2022-02-10 Filings re: FCC Permit for SpaceX 30K Satellites

On February 8, 2022, BBILAN and our close affiliate, The Balance Group, filed two documents with the FCC in response to its Public Notification for Comment on the FCC’s contemplated blanket license to SpaceX for another ~30,000 Starlink Gen2 low orbit non-geostationary satellites.
BBILAN Letter to FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel
The Balance Group Filing (Comment + attachments)

As stated in our filing, the FCC’s arbitrary approval of the greatest elevation modification in history, which is now being litigated in federal court (Viasat v FCC/SpaceX), was a tipping point. The SpaceX proposal (first applied for in May, 2020) will massively increase the risks, as summarized in BBILAN’s letter to Jessica Rosenworcel, FCC’s present Chair. Together the two filings set out a reasonable and balanced pathway, with practical next steps for the Biden Administration, in cooperation with other countries launching satellites, to encourage private innovative initiative, while safeguarding the International Public Trust in the Heavens. The first step is for the FCC or President Biden to announce a 180-Day Pause on all new satellite and base/earth station licenses, pending an inter-agency review and the production of a Comprehensive Programmatic Risk Assessment and Environmental Impact Statement, as required by federal law.

By chance or synchronicity, we note following Feb. 9, 2022 news report:

“CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — SpaceX’s newest fleet of satellites is tumbling out of orbit after being struck by a solar storm. Up to 40 of the 49 small satellites launched last week have either reentered the atmosphere and burned up, or are on the verge of doing so, the company said in an online update Tuesday night.”

There is a line from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar that seems apt:

"The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars / But in ourselves, that we are underlings.” (Act I, Scene III, L. 140-141)

BBILAN/Healthy Heavens Trust Initiative/The Balance Group are now entering a complex multilateral negotiation with key stakeholders in the federal government, Congress, the space industry, and international organizations to tilt the entire Space Experiment toward greater sanity, reason, and balance — to direct entrepreneurial and innovative genius toward its highest and best potential on behalf of all humankind, and our increasingly fragile and vulnerable planet.