FCC proposes new bureau for space activities – Jeff Foust

On November 3rs the FCC announced its plans to separate space out of its international Bureau and have it as its own Office, the Space Bureau. For those who don’t know the FCC regulates licenses for US based commercial satellites. Separating Space into its own bureau shows that the FCC is starting to understand about how massive commercial space is, and how much bigger it can get.

Its also worth noting that the FCC will help champion US interested at the WRC (world radiocommunication conference) next year. This conference is hug because it divides up spectrum usage for satellites. In 1992 Iridium got their spectrum usage approved through weeks of negotiations with countries, and having a vote while the representatives from Pakistan were asleep at their desks.

Spectrum usage has only gotten more complicated, and with advances of using higher frequencies many countries will be competing for their preferred spectrum use. Having a unified FCC should help deconflict, but also register what others are using. Unorganized, or un regulated spectrum use could result in inadvertently Jamming others. And depending on who you are jamming it could get messy.