starlink: Understanding the Coming Waves of LEO Satellite Deployments\", IRTF SPACE RG, IETF 126, Vienna", "url": "https://datatracker.ietf.org/meeting/126/materials/slides-126-space-york-beyond-starlink-understanding-the-coming-waves-of-leo-satellite-deployments-00", "date": "2026-07-21", "retrieved": "2026-07-29" } ], "discrepancies": [ { "field": "counts", "claim": "13,952 satellites planned (Guowang)", "claimed_by": "york-ietf126", "registry_value": "GW-2: 1,728 notified, 6,912 in the coordination request. GW-A59: 6,080.", "note": "The interesting number here is not the disagreement with the deck but the gap inside the ITU process itself. GW-2's coordination request covers a reported 6,912 satellites; its notification, filed five years later, declares 1,728. The same administration, the same network, a quarter of the satellites. Coordination requests stake out spectrum; notifications record what is actually to be operated. Treating the two as the same quantity, which every aggregate figure in circulation does, overstates by a factor of four on this network alone." } ], "notes": "Provenance upgraded 2026-07-29 from trade press to the ITU filing and publication. See scripts/itu_query.sh. Provenance gap: the CR/C figure of 6,912 could not be confirmed. Its publication, BR IFIC 2996 of May 2023, is outside the roughly eighteen-month window in which BR IFICs are downloadable without a subscription. Closing it needs the BR IFIC DVD-ROM or a TIES account.", "added": "2026-07", "verified": "2026-07-29", "contributor": "Juan A. Fraire (Inria)" }, { "name": "Guowang GW-A59", "slug": "guowang-gw-a59", "family": "guowang", "aka": [ "GW-A59", "Guowang low shell", "国网" ], "operator": "China Satellite Network Group Co., Ltd. (China SatNet)", "parent": "State-owned, established April 2021", "country": "CN", "jurisdiction": [ "CN" ], "system_class": "broadband", "status": "filed", "status_detail": "The lower of Guowang's two ITU networks. Coordination request on file and modified three times, most recently published in BR IFIC 3055 in September 2025. No notification (Part I-S) has been filed for this network, so nothing under it has been brought into use in the ITU sense.", "status_asof": "2026-07", "services": [ "broadband", "government-secure" ], "orbit_regimes": [ "VLEO", "LEO" ], "dual_use": "unknown", "filing": { "authority": "other", "administration": "CHN", "file_number": "CR/C 5448 (notice ID 120520170); API/A 12666", "document": "BR IFIC 3055", "src": "itu-snl-gw-a59" }, "counts": { "filed": { "value": 6080, "asof": "2024-07-17", "src": "itu-ific-3055", "note": "Declared in the third modification of the coordination request. The orbit table of BR IFIC 3055 lists 116 planes for notice 120520170 and their per-plane populations sum to 6,080, matching the figure that circulates in reporting." } }, "itu": [ { "administration": "CHN", "network_name": "GW-A59", "stage": "CR/C", "date": "2020-09-11", "satellites": 6080, "src": "itu-snl-gw-a59", "note": "API/A 12666 and CR/C 5448 both received 11 September 2020. The API was modified three times (latest received 21 April 2025, published BR IFIC 3052) and the coordination request three times (latest received 17 July 2024, published BR IFIC 3055 on 16 September 2025). CR/D 5336 followed in BR IFIC 3066, March 2026. No Part I-S notification." } ], "shells": [ { "label": "gw-a59-508", "status": "proposed", "geometry_kind": "walker", "altitude_km": 508, "inclination_deg": 55.0, "planes": 60, "sats_per_plane": 60, "satellites": 3600, "code_status": "unknown", "code_note": "Phasing factor not in the ITU declaration, which carries right ascension and argument of perigee per plane but no Walker phasing parameter.", "src": "itu-ific-3055" }, { "label": "gw-a59-600", "status": "proposed", "geometry_kind": "walker", "altitude_km": 600, "inclination_deg": 50.0, "planes": 40, "sats_per_plane": 50, "satellites": 2000, "code_status": "unknown", "src": "itu-ific-3055" }, { "label": "gw-a59-590", "status": "proposed", "geometry_kind": "walker", "altitude_km": 590, "inclination_deg": 85.0, "planes": 16, "sats_per_plane": 30, "satellites": 480, "code_status": "unknown", "src": "itu-ific-3055" } ], "isl": "unknown", "sources": [ { "id": "itu-snl-gw-a59", "grade": "primary", "kind": "itu-filing", "title": "ITU Radiocommunication Bureau, Space Network List (SNL) Part B, filing history for satellite network GW-A59 (notifying administration CHN)", "url": "https://www.itu.int/net/ITU-R/space/snl/bresult/radvance.asp?sel_satname=GW-A59", "retrieved": "2026-07-29" }, { "id": "itu-ific-3055", "grade": "primary", "kind": "itu-publication", "title": "ITU BR IFIC (Space Services) No. 3055, non-GSO notice data for GW-A59, notice ID 120520170 (tables non_geo and orbit of the published database)", "url": "https://www.itu.int/sns/ific10/ific3055.zip", "date": "2025-09-16", "retrieved": "2026-07-29" }, { "id": "spacenews-guowang-2026", "grade": "secondary", "kind": "trade-press", "title": "SpaceNews, \"China adds new satellites to Guowang constellation, eyes accelerated launch rate\"", "url": "https://spacenews.com/china-adds-new-satellites-to-guowang-constellation-eyes-accelerated-launch-rate/", "date": 2026, "retrieved": "2026-07-29" }, { "id": "york-ietf126", "grade": "secondary", "kind": "presentation", "title": "Dan York (Internet Society), \"Beyond Starlink: Understanding the Coming Waves of LEO Satellite Deployments\", IRTF SPACE RG, IETF 126, Vienna", "url": "https://datatracker.ietf.org/meeting/126/materials/slides-126-space-york-beyond-starlink-understanding-the-coming-waves-of-leo-satellite-deployments-00", "date": "2026-07-21", "retrieved": "2026-07-29" } ], "discrepancies": [ { "field": "counts.filed", "claim": "13,952 satellites planned (Guowang, both sub-constellations)", "claimed_by": "york-ietf126", "registry_value": "6,080 declared for GW-A59; see guowang-gw-2 for the other", "note": "Guowang is two separate ITU networks, GW-A59 and GW-2, and this registry gives them a record each because they are separately filed and are at different stages. The 6,080 figure for GW-A59 is confirmed from the ITU publication. The commonly quoted 12,992 total and the deck's 13,952 differ by 960; neither can be reconciled until GW-2's coordination request is read, and that publication is outside the downloadable BR IFIC window." } ], "notes": "Provenance upgraded 2026-07-29 from trade press to the ITU filing and publication. See scripts/itu_query.sh. Launch reporting does not split Guowang launches between the two networks, so counts.launched is recorded on guowang-gw-2 as a family-level figure rather than duplicated here.", "added": "2026-07", "verified": "2026-07-29", "contributor": "Juan A. Fraire (Inria)" }, { "name": "Honghu-3", "slug": "honghu-3", "family": "honghu", "aka": [ "Honghu", "鸿鹄-3" ], "operator": "Shanghai Lanjian Hongqing Technology Company (Hongqing Technology)", "parent": "LandSpace holds 48 per cent", "country": "CN", "jurisdiction": [ "CN" ], "system_class": "broadband", "status": "filed", "status_detail": "Advance publication information received by the ITU on 8 September 2023 and published 31 October 2023, with comments (API/B) published April 2024. No coordination request has been filed. Nothing launched. The third Chinese constellation of more than 10,000 satellites to be filed, after Guowang and Qianfan.", "status_asof": "2026-07", "services": [ "broadband" ], "orbit_regimes": [ "LEO" ], "dual_use": "unknown", "filing": { "authority": "other", "administration": "CHN", "file_number": "API/A 13448 (notice ID 123545296)", "document": "BR IFIC 3008", "src": "itu-snl-honghu" }, "counts": { "filed": { "value": 10000, "asof": "2023-09-08", "src": "spacenews-honghu-2024", "note": "The count remains secondary. The ITU filing identity is confirmed, but the publication that carries the declared satellite count, BR IFIC 3008 of October 2023, is outside the downloadable window. See notes." } }, "itu": [ { "administration": "CHN", "network_name": "HONGHU", "stage": "API", "date": "2023-09-08", "src": "itu-snl-honghu", "note": "API/A 13448, notice ID 123545296, received 8 September 2023 and published in BR IFIC 3008 on 31 October 2023. Comments (API/B 2544) published in BR IFIC 3019 on 16 April 2024. No coordination request on file, so this network is at the first of the three ITU stages. The network name is HONGHU, not Honghu-3." } ], "shells": [ { "label": "honghu-160-planes", "status": "proposed", "geometry_kind": "unknown", "planes": 160, "code_status": "unknown", "code_note": "10,000 satellites across 160 orbital planes, which would be 62.5 per plane and therefore not evenly divisible. No altitude or inclination traced, so no code can be built and the divisibility problem cannot be resolved.", "src": "spacenews-honghu-2024" } ], "isl": "unknown", "launch": { "providers": [ "LandSpace" ], "cadence": "Vertically integrated in the SpaceX pattern: the launch provider owns 48 per cent of the constellation operator.", "src": "york-ietf126" }, "sources": [ { "id": "itu-snl-honghu", "grade": "primary", "kind": "itu-filing", "title": "ITU Radiocommunication Bureau, Space Network List (SNL) Part B, filing history for satellite network HONGHU (notifying administration CHN)", "url": "https://www.itu.int/net/ITU-R/space/snl/bresult/radvance.asp?sel_satname=HONGHU", "retrieved": "2026-07-29" }, { "id": "spacenews-honghu-2024", "grade": "secondary", "kind": "trade-press", "title": "SpaceNews, \"Chinese firm files plans for 10,000-satellite constellation\" (Hongqing Technology, ITU notification 24 May 2024, 10,000 satellites in 160 planes)", "url": "https://spacenews.com/chinese-firm-files-plans-for-10000-satellite-constellation/", "date": "2024-05", "retrieved": "2026-07-29" }, { "id": "york-ietf126", "grade": "secondary", "kind": "presentation", "title": "Dan York (Internet Society), \"Beyond Starlink: Understanding the Coming Waves of LEO Satellite Deployments\", IRTF SPACE RG, IETF 126, Vienna", "url": "https://datatracker.ietf.org/meeting/126/materials/slides-126-space-york-beyond-starlink-understanding-the-coming-waves-of-leo-satellite-deployments-00", "date": "2026-07-21", "retrieved": "2026-07-29" }, { "id": "spacerg-minutes-126", "grade": "secondary", "kind": "presentation", "title": "IRTF SPACE RG, minutes of the IETF 126 session, section 2 (\"Hanwha (~10,000)\" in the list of filed or announced constellations)", "url": "https://datatracker.ietf.org/meeting/126/session/space", "date": "2026-07-21", "retrieved": "2026-07-29" } ], "discrepancies": [ { "field": "itu.date", "claim": "filed a notification with the ITU on May 24 [2024]", "claimed_by": "spacenews-honghu-2024", "registry_value": "API/A received 8 September 2023, published 31 October 2023", "note": "The ITU record does not support the May 2024 filing date that has followed this system through every subsequent write-up. What happened in April 2024 was the publication of API/B, the comments stage. The filing itself is eight months older. The characterisation as a \"notification\" is also wrong: no notification exists, only advance publication information, which is the weakest stage." }, { "field": "name", "claim": "Hanwha (~10,000)", "claimed_by": "spacerg-minutes-126", "registry_value": "Honghu-3 (China, 10,000), operator Hongqing Technology", "note": "Not a discrepancy in the deck, which has the name right, but in the SPACE RG session minutes. The raw notes record \"Hanwha 3 (China, 10,000)\" and the compiled minutes carry it forward as \"Hanwha (~10,000)\", dropping the country. Hanwha is a South Korean group with no constellation of this size; the system meant is Honghu-3. The minutes should be corrected. Recorded here because a registry of this kind is exactly where such an error should surface, and because it illustrates how a name mangled once in a transcript propagates into every downstream summary." } ], "notes": "Provenance partially upgraded 2026-07-29: the ITU filing identity, stage and dates now come from the Space Network List. The declared satellite count does not, because it lives in BR IFIC 3008 (October 2023), which is outside the roughly eighteen-month window in which BR IFICs can be downloaded without a subscription. Closing that needs the BR IFIC DVD-ROM or a TIES account. This is the clearest instance in the registry of the retention window blocking an otherwise easy provenance upgrade.", "added": "2026-07", "verified": "2026-07-29", "contributor": "Juan A. Fraire (Inria)" }, { "name": "Iridium NEXT", "slug": "iridium-next", "family": "iridium", "aka": [ "Iridium Certus", "Iridium second generation" ], "operator": "Iridium Constellation LLC", "parent": "Iridium Communications Inc. (acquisition by Rocket Lab Corporation announced 29 June 2026, ~USD 8.0bn, subject to FCC licence transfer consent; expected to close mid-2027)", "country": "US", "jurisdiction": [ "US" ], "system_class": "direct-to-device", "status": "operational", "status_detail": "Replacement constellation complete since 2019 and in commercial service. One of the two original 1990s LEO operators still flying.", "status_asof": "2026-07", "services": [ "voice", "messaging", "iot", "direct-to-device" ], "orbit_regimes": [ "LEO" ], "dual_use": "dual", "filing": { "authority": "FCC", "administration": "USA", "file_number": "SAT-MOD-20131227-00148", "call_sign": "S2110", "src": "fcc-iridium-next-eng" }, "counts": { "licensed": { "value": 81, "asof": "2013-12-27", "src": "fcc-iridium-next-eng", "breakdown": [ { "label": "Replacement satellites", "value": 66, "src": "fcc-iridium-next-eng" }, { "label": "In-orbit spares (one per plane)", "value": 6, "src": "fcc-iridium-next-eng" }, { "label": "Ground spares", "value": 9, "src": "fcc-iridium-next-eng" } ], "note": "The modification requests authority for up to 66 second-generation replacement satellites, with six in-orbit spares deployed alongside them and nine held as ground spares. Whether the FCC counts the ground spares against the authorisation has not been checked, so 81 is the upper reading and 75 the number actually flown." }, "launched": { "value": 75, "asof": 2019, "src": "york-ietf126", "note": "Iridium NEXT satellites launched. The deck's 177 is the cumulative figure across both generations since 1997 and belongs to a first-generation record that does not yet exist." }, "filed": { "value": 81, "asof": "2013-12-27", "src": "fcc-iridium-next-eng" } }, "regulatory": [ { "authority": "FCC", "country": "US", "kind": "modification", "file_number": "SAT-MOD-20131227-00148", "call_sign": "S2110", "action": "granted", "date": 2013, "satellites": 81, "scope": "Modification of the Big LEO MSS licence to launch and operate up to 66 second-generation replacement satellites to replenish, augment and enhance the first-generation system, plus six in-orbit and nine ground spares.", "src": "fcc-iridium-next-eng" } ], "shells": [ { "label": "iridium-walker-star", "status": "deployed", "geometry_kind": "walker", "altitude_km": 780, "inclination_deg": 86.4, "planes": 6, "sats_per_plane": 11, "satellites": 66, "walker": "S", "phasing": 1, "code": "S:780:86.4:66/6/1", "code_status": "assumed-phasing", "code_assumptions": [ { "element": "phasing", "value": 1, "basis": "Not taken from the FCC engineering statement, which has not been read in full. This is the value in the example table of draft-piraux-space-constellation-code.", "src": "piraux-code-draft" }, { "element": "altitude_km", "value": 780, "basis": "From the constellation-code draft's example table, not from the filing. The operational altitude is well established in the literature but is recorded here as an assumption because the primary source consulted for this record does not state it.", "src": "piraux-code-draft" }, { "element": "inclination_deg", "value": 86.4, "basis": "As above, from the constellation-code draft's example table.", "src": "piraux-code-draft" } ], "code_src": "piraux-code-draft", "src": "piraux-code-draft" } ], "spectrum": [ "L", "Ka" ], "spectrum_detail": "L-band service links; Ka-band feeder links and crosslinks. Exact ranges not recorded; the engineering statement would give them.", "isl": "rf", "isl_detail": "Ka-band inter-satellite links, four per satellite, in the classic fore/aft/port/starboard arrangement of a Walker Star. Historically the only operational crosslinked commercial LEO constellation, and the reference design for much of the LEO routing literature.", "service_start": 1998, "launch": { "providers": [ "SpaceX" ], "vehicles": [ "Falcon 9" ], "src": "york-ietf126" }, "sources": [ { "id": "fcc-iridium-next-eng", "grade": "primary", "kind": "fcc-application", "title": "Iridium NEXT Engineering Statement, attachment to ICFS SAT-MOD-20131227-00148 (Iridium Constellation LLC, Call Sign S2110)", "url": "https://fcc.report/IBFS/SAT-MOD-20131227-00148/1031348.pdf", "date": "2013-12-27", "retrieved": "2026-07-29" }, { "id": "piraux-code-draft", "grade": "secondary", "kind": "academic", "title": "draft-piraux-space-constellation-code-02, example table (Iridium as S:780:86.4:66/6/1)", "url": "https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-piraux-space-constellation-code/", "date": "2026-07", "retrieved": "2026-07-29" }, { "id": "york-ietf126", "grade": "secondary", "kind": "presentation", "title": "Dan York (Internet Society), \"Beyond Starlink: Understanding the Coming Waves of LEO Satellite Deployments\", IRTF SPACE RG, IETF 126, Vienna", "url": "https://datatracker.ietf.org/meeting/126/materials/slides-126-space-york-beyond-starlink-understanding-the-coming-waves-of-leo-satellite-deployments-00", "date": "2026-07-21", "retrieved": "2026-07-29" } ], "discrepancies": [ { "field": "counts.launched", "claim": "75 planned / 177 launched", "claimed_by": "york-ietf126", "registry_value": "81 authorised / 75 Iridium NEXT satellites launched", "note": "The deck's two numbers belong to different systems: 75 is the NEXT constellation, 177 is the cumulative total since 1997 across both generations, most of which have re-entered. The slide is explicit about this in its footnote, which is more than most sources manage. The registry handles it structurally by scoping the record to one authorisation." } ], "notes": "Provenance gap: the shell geometry on this record is sourced entirely to the constellation-code draft, not to the filing. The Iridium NEXT engineering statement is public and would give the authorised altitude, inclination and plane structure directly; reading it would move three code_assumptions from assumed to exact. This is the clearest single provenance upgrade available in the registry right now. Project Stardust, Iridium's announced direct-to-device layer, has no authorisation identified and no satellite count and is therefore not recorded. The deck notes it as \"plus unknown number\".", "added": "2026-07", "verified": "2026-07-29", "contributor": "Juan A. Fraire (Inria)" }, { "name": "IRIS2", "slug": "iris2", "family": "iris2", "aka": [ "IRIS²", "Infrastructure for Resilience, Interconnectivity and Security by Satellite", "EU Secure Connectivity Programme" ], "operator": "SpaceRISE consortium (SES, Eutelsat, Hispasat)", "parent": "European Commission (concession holder)", "country": "EU", "jurisdiction": [ "EU" ], "system_class": "government-military", "status": "licensed", "status_detail": "A 12-year concession contract was signed with the European Commission on 16 December 2024, implemented with ESA support. Critical design review planned for early 2028 and launches for 2029-2030. Nothing launched.", "status_asof": "2026-07", "services": [ "government-secure", "broadband" ], "orbit_regimes": [ "LEO", "MEO" ], "dual_use": "dual", "filing": { "authority": "EUSPA", "document": "SpaceRISE 12-year concession contract with the European Commission, signed 16 December 2024", "src": "ses-iris2-concession", "note": "IRIS2 is procured rather than licensed: the anchoring instrument is a concession contract with the European Commission, not a spectrum authorisation. The ITU filings that will carry its spectrum are made by member state administrations and have not been identified. This is a genuinely different regulatory shape from every other record here and the `filing:` block is stretched to accommodate it." }, "counts": { "announced": { "value": 290, "asof": "2024-12-16", "src": "ses-iris2-concession", "breakdown": [ { "label": "LEO", "value": 272, "src": "ses-iris2-concession" }, { "label": "MEO", "value": 18, "src": "ses-iris2-concession" } ], "note": "Recorded as announced rather than licensed because the concession contract is a procurement instrument and no spectrum authorisation for a specific satellite count has been traced." } }, "regulatory": [ { "authority": "EUSPA", "country": "EU", "kind": "license-grant", "action": "granted", "date": "2024-12-16", "satellites": 290, "scope": "Twelve-year concession contract between the European Commission and the SpaceRISE consortium (SES, Eutelsat, Hispasat) for the EU Secure Connectivity Programme, implemented with the support of ESA. The consortium contributes EUR 4.1bn. SES designs, delivers and operates the 18 MEO satellites.", "src": "ses-iris2-concession" } ], "shells": [ { "label": "leo-high", "status": "proposed", "geometry_kind": "unknown", "altitude_km": 1200, "code_status": "unknown", "code_note": "Reported as about 1,200 km carrying 264 satellites with Ku- and Ka-band service. No inclination or plane structure traced.", "src": "ses-iris2-concession" }, { "label": "leo-low", "status": "proposed", "geometry_kind": "unknown", "code_status": "unknown", "code_note": "Ten or more satellites between 400 and 750 km, intended for incubation of future technologies rather than service. An altitude range, and a count given as a lower bound.", "src": "ses-iris2-concession" }, { "label": "meo", "status": "proposed", "geometry_kind": "unknown", "satellites": 18, "code_status": "unknown", "code_note": "18 MEO satellites delivered and operated by SES. Altitude not traced; likely related to SES's existing O3b mPOWER architecture, but that is an inference and is not recorded as fact.", "src": "ses-iris2-concession" } ], "isl": "optical-planned", "target_completion": 2030, "target_completion_kind": "operator-target", "sources": [ { "id": "ses-iris2-concession", "grade": "secondary", "kind": "operator-web", "title": "SES, \"SES-led SpaceRISE Signs Concession Contract With EC to Deliver IRIS2\"", "url": "https://www.ses.com/newsroom/ses-led-spacerise-signs-concession-contract-ec-deliver-iris2", "date": "2024-12-16", "retrieved": "2026-07-29" }, { "id": "york-ietf126", "grade": "secondary", "kind": "presentation", "title": "Dan York (Internet Society), \"Beyond Starlink: Understanding the Coming Waves of LEO Satellite Deployments\", IRTF SPACE RG, IETF 126, Vienna", "url": "https://datatracker.ietf.org/meeting/126/materials/slides-126-space-york-beyond-starlink-understanding-the-coming-waves-of-leo-satellite-deployments-00", "date": "2026-07-21", "retrieved": "2026-07-29" } ], "discrepancies": [ { "field": "counts.announced", "claim": "282 satellites (264 LEO + 18 MEO)", "claimed_by": "york-ietf126", "registry_value": "290 (272 LEO + 18 MEO)", "note": "Both figures are in circulation and both are internally consistent. The difference is the \"LEO Low\" technology-incubation shell of ten or more satellites: 264 counts only the LEO High service shell, 272 includes the incubation satellites. Neither is wrong; they are counting different things. A small, tractable example of why a satellite count is meaningless without a stated scope." } ], "notes": "Provenance gap: no primary source. The concession contract itself, the Commission's programme documentation and the member state ITU filings that will carry the spectrum have none of them been consulted. IRIS2 is the registry's worked example of a system that does not fit the filing-centred model: it is a publicly procured programme whose defining instrument is a concession contract, whose spectrum will come through member state administrations, and whose satellite count is a design target rather than an authorised ceiling. Worth discussing whether the schema should carry a distinct instrument type for procured systems.", "added": "2026-07", "verified": "2026-07-29", "contributor": "Juan A. Fraire (Inria)" }, { "name": "Logos Space", "slug": "logos-space", "family": "logos-space", "aka": [ "Logos Space Services, Inc." ], "operator": "Logos Space Services, Inc.", "parent": "Logos Space Services, Inc.", "country": "US", "jurisdiction": [ "US" ], "system_class": "broadband", "status": "licensed", "status_detail": "Granted by the FCC on 30 January 2026 for 4,178 satellites in S-, Ka-, V- and E-band, together with a waiver of the processing round rules for a list of higher bands, conditioned on participating in a future processing round. Nothing launched.", "status_asof": "2026-07", "services": [ "broadband", "government-secure", "relay" ], "orbit_regimes": [ "LEO" ], "dual_use": "dual", "filing": { "authority": "FCC", "administration": "USA", "file_number": "SAT-LOA-20241030-00243 and SAT-AMD-20250328-00084", "document": "Grant Stamp (SB Jan. 30, 2026), cited in DA 26-552", "src": "fcc-processing-rounds-2026" }, "counts": { "licensed": { "value": 4178, "asof": "2026-01-30", "src": "fcc-processing-rounds-2026", "note": "Resolved. The Space Bureau states that on 30 January 2026 it \"granted Logos Space Services, Inc. (Logos) authority to launch and operate a constellation of 4,178 satellites in certain S-, Ka-, V-, and E-band frequencies\". The competing 3,960 figure in trade press is wrong." }, "filed": { "value": 4178, "asof": "2024-10-30", "src": "fcc-processing-rounds-2026" } }, "regulatory": [ { "authority": "FCC", "country": "US", "kind": "application", "file_number": "SAT-LOA-20241030-00243", "action": "pending", "date": "2024-10-30", "satellites": 4178, "scope": "Application to construct, deploy and operate up to 4,178 NGSO satellites in low Earth orbit across multiple orbital shells, providing fixed satellite, inter-satellite and standard frequency and time signal-satellite (SFTS) service to enterprise and government customers, plus in-space data relay to satellite networks in lower orbits.", "src": "spacenews-logos-2026" }, { "authority": "FCC", "country": "US", "kind": "license-grant", "file_number": "SAT-LOA-20241030-00243 and SAT-AMD-20250328-00084", "action": "granted", "date": "2026-01-30", "satellites": 4178, "scope": "Authority to launch and operate 4,178 satellites in certain S-, Ka-, V- and E-band frequencies, plus a waiver of the processing round rules for the 21.2-23.55, 25.5-27.0, 37.5-40.0, 40.0-42.0, 42.0-42.5, 47.0-47.2, 47.2-50.2 and 50.4-51.4 GHz bands. The waiver is conditioned on Logos participating in a future processing round for those bands, and the Bureau included Logos in the third processing round it opened in June 2026.", "milestones": [ { "fraction": 1.0, "count": 4178, "due": 2035, "status": "pending" } ], "src": "fcc-processing-rounds-2026" } ], "shells": [ { "label": "multi-shell", "status": "authorised", "geometry_kind": "unknown", "code_status": "unknown", "code_note": "Reported as spanning multiple orbital shells; no altitudes, inclinations, plane counts or per-plane populations have been traced. The order itself would give them.", "src": "spacenews-logos-2026" } ], "spectrum": [ "S", "Ka", "V", "E" ], "spectrum_detail": "S-, Ka-, V- and E-band per the grant. A processing-round waiver additionally covers 21.2-23.55, 25.5-27.0, 37.5-40.0, 40.0-42.0, 42.0-42.5, 47.0-47.2, 47.2-50.2 and 50.4-51.4 GHz, conditioned on participation in a future processing round.", "isl": "rf-planned", "isl_detail": "Inter-satellite service is part of what was applied for, alongside in-space data relay to satellites in lower orbits, which makes this system a potential backhaul provider for orbital data centres rather than only a broadband operator.", "target_completion": 2035, "target_completion_kind": "regulatory-milestone", "sources": [ { "id": "fcc-processing-rounds-2026", "grade": "primary", "kind": "fcc-order", "title": "FCC Space Bureau, Order, DA 26-552, \"Space Bureau Opens Processing Rounds\", which cites the Logos Authorization (Grant Stamp, ICFS SAT-LOA-20241030-00243 and SAT-AMD-20250328-00084, SB Jan. 30, 2026) and states the authorised satellite count and bands", "url": "https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DA-26-552A1.pdf", "date": "2026-06-05", "retrieved": "2026-07-29" }, { "id": "spacenews-logos-2026", "grade": "secondary", "kind": "trade-press", "title": "SpaceNews, \"FCC clears Logos to deploy more than 4,000 broadband satellites\" (reports ICFS SAT-LOA-20241030-00243, partial grant 30 January 2026)", "url": "https://spacenews.com/fcc-clears-logos-to-deploy-more-than-4000-broadband-satellites/", "date": "2026-02", "retrieved": "2026-07-29" }, { "id": "satnews-logos-2026", "grade": "secondary", "kind": "trade-press", "title": "SatNews, \"FCC Authorizes Logos Space to Deploy 3,960-Satellite Mega-Constellation for Enterprise Connectivity\"", "url": "https://satnews.com/2026/02/05/fcc-authorizes-logos-space-to-deploy-3960-satellite-mega-constellation-for-enterprise-connectivity/", "date": "2026-02-05", "retrieved": "2026-07-29" }, { "id": "york-ietf126", "grade": "secondary", "kind": "presentation", "title": "Dan York (Internet Society), \"Beyond Starlink: Understanding the Coming Waves of LEO Satellite Deployments\", IRTF SPACE RG, IETF 126, Vienna", "url": "https://datatracker.ietf.org/meeting/126/materials/slides-126-space-york-beyond-starlink-understanding-the-coming-waves-of-leo-satellite-deployments-00", "date": "2026-07-21", "retrieved": "2026-07-29" } ], "discrepancies": [ { "field": "counts.licensed", "claim": "3,960 satellites authorised", "claimed_by": "satnews-logos-2026", "registry_value": "4,178 authorised", "note": "Resolved against the FCC. Two trade outlets reported the same grant within a week as 4,178 and 3,960; the Space Bureau's own subsequent order says 4,178. The earlier guess in this registry, that 3,960 might be a licensed figure against a 4,178 request, was wrong: the grant is for the full number applied for. A good argument for reading the order rather than reasoning about which secondary source looks more plausible." }, { "field": "counts.licensed", "claim": "4,178 planned, FCC-approved", "claimed_by": "york-ietf126", "registry_value": "4,178 authorised 30 January 2026", "note": "Correct on both count and status. One of the cleanest entries in the deck." } ], "notes": "Provenance upgraded 2026-07-29. The grant stamp itself is not a published document with a DA number, but the Space Bureau restates its terms in DA 26-552, which is citable and is used here. Provenance gap: the orbital shells are still unknown. The grant stamp and the underlying application would give them.", "added": "2026-07", "verified": "2026-07-29", "contributor": "Juan A. Fraire (Inria)" }, { "name": "Lynk Global", "slug": "lynk-global", "family": "lynk-global", "aka": [ "Lynk Towers", "Lynk the Everywhere Network" ], "operator": "Lynk Global, Inc.", "parent": "Lynk Global Holdings; SES investment and MEO-relay partnership reported", "country": "US", "jurisdiction": [ "US" ], "system_class": "direct-to-device", "status": "deploying", "status_detail": "Licensed for ten satellites under the FCC's streamlined small space station process and operating commercially in partner markets. The 2,000-satellite figure in circulation has no authorisation behind it.", "status_asof": "2026-07", "services": [ "direct-to-device", "messaging" ], "orbit_regimes": [ "LEO" ], "dual_use": "civil", "filing": { "authority": "FCC", "administration": "USA", "file_number": "SAT-LOA-20210511-00064", "call_sign": "S3087", "document": "DA 22-969", "src": "fcc-lynk-2022" }, "counts": { "launched": { "value": 12, "asof": "2026-07", "src": "york-ietf126", "note": "Exceeds the ten satellites authorised under DA 22-969. The difference is presumably covered by earlier experimental or special temporary authority, or by non-US licensing, neither of which has been checked." }, "licensed": { "value": 10, "asof": "2022-09-16", "src": "fcc-lynk-2022" }, "filed": { "value": 10, "asof": "2022-09-16", "src": "fcc-lynk-2022" }, "announced": { "value": 2000, "asof": "2026-07", "src": "york-ietf126", "note": "Long-term company ambition. No filing has been found for a constellation of this size, so it is recorded as announced." } }, "regulatory": [ { "authority": "FCC", "country": "US", "kind": "license-grant", "file_number": "SAT-LOA-20210511-00064", "call_sign": "S3087", "document": "DA 22-969", "action": "granted", "date": "2022-09-16", "satellites": 10, "scope": "Order and Authorization granting, with conditions, ten satellites (Lynk Towers 1 through 10) under the streamlined small space station process of 47 CFR 25.122. Service links in portions of 617-960 MHz (space-to-Earth) and 663-915 MHz (Earth-to-space) with earth stations outside the United States; feeder links and in-band TT&C at 20.1-20.2 GHz (space-to-Earth) and 29.9-30.0 GHz (Earth-to-space), contingent on Ka-band coordination; backup TT&C at 2200-2290 and 2025-2110 MHz contingent on coordination with federal systems. Resolved a petition to deny from Iridium and objections from Hughes, and comments from Inmarsat, Kuiper and NRAO.", "src": "fcc-lynk-2022" }, { "authority": "FCC", "country": "US", "kind": "modification", "action": "granted", "date": "2025-04-29", "scope": "Modification permitting supplemental coverage from space in the 845.1-845.3 MHz (Earth-to-space) and 890.1-890.3 MHz (space-to-Earth) bands in Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands, enabling commercial service with DOCOMO Pacific. Made Lynk the second direct-to-device provider licensed for commercial service in the United States.", "src": "viasat-lynk-2025" } ], "spectrum": [ "L", "S", "Ka" ], "spectrum_detail": "Service links in portions of 617-960 MHz (space-to-Earth) and 663-915 MHz (Earth-to-space); 845.1-845.3 and 890.1-890.3 MHz for SCS in Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands; feeder links and TT&C at 20.1-20.2 and 29.9-30.0 GHz; backup TT&C at 2200-2290 and 2025-2110 MHz.", "isl": "none", "first_launch": 2022, "launch": { "providers": [ "SpaceX" ], "vehicles": [ "Falcon 9" ], "cadence": "Rideshare only.", "src": "york-ietf126" }, "sources": [ { "id": "fcc-lynk-2022", "grade": "primary", "kind": "fcc-order", "title": "FCC International Bureau, Order and Authorization, DA 22-969 (Lynk Global, Inc., IBFS SAT-LOA-20210511-00064, Call Sign S3087)", "url": "https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DA-22-969A1.pdf", "date": "2022-09-16", "retrieved": "2026-07-29" }, { "id": "viasat-lynk-2025", "grade": "secondary", "kind": "trade-press", "title": "Via Satellite, \"FCC Approves Lynk Direct-to-Device Service in Guam With Docomo\"", "url": "https://www.satellitetoday.com/connectivity/2025/05/01/fcc-approves-lynk-direct-to-device-service-in-guam-with-docomo/", "date": "2025-05-01", "retrieved": "2026-07-29" }, { "id": "york-ietf126", "grade": "secondary", "kind": "presentation", "title": "Dan York (Internet Society), \"Beyond Starlink: Understanding the Coming Waves of LEO Satellite Deployments\", IRTF SPACE RG, IETF 126, Vienna", "url": "https://datatracker.ietf.org/meeting/126/materials/slides-126-space-york-beyond-starlink-understanding-the-coming-waves-of-leo-satellite-deployments-00", "date": "2026-07-21", "retrieved": "2026-07-29" } ], "discrepancies": [ { "field": "counts.licensed", "claim": "2,000 satellites planned", "claimed_by": "york-ietf126", "registry_value": "10 licensed; 2,000 announced with no filing found", "note": "A factor of 200 between the circulating figure and the authorisation. This is the sharpest illustration in the registry of why the columns must be kept apart: both numbers are true statements about different things, and putting them in one column labelled \"planned\" makes the smaller one disappear." }, { "field": "counts.launched", "claim": "12 launched", "claimed_by": "york-ietf126", "registry_value": "12 launched against 10 authorised", "note": "Recorded as-is, with the inconsistency visible. Resolving it needs a check of Lynk's experimental and special temporary authority grants in ELS, which has not been done." } ], "notes": "Provenance gap: the April 2025 modification is recorded from trade press; the grant itself has not been retrieved, so it has no file number here. Provenance gap: the 12-launched figure exceeds the 10 authorised and the discrepancy has not been resolved against ELS records. Note for the group: DA 22-969 resolves a petition to deny from Iridium and comments from Kuiper and the NRAO. The direct-to-device band is contested by incumbents and radio astronomy, which is a spectrum-governance thread worth following in its own right.", "added": "2026-07", "verified": "2026-07-29", "contributor": "Juan A. Fraire (Inria)" }, { "name": "Orbital Compute", "slug": "orbital-compute", "family": "orbital-compute", "aka": [ "Orbital", "Orbital Compute, Inc." ], "operator": "Orbital Compute, Inc.", "parent": "Orbital Compute, Inc.", "country": "US", "jurisdiction": [ "US" ], "system_class": "orbital-compute", "status": "filed", "status_detail": "Application filed with the FCC in 2026 for up to 100,000 satellites totalling 10 GW of compute. No grant, nothing launched, and the company is at pre-seed funding scale.", "status_asof": "2026-07", "services": [ "orbital-compute" ], "orbit_regimes": [ "LEO" ], "dual_use": "civil", "filing": { "authority": "FCC", "administration": "USA", "document": "Orbital Compute application for a 100,000-satellite orbital data centre system, filed 2026 (ICFS file number and exact date not retrieved)", "src": "broadbandbreakfast-orbital-2026", "note": "Neither the ICFS file number nor the precise filing date has been retrieved. This is the weakest filing anchor in the registry and should be the first thing a contributor fixes on this record." }, "counts": { "filed": { "value": 100000, "asof": 2026, "src": "broadbandbreakfast-orbital-2026" } }, "regulatory": [ { "authority": "FCC", "country": "US", "kind": "application", "action": "pending", "date": 2026, "satellites": 100000, "scope": "Application to deploy up to 100,000 satellites in low Earth orbit with a cumulative 10 GW of compute capacity. Each satellite is described as a high-density server rack of roughly 2 tonnes with a 100 kW solar array around 100 m across, in sun-synchronous orbit at 500-850 km, using passive radiative cooling.", "src": "broadbandbreakfast-orbital-2026" } ], "shells": [ { "label": "sso-500-850", "status": "proposed", "geometry_kind": "sso-band", "code_status": "not-representable", "code_note": "Sun-synchronous orbits between 500 and 850 km. An altitude range, no inclination, no plane count, no per-plane population, and a local time of the ascending node that the code cannot express.", "src": "broadbandbreakfast-orbital-2026" } ], "isl": "external", "isl_detail": "The system as described has no communications payload of its own for bulk data and relies on third-party optical relay through Starlink or Kuiper. Together with Starcloud and Blue Origin's Project Sunrise, that makes three separate orbital data centre proposals in this registry whose ground path depends on constellations they do not operate, none of which has published an interconnection interface.", "sat_mass_kg": 2000, "target_completion": 2028, "target_completion_kind": "operator-target", "sources": [ { "id": "broadbandbreakfast-orbital-2026", "grade": "secondary", "kind": "trade-press", "title": "Broadband Breakfast, \"Orbital Seeks FCC Approval for 100,000 Satellite Data Center Constellation\"", "url": "https://broadbandbreakfast.com/orbital-seeks-fcc-approval-for-100-000-satellite-data-center-constellation/", "date": 2026, "retrieved": "2026-07-29" }, { "id": "york-ietf126", "grade": "secondary", "kind": "presentation", "title": "Dan York (Internet Society), \"Beyond Starlink: Understanding the Coming Waves of LEO Satellite Deployments\", IRTF SPACE RG, IETF 126, Vienna", "url": "https://datatracker.ietf.org/meeting/126/materials/slides-126-space-york-beyond-starlink-understanding-the-coming-waves-of-leo-satellite-deployments-00", "date": "2026-07-21", "retrieved": "2026-07-29" } ], "discrepancies": [ { "field": "counts.filed", "claim": "100,000 planned; 2027 demo mission, 2028 first full-scale satellite", "claimed_by": "york-ietf126", "registry_value": "100,000 requested; application pending", "note": "Count agrees. Worth recording alongside it, because the registry's job is to make scale legible rather than to editorialise: 100,000 satellites at the stated 2 tonnes each is roughly 200,000 tonnes to orbit, from a company with reported pre-seed funding of USD 5 million and no launch vehicle of its own. Both facts are in the record; the reader can do the arithmetic." } ], "notes": "Provenance gap: no primary source, no file number, no precise filing date. Reading the application is the whole task on this record.", "added": "2026-07", "verified": "2026-07-29", "contributor": "Juan A. Fraire (Inria)" }, { "name": "Project Suncatcher", "slug": "project-suncatcher", "family": "project-suncatcher", "aka": [ "Google Project Suncatcher" ], "operator": "Google LLC", "parent": "Alphabet Inc.", "country": "US", "jurisdiction": [ "US" ], "system_class": "orbital-compute", "status": "announced", "status_detail": "A research programme, announced November 2025, to put Google TPUs in orbit. Two prototype satellites are to be built and operated by Planet Labs for an in-orbit demonstration in early 2027. No constellation size has been stated and no filing has been identified.", "status_asof": "2026-07", "services": [ "orbital-compute" ], "orbit_regimes": [ "LEO" ], "dual_use": "civil", "filing_absent": "No filing identified. The programme is presented as research with a two-satellite demonstration, and the demonstration satellites are to be built and operated by Planet Labs, so any near-term spectrum authority would most likely sit under Planet's existing licences rather than a new Google filing. There is nothing yet to file for: no constellation size has been announced.", "shells": [ { "label": "compute-cluster", "status": "proposed", "geometry_kind": "irregular", "code_status": "not-representable", "code_note": "The published concept is clusters of about 81 satellites flying in formation within arrays roughly 1 km across, linked optically. That is a formation-flying geometry, not an orbital shell: the parameter that matters is inter-satellite separation within a cluster, which the constellation code has no way to express at all. Of everything in this registry, this is the design furthest from what the notation was built for.", "src": "dcd-suncatcher-2025" } ], "isl": "optical", "isl_detail": "Optical inter-satellite links are central to the concept, used to distribute machine-learning workloads across a tightly spaced cluster. Validating them is one of the stated goals of the 2027 demonstration.", "first_launch": 2027, "target_completion_kind": "operator-target", "launch": { "providers": [ "Planet Labs" ], "cadence": "Two prototype satellites planned for early 2027.", "src": "dcd-suncatcher-2025" }, "sources": [ { "id": "dcd-suncatcher-2025", "grade": "secondary", "kind": "trade-press", "title": "Data Center Dynamics, \"Project Suncatcher: Google to launch TPUs into orbit with Planet Labs, envisions 1km arrays of 81-satellite compute clusters\"", "url": "https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/project-suncatcher-google-to-launch-tpus-into-orbit-with-planet-labs-envisions-1km-arrays-of-81-satellite-compute-clusters/", "date": "2025-11", "retrieved": "2026-07-29" }, { "id": "google-suncatcher-2025", "grade": "secondary", "kind": "operator-web", "title": "Google Research, \"Exploring a space-based, scalable AI infrastructure system design\"", "url": "https://research.google/blog/exploring-a-space-based-scalable-ai-infrastructure-system-design/", "date": "2025-11", "retrieved": "2026-07-29" }, { "id": "york-ietf126", "grade": "secondary", "kind": "presentation", "title": "Dan York (Internet Society), \"Beyond Starlink: Understanding the Coming Waves of LEO Satellite Deployments\", IRTF SPACE RG, IETF 126, Vienna", "url": "https://datatracker.ietf.org/meeting/126/materials/slides-126-space-york-beyond-starlink-understanding-the-coming-waves-of-leo-satellite-deployments-00", "date": "2026-07-21", "retrieved": "2026-07-29" } ], "discrepancies": [ { "field": "counts", "claim": "? satellites planned; 2027 prototype?", "claimed_by": "york-ietf126", "registry_value": "No count; two demonstration satellites in early 2027", "note": "The deck records the count as a question mark, which is right. This registry does the same by leaving `counts` empty rather than writing zero, and adds the one firm number available: two prototypes." } ], "notes": "Included with an empty `counts` block on purpose. An announced programme from an operator of this size, with no stated constellation size, is a real category and the honest representation of it is absence. Writing a speculative number here would corrupt exactly the aggregate the registry is meant to make trustworthy. Provenance gap: the Google Research post describing the system design has been cited but not read in detail; it would give the cluster geometry and the power and thermal assumptions.", "added": "2026-07", "verified": "2026-07-29", "contributor": "Juan A. Fraire (Inria)" }, { "name": "Qianfan", "slug": "qianfan", "family": "qianfan", "aka": [ "Thousand Sails", "G60 Starlink", "Spacesail", "千帆" ], "operator": "Shanghai Spacecom Satellite Technology (SSST) / Spacesail", "parent": "Backed by the Shanghai Municipal People's Government; Chinese Academy of Sciences involvement reported", "country": "CN", "jurisdiction": [ "CN" ], "system_class": "broadband", "status": "deploying", "status_detail": "Launching production satellites since August 2024; regional service targeted for around 2026 and global service around 2030. Well short of the announced phase targets.", "status_asof": "2026-07", "services": [ "broadband" ], "orbit_regimes": [ "LEO" ], "dual_use": "unknown", "filing_absent": "No filing reference established, and not for want of looking. The ITU Space Network List was queried on 2026-07-29 for QIANFAN, SSST, SPACESAIL, STARNET, THOUSANDSAILS, G60-STARLINK, CHINA-LEO, CHINASAT-LEO, SSST-GW, QIANFAN-1 and QF-1, all returning nothing; the SNL name search is exact, not substring, so a name we have not guessed will not surface. Scanning the non-GSO tables of six downloaded BR IFICs for Chinese networks turned up 100 or so names, none obviously this system. A filing almost certainly exists under a designation we do not know. China's national authorisations are separately not published in any docket comparable to the FCC's ICFS.", "counts": { "launched": { "value": 239, "asof": "2026-07", "src": "york-ietf126" }, "announced": { "value": 15000, "asof": "2026-07", "src": "wikipedia-qianfan", "note": "Company build-out target of roughly 15,000 satellites by 2030, in phases of 648 (regional), 1,296 (global) and the remainder. The IETF 126 slide gives 16,000; both figures circulate. No filing has been consulted that substantiates either, so this sits under announced rather than filed." } }, "itu": [ { "administration": "CHN", "stage": "API", "date": "2025-12", "src": "spacenews-china-itu-2026", "note": "NOT CONFIRMED for this system. China filed with the ITU in late 2025 for frequency and orbital resources covering on the order of 200,000 satellites across roughly 14 constellations, and this registry has now identified four of those networks by name (CTC-1, CTC-2, CHINAMOBILE-L1 and CHINAMOBILE-M1). None of them is Qianfan. This entry records the existence of the wave, not a Qianfan filing identity, and should be deleted or replaced once the real network name is known." } ], "shells": [ { "label": "phase-1", "status": "deploying", "geometry_kind": "unknown", "code_status": "unknown", "code_note": "Operational altitude around 1,160 km at roughly 85 deg inclination is widely reported, but no plane count, satellites-per-plane or phasing has been traced to a source good enough to record here. Left empty rather than guessed.", "src": "wikipedia-qianfan" } ], "isl": "unknown", "first_launch": "2024-08-06", "target_completion": 2030, "target_completion_kind": "operator-target", "launch": { "providers": [ "China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC)" ], "vehicles": [ "Long March 6A", "Long March 8", "Long March 12" ], "cadence": "Roughly 240 satellites in two years against a stated target of 15,000 by 2030. The implied required rate is the interesting number here.", "src": "york-ietf126" }, "sources": [ { "id": "york-ietf126", "grade": "secondary", "kind": "presentation", "title": "Dan York (Internet Society), \"Beyond Starlink: Understanding the Coming Waves of LEO Satellite Deployments\", IRTF SPACE RG, IETF 126, Vienna", "url": "https://datatracker.ietf.org/meeting/126/materials/slides-126-space-york-beyond-starlink-understanding-the-coming-waves-of-leo-satellite-deployments-00", "date": "2026-07-21", "retrieved": "2026-07-29" }, { "id": "wikipedia-qianfan", "grade": "secondary", "kind": "encyclopedia", "title": "Wikipedia, \"Qianfan\"", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qianfan", "retrieved": "2026-07-29" }, { "id": "spacenews-china-itu-2026", "grade": "secondary", "kind": "trade-press", "title": "SpaceNews, \"China files ITU paperwork for megaconstellations totaling nearly 200,000 satellites\"", "url": "https://spacenews.com/china-files-itu-paperwork-for-megaconstellations-totaling-nearly-200000-satellites/", "date": "2026-06", "retrieved": "2026-07-29" } ], "discrepancies": [ { "field": "counts.announced", "claim": "16,000 satellites planned", "claimed_by": "york-ietf126", "registry_value": "15,000 announced (company build-out target)", "note": "Both 15,000 and 16,000 circulate widely and neither has been traced to a filing in this revision. Recorded as announced, not filed, precisely because the discrepancy cannot currently be resolved against a document." } ], "notes": "Provenance gap: this record still has no primary source, and after a systematic ITU search it is now the only major system in the registry in that position. See filing_absent for what was tried. The most likely routes in are: a Chinese-language source that gives the ITU designation directly; a full SNL export filtered by administration, which the ITU server currently returns a 500 for on date-range queries; or somebody in the group with access to the BR IFIC DVD-ROM, which would allow scanning publications outside the eighteen-month download window when the filing was most likely made. ASK THE LIST. This is a good first question to put to space@irtf.org once the registry is announced: a working constellation of 239 satellites whose ITU identity we cannot find is exactly the kind of gap a group is better at closing than an individual. This record is the registry's worked example of the non-US jurisdiction problem: for FCC-licensed systems the filing, the geometry, the milestones and the spectrum are all in a public docket, and for most others they are not. Any aggregate satellite count that treats a Chinese or Russian figure as equivalent evidence to an FCC grant is comparing unlike things, and the registry should make that visible rather than smooth it over.", "added": "2026-07", "verified": "2026-07-29", "contributor": "Juan A. Fraire (Inria)" }, { "name": "Rassvet", "slug": "rassvet", "family": "rassvet", "aka": [ "Dawn", "Bureau 1440 Rassvet", "RASSVET-1" ], "operator": "Bureau 1440", "parent": "X Holding / IKS Holding", "country": "RU", "jurisdiction": [ "RU" ], "system_class": "broadband", "status": "deploying", "status_detail": "First 16 production satellites launched 23 March 2026 after an experimental phase from 2023. Of the three ITU networks filed in 2022-2023, two were suppressed at the operator's own administration's request in December 2025; only RASSVET-1 remains on file.", "status_asof": "2026-07", "services": [ "broadband", "direct-to-device" ], "orbit_regimes": [ "LEO" ], "dual_use": "unknown", "filing": { "authority": "other", "administration": "RUS", "file_number": "CR/C 5975 (notice ID 123520004); API/A 13240", "document": "BR IFIC 3042", "src": "itu-snl-rassvet-1", "note": "Anchored on RASSVET-1, the only one of the three networks still on file. RASSVET and RASSVET-2 were suppressed; see itu: below." }, "counts": { "launched": { "value": 22, "asof": "2026-07", "src": "york-ietf126", "note": "Includes experimental satellites from 2023 and the 16 production satellites launched 23 March 2026. The deck gives \"~21-22\"." }, "filed": { "value": 1350, "asof": "2023-01-10", "src": "itu-ific-3042", "note": "Declared in the first modification of the RASSVET-1 coordination request. The orbit table of BR IFIC 3042 lists 30 planes of 45 satellites at 500 km, 60 degrees, for notice 323520262." }, "announced": { "value": 383, "asof": 2026, "src": "wikipedia-bureau1440", "note": "Company plan: 292 operational satellites by the end of 2030 out of 383 launched. Russia's Internet Access Infrastructure federal project separately gives 156 in 2026, 292 in 2027 and 318 in 2028. None of these matches the 1,350 declared to the ITU." } }, "itu": [ { "administration": "RUS", "network_name": "RASSVET-1", "stage": "CR/C", "date": "2023-01-10", "satellites": 1350, "src": "itu-snl-rassvet-1", "note": "API/A 13240 and CR/C 5975 both received 10 January 2023; API/B 2286 and CR/D 5024 followed. The coordination request was modified once, received 10 January 2023 and published in BR IFIC 3042 on 18 March 2025. Still on file." }, { "administration": "RUS", "network_name": "RASSVET", "stage": "expired", "date": "2025-12-29", "src": "itu-snl-rassvet", "note": "SUPPRESSED. API/A 13109 and CR/C 5774, both originally received 2 June 2022, carry a suppression action received 29 December 2025 and published in BR IFIC 3065 on 17 February 2026. In SNL Part B the ssn_rev code S means suppression." }, { "administration": "RUS", "network_name": "RASSVET-2", "stage": "expired", "date": "2025-12-29", "src": "itu-snl-rassvet-2", "note": "SUPPRESSED. API/A 13241 and CR/C 5976, originally received 10 January 2023, carry a suppression action received 29 December 2025 and published in BR IFIC 3065 on 17 February 2026." } ], "shells": [ { "label": "rassvet-1-500", "status": "proposed", "geometry_kind": "walker", "altitude_km": 500, "inclination_deg": 60.0, "planes": 30, "sats_per_plane": 45, "satellites": 1350, "code_status": "unknown", "code_note": "Phasing factor not in the ITU declaration. Note that the 500 km, 60 degree geometry matches the orbit the March 2026 batch was launched into, which is a rare case in this registry of the filing and the observed deployment agreeing.", "src": "itu-ific-3042" } ], "isl": "unknown", "first_launch": 2023, "target_completion": 2030, "target_completion_kind": "operator-target", "launch": { "providers": [ "Roscosmos" ], "vehicles": [ "Soyuz-2.1b" ], "cadence": "Launching from Vostochny and Plesetsk. About 22 satellites in three years against a 2030 target of 292 operational and an ITU declaration of 1,350.", "src": "york-ietf126" }, "sources": [ { "id": "itu-snl-rassvet-1", "grade": "primary", "kind": "itu-filing", "title": "ITU Radiocommunication Bureau, Space Network List (SNL) Part B, filing history for satellite network RASSVET-1 (notifying administration RUS)", "url": "https://www.itu.int/net/ITU-R/space/snl/bresult/radvance.asp?sel_satname=RASSVET-1", "retrieved": "2026-07-29" }, { "id": "itu-snl-rassvet", "grade": "primary", "kind": "itu-filing", "title": "ITU Radiocommunication Bureau, Space Network List (SNL) Part B, filing history for satellite network RASSVET (notifying administration RUS), showing suppression of API/A 13109 and CR/C 5774", "url": "https://www.itu.int/net/ITU-R/space/snl/bresult/radvance.asp?sel_satname=RASSVET", "retrieved": "2026-07-29" }, { "id": "itu-snl-rassvet-2", "grade": "primary", "kind": "itu-filing", "title": "ITU Radiocommunication Bureau, Space Network List (SNL) Part B, filing history for satellite network RASSVET-2 (notifying administration RUS), showing suppression of API/A 13241 and CR/C 5976", "url": "https://www.itu.int/net/ITU-R/space/snl/bresult/radvance.asp?sel_satname=RASSVET-2", "retrieved": "2026-07-29" }, { "id": "itu-ific-3042", "grade": "primary", "kind": "itu-publication", "title": "ITU BR IFIC (Space Services) No. 3042, non-GSO notice data for RASSVET-1, notice ID 323520262 (tables non_geo and orbit of the published database)", "url": "https://www.itu.int/sns/ific10/ific3042.zip", "date": "2025-03-18", "retrieved": "2026-07-29" }, { "id": "wikipedia-bureau1440", "grade": "secondary", "kind": "encyclopedia", "title": "Wikipedia, \"Bureau 1440\"", "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bureau_1440", "retrieved": "2026-07-29" }, { "id": "york-ietf126", "grade": "secondary", "kind": "presentation", "title": "Dan York (Internet Society), \"Beyond Starlink: Understanding the Coming Waves of LEO Satellite Deployments\", IRTF SPACE RG, IETF 126, Vienna", "url": "https://datatracker.ietf.org/meeting/126/materials/slides-126-space-york-beyond-starlink-understanding-the-coming-waves-of-leo-satellite-deployments-00", "date": "2026-07-21", "retrieved": "2026-07-29" } ], "discrepancies": [ { "field": "counts", "claim": "318 ... or ... 924 satellites planned", "claimed_by": "york-ietf126", "registry_value": "1,350 declared to the ITU; 292-383 in company and federal plans", "note": "The deck offers two figures without choosing, which is honest. The registry can now add a third that is documented: RASSVET-1's coordination request declares 1,350 satellites. It matches none of the circulating numbers, and it is larger than all of them, which is the usual direction." }, { "field": "itu", "claim": "Rassvet is scaling up; hundreds more ahead", "claimed_by": "wikipedia-bureau1440", "registry_value": "Two of the three Rassvet ITU networks were suppressed in December 2025", "note": "A finding that no secondary source in this registry mentions. On 29 December 2025 the Russian administration suppressed both API/A and CR/C for RASSVET and for RASSVET-2, published in BR IFIC 3065 in February 2026, three weeks before the first production launch. Suppression is a deliberate act by the notifying administration, not an expiry. It may be consolidation onto RASSVET-1 rather than retreat, and this registry does not claim to know which. What it does record is that the ITU footprint of this system shrank from three networks to one at the moment the press narrative was about expansion." } ], "notes": "Provenance upgraded 2026-07-29 from encyclopaedia and press to the ITU filings and publication. See scripts/itu_query.sh. Reporting on this system is heavily coloured by the war in Ukraine and by its dual-use potential, in both directions. The ITU record is the one part of the picture that is neutral and checkable, which is most of why this round of work was worth doing.", "added": "2026-07", "verified": "2026-07-29", "contributor": "Juan A. Fraire (Inria)" }, { "name": "Reliance Jio LEO constellation", "slug": "reliance-jio", "family": "reliance-jio", "aka": [ "Jio sovereign LEO constellation", "Jio Space" ], "operator": "Jio Platforms Limited", "parent": "Reliance Industries Limited", "country": "IN", "jurisdiction": [ "IN" ], "system_class": "broadband", "status": "licensed", "status_detail": "IN-SPACe approved the proposal on 17 July 2026, four days before the IETF 126 session, judging it technically sound. The approval enables the Government of India to support the ITU filings and orbital rights the system needs; those filings are not yet made. Nothing launched.", "status_asof": "2026-07", "services": [ "broadband", "direct-to-device" ], "orbit_regimes": [ "LEO" ], "dual_use": "dual", "filing": { "authority": "IN-SPACe", "administration": "IND", "document": "IN-SPACe authorisation of the Jio Platforms LEO constellation proposal, 17 July 2026 (docket identifier not retrieved)", "src": "businessstandard-jio-2026", "note": "IN-SPACe does not publish authorisations in a searchable public docket, so the approval is known only through reporting. The ITU filings that would give the system a citable international identity are still to be made, with government support, which is part of what the approval grants." }, "counts": { "licensed": { "value": 1600, "asof": "2026-07-17", "src": "businessstandard-jio-2026", "note": "Reported as \"over 1,600\". Recorded as licensed on the strength of the IN-SPACe approval, with the caveat that the approval document has not been read." }, "filed": { "value": 1600, "asof": "2026-07-17", "src": "businessstandard-jio-2026" } }, "regulatory": [ { "authority": "IN-SPACe", "country": "IN", "kind": "license-grant", "action": "granted", "date": "2026-07-17", "satellites": 1600, "scope": "Approval of Jio Platforms' proposal for a sovereign LEO constellation of more than 1,600 satellites, assessed as technically sound and comparable to Starlink and Kuiper. Reported throughput target of 4.5-5 Tbps against Starlink's approved 600 Gbps and Kuiper's proposed 3 Tbps in India. The approval enables Government of India support for the associated ITU filings and orbital rights coordination.", "src": "businessstandard-jio-2026" } ], "shells": [ { "label": "jio-leo", "status": "authorised", "geometry_kind": "unknown", "code_status": "unknown", "code_note": "No orbital parameters published.", "src": "businessstandard-jio-2026" } ], "isl": "unknown", "target_completion": 2029, "target_completion_kind": "operator-target", "launch": { "providers": [ "Not disclosed" ], "cadence": "No launch provider disclosed. The sovereign framing makes ISRO the presumption, but that is an inference and not recorded as fact.", "src": "york-ietf126" }, "sources": [ { "id": "businessstandard-jio-2026", "grade": "secondary", "kind": "trade-press", "title": "Business Standard, \"Reliance Jio gets IN-SPACe approval for 1,600-satellite LEO network\"", "url": "https://www.business-standard.com/companies/news/reliance-jio-gets-in-space-approval-for-1-600-satellite-leo-network-126071700270_1.html", "date": "2026-07-17", "retrieved": "2026-07-29" }, { "id": "spacenews-jio-2026", "grade": "secondary", "kind": "trade-press", "title": "SpaceNews, \"India's Jio lays out sovereign LEO constellation plan ahead of IPO\"", "url": "https://spacenews.com/indias-jio-lays-out-sovereign-leo-constellation-plan-ahead-of-ipo/", "date": 2026, "retrieved": "2026-07-29" }, { "id": "york-ietf126", "grade": "secondary", "kind": "presentation", "title": "Dan York (Internet Society), \"Beyond Starlink: Understanding the Coming Waves of LEO Satellite Deployments\", IRTF SPACE RG, IETF 126, Vienna", "url": "https://datatracker.ietf.org/meeting/126/materials/slides-126-space-york-beyond-starlink-understanding-the-coming-waves-of-leo-satellite-deployments-00", "date": "2026-07-21", "retrieved": "2026-07-29" } ], "discrepancies": [ { "field": "status", "claim": "Deployment \"next 2-3 years\" if approved; announced Jun 19 2026 at AGM", "claimed_by": "york-ietf126", "registry_value": "Approved by IN-SPACe 17 July 2026", "note": "The deck's conditional was correct when written and was overtaken four days before the session: IN-SPACe approved the proposal on 17 July 2026. A good argument for a registry with dated `verified` fields over a slide deck." } ], "notes": "Provenance gap: no primary source and no citable docket. IN-SPACe authorisations are not published in a form comparable to FCC ICFS. Carlos Martinez-Cagnazzo asked at IETF 126 who the proper authority is when a company files, and Dan York used exactly this system as the example: the Indian space agency approves, then the filing goes to the ITU. This record captures that chain at the moment the first step completed and the second had not yet begun, which makes it a useful teaching case for the draft.", "added": "2026-07", "verified": "2026-07-29", "contributor": "Juan A. Fraire (Inria)" }, { "name": "SpaceX Orbital Data Center System", "slug": "spacex-orbital-data-center", "family": "spacex-orbital-compute", "aka": [ "AI1", "Starmind" ], "operator": "Space Exploration Holdings, LLC", "parent": "Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX)", "country": "US", "jurisdiction": [ "US" ], "system_class": "orbital-compute", "status": "filed", "status_detail": "Application filed 30 January 2026, accepted for filing 4 February 2026. No grant. This single application is the largest contributor by far to every circulating aggregate of planned satellites.", "status_asof": "2026-07", "services": [ "orbital-compute" ], "orbit_regimes": [ "LEO" ], "dual_use": "civil", "filing": { "authority": "FCC", "administration": "USA", "file_number": "SAT-LOA-20260108-00016", "call_sign": "S00798", "document": "DA 26-113", "src": "fcc-odc-pn-2026" }, "counts": { "filed": { "value": 1000000, "asof": "2026-02-04", "src": "fcc-odc-pn-2026", "note": "The public notice says \"up to one million satellites\", twice, in those words. It is a ceiling stated in the application, not a deployment plan." } }, "regulatory": [ { "authority": "FCC", "country": "US", "kind": "application", "file_number": "SAT-LOA-20260108-00016", "call_sign": "S00798", "action": "pending", "date": "2026-01-30", "satellites": 1000000, "scope": "Application for authority to launch and operate a new NGSO system of up to one million satellites, the \"SpaceX Orbital Data Center system\", at altitudes from 500 km to 2,000 km in 30 degree and sun-synchronous inclinations, within orbital shells spanning up to 50 km each. Different satellite hardware versions are planned across shells.", "src": "fcc-odc-pn-2026" }, { "authority": "FCC", "country": "US", "kind": "public-notice", "file_number": "SAT-LOA-20260108-00016", "document": "DA 26-113", "action": "pending", "date": "2026-02-04", "scope": "Space Bureau accepts the application for filing and seeks comment.", "src": "fcc-odc-pn-2026" } ], "shells": [ { "label": "odc-band", "status": "proposed", "geometry_kind": "sso-band", "code_status": "not-representable", "code_note": "The application describes a *range*, not shells: altitudes from 500 km to 2,000 km, inclinations of 30 degrees and sun-synchronous, within shells spanning up to 50 km each. No plane count, per-plane population or phasing. Sun-synchronous orbits additionally carry a local time of the ascending node, which the constellation code has no field for. Nothing here is expressible as a Walker triple, and a registry that invented one would be inventing the topology.", "src": "fcc-odc-pn-2026" } ], "isl": "optical", "isl_detail": "Optical inter-satellite links are the system's primary communications path. Per the application, the links \"will route traffic within the network and to satellites in the Starlink constellation, via its high capacity (petabit) and high reliability laser mesh, which in turn will transmit traffic to authorized earth stations on the ground\". The system therefore depends on the Gen1 and Gen2 Starlink authorisations for its ground path, which is a coupling between three separate licences worth noting.", "spectrum": [ "optical" ], "spectrum_detail": "Optical for user traffic; RF for telemetry, tracking and command only. The public notice does not state the TT&C bands.", "sources": [ { "id": "fcc-odc-pn-2026", "grade": "primary", "kind": "fcc-public-notice", "title": "FCC Space Bureau, Public Notice DA 26-113, \"SpaceX's Application for Orbital Data Centers Accepted for Filing and Comment Sought\" (ICFS SAT-LOA-20260108-00016, Call Sign S00798)", "url": "https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DA-26-113A1.txt", "date": "2026-02-04", "retrieved": "2026-07-29" }, { "id": "mcdowell-conlist", "grade": "secondary", "kind": "tracker", "title": "Jonathan McDowell, \"Jonathan's Space Report\" constellation list (enormous constellations, more than 1,000 satellites), planet4589.org", "url": "https://planet4589.org/space/con/conlist.html", "date": "2026-07-25", "retrieved": "2026-07-30" }, { "id": "york-ietf126", "grade": "secondary", "kind": "presentation", "title": "Dan York (Internet Society), \"Beyond Starlink: Understanding the Coming Waves of LEO Satellite Deployments\", IRTF SPACE RG, IETF 126, Vienna", "url": "https://datatracker.ietf.org/meeting/126/materials/slides-126-space-york-beyond-starlink-understanding-the-coming-waves-of-leo-satellite-deployments-00", "date": "2026-07-21", "retrieved": "2026-07-29" } ], "discrepancies": [ { "field": "counts.filed", "claim": "1,198,120 satellites planned", "claimed_by": "york-ietf126", "registry_value": "1,000,000 requested (application ceiling)", "note": "The application, as described in the FCC's own acceptance notice, is for \"up to one million satellites\". The 1,198,120 figure is Jonathan McDowell's, from his constellation list, as Dan York confirmed on 29 July 2026. The registry could not locate that specific entry on the page on 30 July 2026 and so cannot say how the figure was derived; it may aggregate shells or filings that the FCC's summary rounds. This matters more than most discrepancies here because the application accounts for roughly half of the widely quoted 2.3 million aggregate, so a 198,120 difference is about 8 per cent of the headline number. Resolving it properly needs the application's own Attachment A rather than either summary." } ], "notes": "Reported in the press as connected to the SpaceX/xAI merger. The application itself is for a communications authorisation; the compute payload is not what the FCC is licensing, which is worth remembering when reading the filing as evidence about data-centre capacity. Provenance gap: the application narrative and technical attachment (Attachment A) are cited in DA 26-113 but have not been read directly. They would give the shell structure, the satellite versions and the TT&C bands.", "added": "2026-07", "verified": "2026-07-29", "contributor": "Juan A. Fraire (Inria)" }, { "name": "SpinLaunch Meridian Space", "slug": "spinlaunch-meridian", "family": "spinlaunch", "aka": [ "Meridian Space" ], "operator": "SpinLaunch, Inc.", "parent": "SpinLaunch, Inc.", "country": "US", "jurisdiction": [ "US" ], "system_class": "broadband", "status": "filed", "status_detail": "FCC application for roughly 1,200 satellites in Ka-, Ku- and V-band. 280 satellites contracted from Kongsberg NanoAvionics in April 2025. Nothing launched.", "status_asof": "2026-07", "services": [ "broadband", "backhaul", "government-secure" ], "orbit_regimes": [ "LEO" ], "dual_use": "dual", "filing": { "authority": "FCC", "administration": "USA", "document": "SpinLaunch application for the Meridian Space constellation (ICFS file number and date not retrieved)", "src": "spacenews-spinlaunch-2025", "note": "The ICFS file number and filing date have not been retrieved." }, "counts": { "filed": { "value": 1200, "asof": 2025, "src": "spacenews-spinlaunch-2025", "note": "Reported as \"about 1,200\". The IETF 126 deck gives a precise 1,190, which is plausibly the exact figure in the application; the registry records the sourced approximation rather than adopting a precise number it cannot trace." }, "announced": { "value": 280, "asof": "2025-04", "src": "spacenews-spinlaunch-2025", "note": "Satellites contracted from Kongsberg NanoAvionics for EUR 122.5m. A manufacturing commitment, not a regulatory figure, and much smaller than the filing." } }, "regulatory": [ { "authority": "FCC", "country": "US", "kind": "application", "action": "pending", "satellites": 1200, "scope": "Application to deploy about 1,200 satellites operating in Ka-, Ku- and V-band, at 830 km in an arrangement giving fixed ground tracks rather than precessing ones, so that ground equipment need track in only one dimension. Enterprise and government market rather than consumer.", "src": "spacenews-spinlaunch-2025" } ], "shells": [ { "label": "repeating-ground-track-830", "status": "proposed", "geometry_kind": "irregular", "altitude_km": 830, "code_status": "not-representable", "code_note": "A repeating-ground-track constellation, chosen so that satellite passes recur over fixed points and ground antennas can track in one dimension. The code can express the altitude but has no way to state that the orbits are selected for ground-track repetition, which is the design's defining property and constrains altitude and inclination jointly. Plane count and per-plane population not published.", "src": "spacenews-spinlaunch-2025" } ], "spectrum": [ "Ku", "Ka", "V" ], "isl": "unknown", "launch": { "providers": [ "SpinLaunch" ], "cadence": "The company's kinetic launch system is still in development. The constellation and the launch method are two independent bets, and the deck is right to note that the second is unproven.", "src": "york-ietf126" }, "sources": [ { "id": "spacenews-spinlaunch-2025", "grade": "secondary", "kind": "trade-press", "title": "SpaceNews, \"SpinLaunch announces plans for broadband satellite constellation\"", "url": "https://spacenews.com/spinlaunch-announces-plans-for-broadband-satellite-constellation/", "date": 2025, "retrieved": "2026-07-29" }, { "id": "york-ietf126", "grade": "secondary", "kind": "presentation", "title": "Dan York (Internet Society), \"Beyond Starlink: Understanding the Coming Waves of LEO Satellite Deployments\", IRTF SPACE RG, IETF 126, Vienna", "url": "https://datatracker.ietf.org/meeting/126/materials/slides-126-space-york-beyond-starlink-understanding-the-coming-waves-of-leo-satellite-deployments-00", "date": "2026-07-21", "retrieved": "2026-07-29" } ], "discrepancies": [ { "field": "counts.filed", "claim": "1,190 satellites planned", "claimed_by": "york-ietf126", "registry_value": "about 1,200 requested", "note": "The deck's 1,190 is more precise than anything this registry can source and is very likely the exact figure in the application. Recorded as a discrepancy not because the deck is wrong but because the registry cannot yet confirm it, and adopting a precise unsourced number would be exactly the laundering the grading rules exist to prevent. Reading the application would let 1,190 replace \"about 1,200\" with a primary source behind it." } ], "notes": "Provenance gap: no primary source, no file number, no filing date. Worth noting for anyone modelling this system: repeating ground tracks are unusual among the constellations in this registry and change the contact pattern seen by a fixed ground station substantially. It is a good test case for the ground-station elements added in draft-piraux-space-constellation-code-02.", "added": "2026-07", "verified": "2026-07-29", "contributor": "Juan A. Fraire (Inria)" }, { "name": "Starcloud", "slug": "starcloud", "family": "starcloud", "aka": [ "Lumen Orbit" ], "operator": "Starcloud, Inc.", "parent": "Starcloud, Inc. (independent; Series A March 2026)", "country": "US", "jurisdiction": [ "US" ], "system_class": "orbital-compute", "status": "filed", "status_detail": "One demonstrator on orbit (Starcloud-1, November 2025). The 88,000-satellite system is an FCC application accepted for filing in March 2026; no grant.", "status_asof": "2026-07", "services": [ "orbital-compute" ], "orbit_regimes": [ "LEO" ], "dual_use": "civil", "filing": { "authority": "FCC", "administration": "USA", "file_number": "SAT-LOA-20260202-00073", "src": "spacenews-starcloud-2026" }, "counts": { "launched": { "value": 1, "asof": "2026-07", "src": "spacenews-starcloud-2026", "note": "Starcloud-1, a 60 kg demonstrator carrying an NVIDIA H100, launched 2 November 2025. A second demonstrator was reported as planned for October 2026." }, "filed": { "value": 88000, "asof": "2026-03-13", "src": "spacenews-starcloud-2026", "note": "Requested in the application; nothing granted, so the whole figure is filed and none of it licensed." } }, "regulatory": [ { "authority": "FCC", "country": "US", "kind": "application", "file_number": "SAT-LOA-20260202-00073", "action": "pending", "date": "2026-02-02", "satellites": 88000, "scope": "Application to operate up to 88,000 orbital data centre satellites in a select set of narrow orbital shells between 600 and 850 km, each up to 50 km thick, in dusk-dawn sun-synchronous orbits. Requests Ka-band spectrum for telemetry, tracking and command on a non-interference basis only; bulk data movement is to rely on optical inter-satellite links to third-party broadband constellations. Accepted for filing 13 March 2026.", "src": "spacenews-starcloud-2026" } ], "shells": [ { "label": "proposed-sso-band", "status": "proposed", "geometry_kind": "sso-band", "code_status": "not-representable", "code_note": "The application describes a *band* of dusk-dawn sun-synchronous shells between 600 and 850 km, each up to 50 km thick, without a stated plane count, satellites-per-plane or phasing. Sun-synchronous orbits also require an altitude-dependent inclination that the code carries but does not constrain, and the local-time-of-ascending-node that makes an orbit \"dusk-dawn\" has no representation in the code at all. Nothing here is expressible as a Walker triple.", "src": "spacenews-starcloud-2026" } ], "spectrum": [ "Ka", "optical" ], "spectrum_detail": "Ka-band requested for TT&C on a non-interference basis. No service spectrum of its own: user data is to move over optical inter-satellite links to Starlink, Amazon Leo and Blue Origin TeraWave.", "isl": "optical", "isl_detail": "External dependency. The system as filed has no independent path to the ground for bulk data and relies on crosslinks into constellations operated by other companies, none of which has published an interconnection interface. This is a governance and interoperability question for the group as much as a technical one.", "first_launch": "2025-11-02", "sources": [ { "id": "spacenews-starcloud-2026", "grade": "secondary", "kind": "trade-press", "title": "SpaceNews, \"Starcloud files plans for 88,000-satellite constellation\" (reports ICFS SAT-LOA-20260202-00073, filed 2 February 2026, accepted for filing 13 March 2026)", "url": "https://spacenews.com/starcloud-files-plans-for-88000-satellite-constellation/", "date": "2026-03", "retrieved": "2026-07-29" }, { "id": "york-ietf126", "grade": "secondary", "kind": "presentation", "title": "Dan York (Internet Society), \"Beyond Starlink: Understanding the Coming Waves of LEO Satellite Deployments\", IRTF SPACE RG, IETF 126, Vienna", "url": "https://datatracker.ietf.org/meeting/126/materials/slides-126-space-york-beyond-starlink-understanding-the-coming-waves-of-leo-satellite-deployments-00", "date": "2026-07-21", "retrieved": "2026-07-29" } ], "discrepancies": [ { "field": "counts.filed", "claim": "88,000 satellites planned", "claimed_by": "york-ietf126", "registry_value": "88,000 requested; application pending, no grant", "note": "The figure agrees with the application as reported. The disagreement is about the axis, not the number: an accepted-for-filing application establishes a place in a processing round, not an authorisation. This record therefore contributes 88,000 to counts.filed and nothing to counts.licensed." } ], "notes": "Provenance gap: this record has no primary source. Everything except the demonstrator launch rests on one trade-press report of the FCC application. The application itself (ICFS SAT-LOA-20260202-00073) is public and should be read; the accepted-for-filing public notice would also be a primary source for the date. Until then every number here is secondary and the record should be read as such. Kept in the registry despite the weak provenance because orbital data centre filings are a large and fast-growing share of the aggregate satellite count, and because this system as filed depends entirely on other operators' optical crosslinks - which is exactly the kind of coupling the group should be able to see.", "added": "2026-07", "verified": "2026-07-29", "contributor": "Juan A. Fraire (Inria)" }, { "name": "Starlink Gen1", "slug": "starlink-gen1", "family": "starlink", "aka": [ "SpaceX NGSO Satellite System (first generation)", "Starlink Ku/Ka" ], "operator": "Space Exploration Holdings, LLC", "parent": "Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX)", "country": "US", "jurisdiction": [ "US" ], "system_class": "broadband", "status": "operational", "status_detail": "Fully deployed and in commercial service. The shells recorded here are the authorised configuration after the April 2021 third modification.", "status_asof": "2026-07", "services": [ "broadband" ], "orbit_regimes": [ "LEO" ], "dual_use": "civil", "filing": { "authority": "FCC", "administration": "USA", "file_number": "SAT-MOD-20200417-00037", "call_sign": "S2983", "document": "FCC 21-48", "src": "fcc-gen1-2021" }, "counts": { "licensed": { "value": 4408, "asof": "2021-04-27", "src": "fcc-gen1-2021" }, "filed": { "value": 4409, "asof": "2021-04-27", "src": "fcc-gen1-2021", "note": "The third modification requested, and the Commission granted, a reduction from 4,409 to 4,408. This is the rare case where the filed figure exceeds the licensed figure because the operator asked for less, not because the regulator granted less." } }, "regulatory": [ { "authority": "FCC", "country": "US", "kind": "license-grant", "document": "33 FCC Rcd 3391", "action": "granted", "date": 2018, "scope": "Original Gen1 authorisation for the Ku-/Ka-band NGSO system. Not read for this record; cited as it appears in DA 26-113.", "src": "fcc-odc-pn-2026" }, { "authority": "FCC", "country": "US", "kind": "modification", "file_number": "SAT-MOD-20200417-00037", "call_sign": "S2983", "document": "FCC 21-48", "action": "granted", "date": "2021-04-27", "satellites": 4408, "scope": "Third modification. Reduced the constellation from 4,409 to 4,408 satellites and moved 2,814 satellites from the 1,100-1,300 km range to the 540-570 km range, giving the five-shell configuration recorded below.", "src": "fcc-gen1-2021" }, { "authority": "FCC", "country": "US", "kind": "modification", "file_number": "SAT-MOD-20230215-00036", "action": "granted", "date": "2024-08-16", "scope": "Fourth modification. Not read for this record; cited as it appears in DA 26-113. The authorised geometry may have moved since FCC 21-48.", "src": "fcc-odc-pn-2026" }, { "authority": "FCC", "country": "US", "kind": "modification", "file_number": "SAT-MOD-20241104-00251", "action": "granted", "date": "2025-03-17", "scope": "\"Swarm modification\". Not read for this record; cited as it appears in DA 26-113.", "src": "fcc-odc-pn-2026" } ], "itu": [ { "administration": "NOR", "network_name": "STEAM-2", "stage": "notification", "date": "2025-10-01", "satellites": 1312, "src": "itu-ific-3062", "note": "Notified by NORWAY, not by the United States. Part I-S received 1 October 2025, published in BR IFIC 3062 on 6 January 2026, notice ID 125500188: 118 planes totalling 1,312 satellites, at 540 km / 53.2 deg (72 planes carrying one satellite each), 560 km / 97.6 deg (6 planes of 58 and 4 of 43) and 570 km / 70 deg (36 planes of 20)." }, { "administration": "NOR", "network_name": "STEAM-2B", "stage": "notification", "date": "2025-10-01", "satellites": 1584, "src": "itu-ific-3062", "note": "Part I-S, notice ID 125500189: 72 planes of 22 satellites at 550 km, 53 degrees. This is exactly the gen1-s1 shell below, which is the clearest correspondence in the registry between an FCC authorisation and an ITU notification." }, { "administration": "NOR", "network_name": "STEAM-1", "stage": "notification", "date": "2026-04-27", "src": "itu-snl-steam", "note": "API/A 9509 and CR/C 3739 received in 2014, the coordination request modified seven times through 2023, notification Part I-S from 2020 with one suppressed in February 2022, Part III-S in 2024 and 2025, and a further Part I-S received 27 April 2026 published in BR IFIC 3076 on 21 July 2026. Satellite counts for this network were not read." } ], "shells": [ { "label": "gen1-s1", "status": "deployed", "geometry_kind": "walker", "altitude_km": 550, "inclination_deg": 53.0, "planes": 72, "sats_per_plane": 22, "satellites": 1584, "walker": "D", "phasing": 39, "code": "D:550:53.0:1584/72/39", "code_status": "assumed-phasing", "code_assumptions": [ { "element": "phasing", "value": 39, "basis": "Not stated in FCC 21-48, which gives only altitude, inclination, plane count and satellites per plane. F=39 is the value in the example table of draft-piraux-space-constellation-code and in the LEO networking literature it draws on.", "src": "piraux-code-draft" }, { "element": "walker", "value": "D", "basis": "Inferred from a 53 deg inclination with uniform plane spacing. The filing does not use Walker terminology.", "src": "fcc-gen1-2021" } ], "code_src": "piraux-code-draft", "src": "fcc-gen1-2021" }, { "label": "gen1-s2", "status": "deployed", "geometry_kind": "walker", "altitude_km": 540, "inclination_deg": 53.2, "planes": 72, "sats_per_plane": 22, "satellites": 1584, "walker": "D", "code_status": "unknown", "code_note": "Phasing factor not published, and no literature value to borrow as there is for gen1-s1. No code emitted rather than a guessed one.", "src": "fcc-gen1-2021" }, { "label": "gen1-s3", "status": "deployed", "geometry_kind": "walker", "altitude_km": 570, "inclination_deg": 70.0, "planes": 36, "sats_per_plane": 20, "satellites": 720, "walker": "D", "code_status": "unknown", "src": "fcc-gen1-2021" }, { "label": "gen1-s4", "status": "deployed", "geometry_kind": "walker", "altitude_km": 560, "inclination_deg": 97.6, "planes": 6, "sats_per_plane": 58, "satellites": 348, "walker": "S", "code_status": "unknown", "src": "fcc-gen1-2021" }, { "label": "gen1-s5", "status": "deployed", "geometry_kind": "irregular", "altitude_km": 560, "inclination_deg": 97.6, "planes": 4, "sats_per_plane": 43, "satellites": 172, "walker": "S", "code_status": "not-representable", "code_note": "Same altitude and inclination as gen1-s4. The two are distinct plane groups within one physical shell; the code can only express them as two \"+\"-joined shells, which loses the fact that they share a shell. 58 and 43 satellites per plane in 6 and 4 planes respectively is also not a Walker pattern in any useful sense.", "src": "fcc-gen1-2021" } ], "spectrum": [ "Ku", "Ka" ], "spectrum_detail": "Ku- and Ka-band under the Gen1 authorisation. V-band capability was later folded into the Gen2 licence rather than a separate constellation.", "isl": "optical", "isl_detail": "Optical inter-satellite links from the v1.5 satellite onwards. DA 26-113 describes the result as a \"high capacity (petabit) and high reliability laser mesh\". Degree and per-link capacity are not in the filings.", "first_launch": "2019-05-24", "service_start": "2020-10", "launch": { "providers": [ "SpaceX" ], "vehicles": [ "Falcon 9" ], "src": "fcc-gen1-2021" }, "sources": [ { "id": "itu-snl-steam", "grade": "primary", "kind": "itu-filing", "title": "ITU Radiocommunication Bureau, Space Network List (SNL) Part B, filing histories for satellite networks STEAM-1 and STEAM-2 (notifying administration NOR)", "url": "https://www.itu.int/net/ITU-R/space/snl/bresult/radvance.asp?sel_satname=STEAM-2", "retrieved": "2026-07-29" }, { "id": "itu-ific-3062", "grade": "primary", "kind": "itu-publication", "title": "ITU BR IFIC (Space Services) No. 3062, non-GSO notice data for STEAM-2 (notice ID 125500188) and STEAM-2B (notice ID 125500189)", "url": "https://www.itu.int/sns/ific10/ific3062.zip", "date": "2026-01-06", "retrieved": "2026-07-29" }, { "id": "fcc-gen1-2021", "grade": "primary", "kind": "fcc-order", "title": "FCC, Memorandum Opinion, Order and Authorization, FCC 21-48 (SpaceX Gen1 third modification, ICFS SAT-MOD-20200417-00037)", "url": "https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/fcc-21-48a1.pdf", "date": "2021-04-27", "retrieved": "2026-07-29" }, { "id": "fcc-odc-pn-2026", "grade": "primary", "kind": "fcc-public-notice", "title": "FCC Space Bureau, Public Notice DA 26-113, \"SpaceX's application for Orbital Data Centers accepted for filing\" (cites the Gen1 authorisation and its later modifications)", "url": "https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DA-26-113A1.txt", "date": "2026-02-04", "retrieved": "2026-07-29" }, { "id": "piraux-code-draft", "grade": "secondary", "kind": "academic", "title": "draft-piraux-space-constellation-code-02, example table (Starlink shell 1 as D:550:53:1584/72/39)", "url": "https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-piraux-space-constellation-code/", "date": "2026-07", "retrieved": "2026-07-29" } ], "notes": "The ITU networks behind Starlink are notified by Norway, not the United States. SpaceX holds a US licence from the FCC and the international filings that carry its spectrum are made by the Norwegian administration under the names STEAM-1, STEAM-2 and STEAM-2B. Nothing improper about that, and it is common practice, but it means a reader looking for Starlink under \"USA\" in ITU records will not find it, and any jurisdiction-by-jurisdiction tally built from ITU data will attribute the largest constellation in orbit to Norway. This is the single most consequential thing found in the ITU pass. Provenance gap: two later modifications (SAT-MOD-20230215-00036, granted 2024-08-16, and SAT-MOD-20241104-00251, granted 2025-03-17) are recorded from a citation in DA 26-113 but have not been read. The authorised geometry may have changed since FCC 21-48, so the shells here are the 2021 configuration and are marked as such by their src. counts.launched is deliberately empty on this record: launch reporting does not distinguish Gen1 from Gen2 spacecraft, so a per-authorisation launched figure cannot be sourced. The family-level figure is on starlink-gen2.", "added": "2026-07", "verified": "2026-07-29", "contributor": "Juan A. Fraire (Inria)" }, { "name": "Starlink Gen2", "slug": "starlink-gen2", "family": "starlink", "aka": [ "SpaceX Gen2 NGSO Satellite System", "Starlink V2 / V3" ], "operator": "Space Exploration Holdings, LLC", "parent": "Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX)", "country": "US", "jurisdiction": [ "US" ], "system_class": "broadband", "status": "deploying", "status_detail": "Deploying under a partial grant. Authorised for 15,000 of the 29,988 satellites requested; the Commission has expressly deferred action on the remainder. Carries the direct-to-cell (supplemental coverage from space) service.", "status_asof": "2026-07", "services": [ "broadband", "direct-to-device" ], "orbit_regimes": [ "VLEO", "LEO" ], "dual_use": "civil", "filing": { "authority": "FCC", "administration": "USA", "file_number": "SAT-LOA-20200526-00055", "call_sign": "S2992/3069", "document": "DA 26-36", "src": "fcc-gen2-2026" }, "counts": { "launched": { "value": 12612, "asof": "2026-07", "src": "york-ietf126", "note": "Family-level figure: cumulative Starlink launches across Gen1 and Gen2, including deorbited and failed spacecraft. Launch reporting does not split the two authorisations, so this cannot be attributed to Gen2 alone. Recorded here rather than duplicated on starlink-gen1." }, "licensed": { "value": 15000, "asof": "2026-01-09", "src": "fcc-gen2-2026", "breakdown": [ { "label": "First partial grant (525/530/535 km)", "value": 7500, "src": "fcc-gen2-2022" }, { "label": "Second tranche", "value": 7500, "src": "fcc-gen2-2026" } ] }, "filed": { "value": 29988, "asof": "2022-12-01", "src": "fcc-gen2-2022", "note": "SpaceX's preferred configuration as applied for: 29,988 satellites at altitudes from 340 km to 614 km. 14,988 of these remain deferred." } }, "regulatory": [ { "authority": "FCC", "country": "US", "kind": "application", "file_number": "SAT-LOA-20200526-00055", "action": "pending", "date": "2020-05-26", "satellites": 29988, "scope": "Gen2 application, as amended by SAT-AMD-20210818-00105. 29,988 satellites at altitudes from 340 km to 614 km.", "src": "fcc-gen2-2022" }, { "authority": "FCC", "country": "US", "kind": "license-grant", "file_number": "SAT-LOA-20200526-00055", "call_sign": "S3069", "document": "FCC 22-91", "action": "granted-in-part", "date": "2022-12-01", "satellites": 7500, "scope": "First partial grant: 7,500 satellites at 525 km / 53 deg, 530 km / 43 deg and 535 km / 33 deg, roughly a quarter of the request. Action on the remainder deferred.", "milestones": [ { "fraction": 0.5, "count": 3750, "due": "2028-12-01", "status": "pending" }, { "fraction": 1.0, "count": 7500, "due": "2031-12-01", "status": "pending" } ], "src": "fcc-gen2-2022" }, { "authority": "FCC", "country": "US", "kind": "license-grant", "file_number": "SAT-LOA-20200526-00055", "call_sign": "S2992/3069", "document": "DA 26-36", "action": "granted-in-part", "date": "2026-01-09", "satellites": 15000, "scope": "Authorisation and Order on the Gen2 upgrade modification and amendment (SAT-MOD-20241011-00224, SAT-AMD-20241017-00228). Authorises a second tranche of 7,500 satellites for a total of 15,000; upgrades the satellite form factor; adds Ku-, Ka-, V- and W-band frequencies and MSS as well as FSS in certain bands; adds orbital shells and lowers the satellites at 525, 530 and 535 km into new shells; permits flexible deployment across authorised shells. Requests for MSS outside the US in 1429-2690 MHz and for 20.2-21.2 and 30.0-31.0 GHz, and for satellites beyond 15,000, are deferred.", "src": "fcc-gen2-2026" } ], "shells": [ { "label": "gen2-first-grant", "status": "superseded", "geometry_kind": "irregular", "code_status": "not-representable", "code_note": "The December 2022 partial grant authorised 7,500 satellites across three shells at 525 km / 53 deg, 530 km / 43 deg and 535 km / 33 deg without stating a plane count or per-plane population, so no (T, P, F) triple exists. DA 26-36 subsequently authorised lowering these satellites into the 475-485 km shells.", "src": "fcc-gen2-2022" }, { "label": "gen2-lower-72x144", "status": "authorised", "geometry_kind": "envelope", "max_planes": 72, "max_sats_per_plane": 144, "code_status": "not-representable", "code_note": "Applies to the shells centred at 340 km / 53 deg, 345 km / 48 deg, 350 km / 38 deg, 355 km / 43 deg and 365 km / 28 or 32 deg. DA 26-36 authorises up to 72 planes per shell with up to 144 satellites per plane, and separately permits SpaceX to \"deploy satellites flexibly across authorized orbital shells to meet customer demands\". There is no single (T, P, F) triple for any of these shells, and no fixed allocation of the 15,000 satellites among them: the licence describes a feasible set.", "src": "fcc-gen2-2026" }, { "label": "gen2-mid-56x120", "status": "authorised", "geometry_kind": "envelope", "max_planes": 56, "max_sats_per_plane": 120, "code_status": "not-representable", "code_note": "Applies to the shells centred at 480 km / 53 deg and 485 km / 43 deg. Up to 56 planes per shell with up to 120 satellites per plane.", "src": "fcc-gen2-2026" }, { "label": "gen2-other-authorised", "status": "authorised", "geometry_kind": "unknown", "code_status": "not-representable", "code_note": "DA 26-36 also authorises shells at 360 km / 96.9 deg and 475 km / 28 or 32 deg, and continued operation at 525 km / 53 deg, 530 km / 43 deg and 535 km / 33 deg pending lowering. The order's plane/per-plane footnote does not cover these, so even the envelope is unstated. The 365 km and 475 km inclinations are themselves conditional: 32 deg if the FAA permits Starship launches from Boca Chica at that inclination, 28 deg otherwise.", "src": "fcc-gen2-2026" } ], "spectrum": [ "Ku", "Ka", "V", "W" ], "spectrum_detail": "Ku-, Ka-, V- and W-band per DA 26-36, plus 1980-2000 MHz and 2000-2020 MHz (Earth-to-space) and 2180-2200 MHz (space-to-Earth) outside the United States for up to 7,500 satellites. Requests for 20.2-21.2 GHz and 30.0-31.0 GHz were deferred.", "isl": "optical", "isl_detail": "Optical inter-satellite links on all Gen2 satellites, forming the laser mesh that DA 26-113 describes as petabit-capacity. Not specified in the grant.", "target_completion": "2031-12-01", "target_completion_kind": "regulatory-milestone", "launch": { "providers": [ "SpaceX" ], "vehicles": [ "Falcon 9", "Starship" ], "src": "fcc-gen2-2026" }, "sources": [ { "id": "fcc-gen2-2022", "grade": "primary", "kind": "fcc-order", "title": "FCC, Order and Authorization, FCC 22-91 (SpaceX Gen2 NGSO system, first partial grant, ICFS SAT-LOA-20200526-00055 and SAT-AMD-20210818-00105)", "url": "https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-22-91A1.pdf", "date": "2022-12-01", "retrieved": "2026-07-29" }, { "id": "fcc-gen2-2026", "grade": "primary", "kind": "fcc-order", "title": "FCC Space Bureau, Authorization and Order, DA 26-36 (SpaceX Gen2 upgrade modification and second tranche of 7,500 satellites)", "url": "https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DA-26-36A1.pdf", "date": "2026-01-09", "retrieved": "2026-07-29" }, { "id": "york-ietf126", "grade": "secondary", "kind": "presentation", "title": "Dan York (Internet Society), \"Beyond Starlink: Understanding the Coming Waves of LEO Satellite Deployments\", IRTF SPACE RG, IETF 126, Vienna", "url": "https://datatracker.ietf.org/meeting/126/materials/slides-126-space-york-beyond-starlink-understanding-the-coming-waves-of-leo-satellite-deployments-00", "date": "2026-07-21", "retrieved": "2026-07-29" } ], "discrepancies": [ { "field": "counts.licensed", "claim": "34,864 satellites planned (Starlink)", "claimed_by": "york-ietf126", "registry_value": "Gen1 4,408 licensed; Gen2 15,000 licensed of 29,988 filed. Family totals: 19,408 licensed, 34,396 filed.", "note": "The slide aggregates the Gen1 authorisation with the full Gen2 *request* rather than the Gen2 grant, and presents the result in a column labelled \"satellites planned\". 4,408 + 29,988 = 34,396, which is 468 short of the slide figure; the residual is unexplained. As of DA 26-36 the FCC has authorised 15,000 Gen2 satellites and expressly deferred action on the remaining 14,988." } ], "notes": "The ITU networks behind Starlink (STEAM-1, STEAM-2, STEAM-2B) are notified by Norway, not the United States; the shells declared in the most recent STEAM-2 notification match the Gen1 authorisation rather than this one, so the ITU detail is recorded on starlink-gen1. No ITU network has yet been identified that corresponds specifically to the Gen2 authorisation, which is itself worth resolving. This record is the registry's worked example of an envelope authorisation. Three of its four shell entries are geometry_kind envelope or unknown and emit no constellation code, because DA 26-36 bounds the geometry rather than fixing it and lets SpaceX redistribute satellites between shells. Any simulator that wants a concrete Gen2 topology must choose one point in that feasible set, and should say which.", "added": "2026-07", "verified": "2026-07-29", "contributor": "Juan A. Fraire (Inria)" }, { "name": "Starlink Gen3", "slug": "starlink-gen3", "family": "starlink", "aka": [ "SpaceX third-generation Starlink system" ], "operator": "Space Exploration Holdings, LLC", "parent": "Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX)", "country": "US", "jurisdiction": [ "US" ], "system_class": "broadband", "status": "filed", "status_detail": "Application filed 6 July 2026; no grant. Nothing launched under this authorisation. Deployment is predicated on Starship reaching operational cadence at roughly 2,000 kg per satellite.", "status_asof": "2026-07", "services": [ "broadband" ], "orbit_regimes": [ "VLEO" ], "dual_use": "civil", "filing": { "authority": "FCC", "administration": "USA", "file_number": "SAT-LOA-20260630-00264", "src": "viasat-gen3-2026" }, "counts": { "filed": { "value": 100000, "asof": "2026-07-06", "src": "viasat-gen3-2026" } }, "regulatory": [ { "authority": "FCC", "country": "US", "kind": "application", "file_number": "SAT-LOA-20260630-00264", "action": "pending", "date": "2026-07-06", "satellites": 100000, "scope": "Application for up to 100,000 third-generation satellites in two groups of very low Earth orbit shells, reported as 323-327.5 km and 473-477.5 km, using the Ku-, Ka-, V- and E-band spectrum granted for Gen2 plus new requests in W- and D-band between 92 and 275 GHz.", "src": "viasat-gen3-2026" } ], "shells": [ { "label": "gen3-vleo-323", "status": "proposed", "geometry_kind": "unknown", "code_status": "unknown", "code_note": "Reported altitude band 323-327.5 km. No inclination, plane count or per-plane population has been traced to a source good enough to record.", "src": "viasat-gen3-2026" }, { "label": "gen3-vleo-473", "status": "proposed", "geometry_kind": "unknown", "code_status": "unknown", "code_note": "Reported altitude band 473-477.5 km. Geometry otherwise unknown.", "src": "viasat-gen3-2026" } ], "spectrum": [ "Ku", "Ka", "V", "E", "W", "D" ], "spectrum_detail": "Reported as reusing the Ku/Ka/V/E-band spectrum granted for Gen2, plus greenfield W- and D-band requests between 92 and 275 GHz. Not verified against the application.", "sat_mass_kg": 2000, "launch": { "providers": [ "SpaceX" ], "vehicles": [ "Starship" ], "cadence": "At roughly 2,000 kg per satellite, 100,000 satellites is on the order of 200,000 tonnes to orbit. The feasibility question is entirely a launch question.", "src": "york-ietf126" }, "sources": [ { "id": "viasat-gen3-2026", "grade": "secondary", "kind": "trade-press", "title": "Via Satellite, \"SpaceX Files for 100,000-Satellite Gen-3 Constellation\" (reports ICFS SAT-LOA-20260630-00264, filed 6 July 2026)", "url": "https://www.satellitetoday.com/connectivity/2026/07/09/spacex-files-for-100000-satellite-gen-3-constellation/", "date": "2026-07-09", "retrieved": "2026-07-29" }, { "id": "york-ietf126", "grade": "secondary", "kind": "presentation", "title": "Dan York (Internet Society), \"Beyond Starlink: Understanding the Coming Waves of LEO Satellite Deployments\", IRTF SPACE RG, IETF 126, Vienna", "url": "https://datatracker.ietf.org/meeting/126/materials/slides-126-space-york-beyond-starlink-understanding-the-coming-waves-of-leo-satellite-deployments-00", "date": "2026-07-21", "retrieved": "2026-07-29" } ], "discrepancies": [ { "field": "status", "claim": "100,000 satellites planned", "claimed_by": "york-ietf126", "registry_value": "100,000 requested; application pending, not granted", "note": "The deck is explicit in its own small print that the filing is not yet approved, which is to its credit. The registry keeps the distinction structural rather than parenthetical: this record contributes 100,000 to counts.filed and nothing to counts.licensed." } ], "notes": "Provenance gap: this record has no primary source. The file number, satellite count, altitude bands and spectrum all come from trade press. The application is public in ICFS and should be read; doing so would also settle whether the request is for a genuinely new system or an amendment of the Gen2 authorisation, which changes how the 100,000 should be aggregated.", "added": "2026-07", "verified": "2026-07-29", "contributor": "Juan A. Fraire (Inria)" }, { "name": "Starshield", "slug": "starshield", "family": "starshield", "aka": [ "NRO proliferated architecture (SpaceX-built element)" ], "operator": "Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX)", "parent": "Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX)", "country": "US", "jurisdiction": [ "US" ], "system_class": "government-military", "status": "deploying", "status_detail": "Satellites are launching regularly on dedicated NRO missions, but the system has no public authorisation, no published constellation size and no published geometry. Status is inferred from launch reporting alone.", "status_asof": "2026-07", "services": [ "government-secure", "military", "relay" ], "orbit_regimes": [ "LEO" ], "dual_use": "military", "filing_absent": "No public FCC or ITU filing identifies this system. It is procured and operated under US government contracts, principally for the National Reconnaissance Office's proliferated architecture, and US federal government spectrum use is coordinated through NTIA rather than licensed by the FCC, so no ICFS docket exists to point at. Everything in this record therefore rests on launch reporting and catalogue observation. This is a structural provenance limit, not an oversight, and it applies to classified systems in every jurisdiction.", "counts": { "launched": { "value": 245, "asof": "2026-07", "src": "york-ietf126" }, "announced": { "value": 1600, "asof": "2026-07", "src": "york-ietf126", "note": "Recorded as announced rather than filed or licensed because no filing has been identified that states a constellation size. The figure is widely reported but not traceable to a document." } }, "isl": "optical", "isl_detail": "Reported to use the same optical inter-satellite link hardware as Starlink and to interoperate with the Starlink laser mesh. Not verifiable from a public document.", "sources": [ { "id": "york-ietf126", "grade": "secondary", "kind": "presentation", "title": "Dan York (Internet Society), \"Beyond Starlink: Understanding the Coming Waves of LEO Satellite Deployments\", IRTF SPACE RG, IETF 126, Vienna", "url": "https://datatracker.ietf.org/meeting/126/materials/slides-126-space-york-beyond-starlink-understanding-the-coming-waves-of-leo-satellite-deployments-00", "date": "2026-07-21", "retrieved": "2026-07-29" } ], "notes": "Kept in the registry with almost every field empty on purpose. A government constellation of this size is a real consumer of orbital shells and spectrum and a real contributor to conjunction and coordination load, and omitting it because it is undocumented would understate the picture in exactly the direction that is hardest to notice. What the record contributes is the fact, stated in filing_absent, that no public filing exists. Possible future primary sources: the UN Register of Objects Launched into Outer Space (treaty-registry) gives launch-by-launch registrations with orbital parameters, and NTIA spectrum certification records are partially public. Neither has been checked.", "added": "2026-07", "verified": "2026-07-29", "contributor": "Juan A. Fraire (Inria)" }, { "name": "Telesat Lightspeed", "slug": "telesat-lightspeed", "family": "telesat-lightspeed", "aka": [ "Telesat LEO" ], "operator": "Telesat Canada", "parent": "Telesat Corporation", "country": "CA", "jurisdiction": [ "CA", "US" ], "system_class": "broadband", "status": "licensed", "status_detail": "Authorised by ISED in Canada, with US market access granted separately by the FCC. 198 satellites contracted from MDA in August 2023, down from an earlier 298. Telesat has stated it will not meet the current ISED milestones and intends to seek an amendment. Nothing launched.", "status_asof": "2026-07", "services": [ "broadband", "backhaul", "government-secure" ], "orbit_regimes": [ "LEO" ], "dual_use": "dual", "filing": { "authority": "ISED", "administration": "CAN", "document": "ISED NGSO authorisation for the Telesat Lightspeed constellation (identifier not retrieved)", "src": "telesat-20f-2023", "note": "The Canadian authorisation is referenced in Telesat's own annual report but its docket identifier has not been retrieved, and ISED does not publish satellite authorisations in a searchable docket comparable to the FCC's ICFS. The FCC market access grant is a separate act and is recorded under regulatory: below." }, "counts": { "announced": { "value": 198, "asof": "2023-08", "src": "telesat-mda-2023", "note": "Satellites contracted from MDA, reduced from an earlier 298. Recorded as announced rather than licensed because the number authorised by ISED has not been retrieved and may differ from the number ordered." } }, "regulatory": [ { "authority": "FCC", "country": "US", "kind": "license-grant", "action": "granted", "scope": "US market access for the Telesat Canada NGSO constellation, granted by declaratory ruling. Date and document number not retrieved; a separate petition covers Telesat's V-band constellation.", "src": "fcc-telesat-market-access" }, { "authority": "ISED", "country": "CA", "kind": "license-grant", "action": "granted", "scope": "Canadian authorisation with deployment milestones that Telesat has stated it will not meet and intends to seek to amend.", "src": "telesat-20f-2023" } ], "shells": [ { "label": "lightspeed", "status": "authorised", "geometry_kind": "unknown", "code_status": "unknown", "code_note": "Polar and inclined shells are described in secondary sources but no altitude, inclination, plane count or per-plane population has been traced to a source good enough to record. Left empty rather than guessed.", "src": "telesat-mda-2023" } ], "spectrum": [ "Ka", "V" ], "spectrum_detail": "Ka-band primary, with a separate V-band constellation petition at the FCC. Mil-Ka defence spectrum reported as being added. Ranges not recorded.", "isl": "optical", "isl_detail": "Optical inter-satellite links; parameters not recorded.", "target_completion": 2028, "target_completion_kind": "operator-target", "sources": [ { "id": "telesat-mda-2023", "grade": "secondary", "kind": "operator-web", "title": "Telesat press release, \"Telesat Contracts MDA as Prime Satellite Manufacturer for Its Advanced Telesat Lightspeed Low Earth Orbit Constellation\" (198 satellites, ~USD 2.1bn)", "url": "https://www.telesat.com/press/press-releases/telesat-contracts-mda-as-prime-satellite-manufacturer-for-its-advanced-telesat-lightspeed-low-earth-orbit-constellation/", "date": "2023-08", "retrieved": "2026-07-29" }, { "id": "telesat-20f-2023", "grade": "secondary", "kind": "operator-web", "title": "Telesat Corporation, Form 20-F for fiscal year 2023 (US SEC), on ISED regulation of the Lightspeed constellation and the intention to seek amended milestones", "url": "https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0001845840/000121390024026869/f20f2023_telesatcorp.htm", "date": 2024, "retrieved": "2026-07-29" }, { "id": "fcc-telesat-market-access", "grade": "primary", "kind": "fcc-order", "title": "FCC, \"FCC Grants Market Access for Telesat Canada NGSO Constellation\"", "url": "https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-grants-market-access-telesat-canada-ngso-constellation", "retrieved": "2026-07-29" }, { "id": "york-ietf126", "grade": "secondary", "kind": "presentation", "title": "Dan York (Internet Society), \"Beyond Starlink: Understanding the Coming Waves of LEO Satellite Deployments\", IRTF SPACE RG, IETF 126, Vienna", "url": "https://datatracker.ietf.org/meeting/126/materials/slides-126-space-york-beyond-starlink-understanding-the-coming-waves-of-leo-satellite-deployments-00", "date": "2026-07-21", "retrieved": "2026-07-29" } ], "discrepancies": [ { "field": "counts.announced", "claim": "198? 300? 1,600?", "claimed_by": "york-ietf126", "registry_value": "198 contracted (2023); no authorised figure retrieved", "note": "The deck records three candidate figures with question marks, which is an honest way to present an unresolved number and worth saying so. This registry can partly resolve it: 198 is the number contracted from MDA in August 2023, down from an earlier plan of 298 (probably the \"300\"). The 1,600 appears to be a much earlier ambition. What none of these is, yet, is an authorised figure." } ], "notes": "Provenance gap: this record has no usable primary source for its counts. The FCC market access grant is cited by landing page rather than by document number and has not been read, and the ISED authorisation has not been located at all. This record is the registry's worked example of the non-US-but-Western jurisdiction problem, which sits between the FCC case and the Chinese case: the authorisation certainly exists and is not secret, but it is not published in a form that can be cited, so the best available evidence is the operator's own reporting. Any contributor with ISED experience could close this quickly.", "added": "2026-07", "verified": "2026-07-29", "contributor": "Juan A. Fraire (Inria)" } ]