The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) agreed today to open a comprehensive review of satellite licensing and operating procedures.  The most recent wholesale review was in 1996.

The FCC oversees use of the radio frequency spectrum by the private sector, including assignment of specific frequencies to satellites and their associated ground stations and, in the case of geostationary communications satellites, orbital locations.  The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) in the Department of Commerce serves that role for government users.

At a meeting today, the five FCC commissioners adopted a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) to review the entirety of its “Part 25” rules.  The FCC said it would “eliminate unnecessary technical and information filing requirements, update rules to better accommodate evolving technology, and simplify existing requirements.”   In the end, it said, satellite licensees would have “the flexibility to provide innovative services while ensuring an operating environment free from harmful interference.”

Comments on the NPRM are due 45 days after it is published in the Federal Register.   Reply comments are due 30 days thereafter.

FCC Chair Julius Genachowski said that since the FCC licensed the first communications satellite in 1962, the U.S. satellite industry “has become a crucial piece of our communications ecosystem, employing almost 240,000 Americans and earning more than $175 billion in global revenues in 2011.”

The Satellite Industry Association (SIA), which represents many of the major companies involved in the satellite business, praised the FCC’s action. SIA President Patricia Cooper said SIA would be an “active participant” in the review and that an updated regulatory environment is “vital to the robust innovation and investment that are hallmarks of the satellite sector.”

It is not clear whether the FCC’s decision is at all related to fallout from the LightSquared controversy.  The FCC was harshly criticized after granting provisional approval to LightSquared to operate a hybrid satellite-terrestrial wireless mobile broadband communications system.   Critics said it would create interference with Global Positioning System (GPS) receivers and the FCC conditioned its approval on resolution of those concerns.   It required LightSquared to create a joint technical working group with industry to perform tests.   Following those tests, many sharply critical congressional hearings, other reviews by an interagency GPS executive committee, and a letter from NTIA saying LightSquared “will impact GPS services and … there is no practical way to mitigate the potential interference at this time,” the FCC withdrew the conditional permission in February 2012.  Just last week, yet another congressional hearing was held.  Ironically, this hearing, coming months after LightSquared had to declare bankruptcy, was sympathetic to the company, but remained critical of the FCC — this time for withdrawing the conditional approval instead of for granting it. 

After two successful practice jumps earlier this year, daredevil Felix Baumgartner is set to complete what his team hopes will be a triple record-breaking jump from “the edge of space” on October 8, according to sponsor Red Bull Stratos.

To prepare for his attempt to be the first human to break the speed of sound in freefall from a high altitude balloon at 120,000 feet, Baumgartner completed two practice jumps: the first from 71,500 feet and, last July, from 96,640 feet. Both tests were successful and helped pave the way for what Red Bull Stratos is calling a commercial “spaceflight” jump from “the edge of space”.

In addition to setting several new records, including longest freefall, the stunt aims to contribute medical and scientific data that could support future human spaceflight missions. If successful, Baumgartner will also give an end to a process that has been in the making for almost two years.

NASA and SpaceX have set October 7, 2012 as the first operational launch of the Dragon capsule to the International Space Station (ISS) as part of the Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) contract.

SpaceX completed a final test flight of its Dragon capsule aboard its Falcon 9 launch vehicle in May, opening the way to 12 contracted operational flights over the next three years.

NASA and SpaceX jointly fund this “commercial cargo” program as a public-private partnership to take cargo to the ISS.   NASA does not have its own capability to send cargo — or crews — to the ISS since the space shuttle program was terminated last year.

Launch of this mission, designated CRS-1, is scheduled for 8:34 am ET from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.  A backup launch date is October 8.  Dragon will take about 1,000 pounds of supplies to the ISS crew and return 734 pounds of results from scientific experiments plus 504 pounds of space station hardware to Earth.

Vice Adm. Joe Dyer (Ret.), chair of the NASA’s Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel (ASAP), told a House committee on Friday that he worries NASA has put “the cart before the horse” in its commercial crew acquisition strategy.  Meanwhile, NASA’s Bill Gerstenmaier acknowledged that 80-90 percent of the funding for “commercial” crew is from the government, not the companies.

Dyer and members of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee continued to hammer home concerns that the method by which NASA is working with private sector companies in developing commercial systems to take people to and from the International Space Station (ISS) may not keep safety as a paramount criterion.

ASAP was created by law following the 1967 Apollo 204 fire that killed the first Apollo crew — Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee.  For the past 45 years, its primary focus has been safety at NASA.  Stressing that ASAP is not trying to say “how safe is safe enough,” Dyer explained that his panel instead is focused on pointing out “where we believe the stated requirement may not produce the requisite safety.”  At the beginning of the space shuttle program, he said, NASA thought the risk of losing a crew was one in a thousand;  “Retrospectively, we now think that it is one in 12.”   With that in mind, Dyer asked, is NASA setting the bar high enough with a design goal of one in 270 for a specific commercial crew mission?

NASA’s decision to use Space Act Agreements (SAAs) instead of traditional contracts governed by Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR) is the source of safety concerns by both ASAP and House committee members.   In his written statement, Dyer said that using SAAs has brought the agency to a point where “designs … are maturing before requirements, and where government and industry have not yet agreed on how winning designs will be accepted and certified.  We worry that the cart is before the horse.”

A key point he stressed was the difficulties in how NASA and the companies communicate with each other under SAAs versus FAR-based contracts.   The companies “pose specific questions about what NASA will eventually require … but NASA interprets [SAAs] that they cannot provide the answers … under the SAA construct.”  When ASAP asked the companies what they do in that case, Dyer told the committee, they responded that they “look for nonverbal communications … winks and nods.”   As a congressionally chartered panel that oversees safety at NASA, Dyer said, ASAP finds that is “not a comfortable communications approach,” calling it one of the “downsides” of SAAs that FAR-based contracts could resolve.

Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA’s Associate Administrator for Human Exploration and Operations, who is in charge of the commercial crew program, assured the committee that NASA will take the views of outside advisors into consideration adding that NASA had just issued a white paper describing how the agency will certify the commercial crew designs and “ensure the safety of the requirements that are in place.”  HIs testimony, however, focused on the need to get a crew transportation system built as a backup to Russia’s Soyuz system.  

With the termination of the space shuttle program last year, Soyuz is the only way to take crews to and from the ISS.  Soyuz also serves as the only “lifeboat” for the ISS crews to return them to Earth in an emergency.  “We need redundant crew transportation and rescue capability as soon as possible,” Gerstenmaier said.   NASA will be dependent on Soyuz for some years to come, however, and will need another waiver from the Iran-North Korea-Syria Nonproliferation Act (INKSNA) to buy crew transportation and lifeboat services from Russia after mid-2016. Gerstenmaier said at a hearing a year ago that NASA would need another INKSNA waiver in late 2012 or early 2013, but the Obama Administration has not yet sent a request to Congress for that waiver.   At this hearing, he said again that “we need it in the spring of next year” and NASA is working internally within the administration on the request.

A system to take crews beyond low Earth orbit — the Space Launch System (SLS)/Orion combination — also is needed, Gerstenmaier said.  He stressed that commercial crew and SLS/Orion are connected to each other, even though the committee held a separate hearing on SLS/Orion earlier in the week.   Developing both simultaneously is a “challenge” in the current budgetary environment and we “need to look at these programs supporting each other and, ultimately, the human spaceflight for the nation.” 

Regarding the extent to which “commercial” crew means that the companies are investing their own monies instead of the government footing the bill, Gerstenmaier agreed witih Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) that the government is paying the largest share.  Smith asked if his understanding was correct that 80-90 percent of the funds were from the government.  Gerstenmaier replied “I would say the — yes, it’s — the majority of the funding is coming from NASA for this activity.”  He said there could be a long discussion about what the term “commercial” means in this context, but “the way I look at it is, I would not use that term specifically.  But what we’re doing is, we’re getting a contribution from the contractors to help in this activity because they believe there’s another market out there.  If you want to pin the term ‘commercial’ on that, you can pin the term.  But the facts are what I described.”

Committee members seemed generally unpersuaded that the SAA approach would be successful in producing a cost effective system that would be as safe as a system procured under traditional FAR-based contracts.   Rep. Donna Edwards (D-MD) said she was “puzzled, and a little bit frustrated, that NASA appears to be unable or unwilling to acknowledge the warning signs that this major program is not on a firm path to success at present.”

A webcast of the hearing is available on the committee’s website along with the prepared statements of the witnesses.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA’s) Advisory Committee on Commercial Remote Sensing (ACCRES) will meet on Monday for the first time in almost three years.   A notice of the meeting was posted in today’s Federal Register.

According to the ACCRES website, its last meeting was in October 2009.  NOAA renewed its charter in March 2012 and its current chair is Kevin O’Connell, President and CEO of Innovative Analytics and Training. 

In addition to Kevin O’Connell, the ACCRES website lists these other members and their affiliations. 

• Matthew O’Connell, President, CEO and Director, GeoEye
• David Gorney, Vice President, Space Program Operations, The Aerospace Corp.
• Joseph Fuller, President and CEO, Futron Corp.
• Thomas Ingersoll, CEO, Skybox Imaging
• Michael Jones, Chief Technology Officer, Google Earth
• Jeffrey Tarr, President and CEO, DigitalGlobe
• Joanne Gabrynowicz, Director, National Center for Remote Sensing, Air, and Space Law, University of Mississippi
• Scott Pace, Director, Space Policy Institute, George Washington University
• Roberta Lenczowski, President, American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing
• Benjamin Malphrus, Chair, Dept. of Earth and Space Sciences, Morehead State University
• Michael Triller, GEOINT Systems, North Grumman Corp. Aerospace Systems
• Herbert Satterlee, CEO, MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates Information Systems, Inc.

The website also lists former GeoEye President Jill Smith as a member, but NOAA acknowledges that is an error.   Jeffrey Tarr replaced Smith as GeoEye president in April 2011 and is a member of ACCRES.

DigitalGlobe and GeoEye announced plans to merge in July 2012 as the Department of Defense (DOD) indicated it would sharply reduce its payments to the companies under the EnhancedView contract.  Both are heavily dependent on government payments through EnhancedView and its predecessor contracts via the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA).

Companies that want to provide commercial satelite imagery must obtain a license from NOAA first to make certain they are in compliance with various laws and policies put in place over the past 20 years.

ACCRES advises NOAA on its implementation of those laws and policies and is a “forum for the discussion of issues involving the relationship between industry activities and Govrnment policies, programs, and regulatory requirements.”   The Federal Register notice says only that the September 24 meeting includes a presentation on updates of NOAA’s licensing activities and that ACCRES will receive public comments on its activities.  The meeting is in NOAA’s auditorium at 1301 East West Highway, Silver Spring, MD from 1:00-4:00 pm ET.