FCC Authorizes New NGSO Satellite System
Several years ago, there were several companies who wanted to use the Ku-band in operating non-geosynchronous satellites (NGSO’s), causing an uproar among established GEO operators at the time. As proposed, they’d interfere with high-value satellite services around the world. That wasn’t gonna happen.
Most of those interference issues were resolved via an agreement at the ITU. Now, via Doug Lung’s RF Report, we see the FCC authorizing one of those original applicants:
The commission allowed Virtual Geosatellite LLC to begin building a non-geostationary satellite system that will use a network of satellites with highly elliptical orbits. The system is composed of three sub-constellations, each with five satellites. Two of the sub-constellations track the Earth’s northern hemisphere and the third tracks the southern hemisphere. Each sub-constellation will have one spare satellite. To eliminate interference with satellites in geostationary orbits and terrestrial microwave systems using the same frequency band, Virtual Geo terminals and gateway stations will communicate with the satellites only when the satellites are above a certain elevation angle and the satellites in each sub-constellation will actively communicate with earth stations only when they are at an orbital position that is at a latitude greater than 45 degrees away from the equator in their respective operating hemisphere.
Virtual Geo was allowed to use 5925-6725 MHz, 12.75-13.25 GHz and 13.8-14.5 GHz for uplinks and 3700-4200 MHz and 10.7-12.7 GHz for downlinks. User-to-satellite links will use the 14.0-14.5 GHz band and satellite-to-user links will use 11.2-11.7 GHz.
