Where's the beef? (7/27/22)

Good morning. There's enough beef in today's newsletter to make any Wendy's marketer proud.

In today's newsletter:👋 Russia’s ISS plans🌐 RF wars, pt. ∞💸 The term sheet

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Russia Ditches ISS

The in-space collaboration between the US and Russia may be coming to an end. Yesterday, newly installed Roscosmos chief Yuri Borisov announced Moscow’s intention to walk away from the ISS partnership in 2024 and commence construction on its own space station.

In recent memory…

• Russia’s hostile invasion of Ukraine almost immediately sent the already-strained ISS partnership between the US and Russia into turmoil.

• On Feb. 24, President Biden responded to the invasion with sweeping sanctions on Russia.

• In response, then-head of Roscosmos Dmitry Rogozin tweeted a variety of thinly veiled threats, including one about the ISS falling back to Earth and landing on the US or Europe.

Though Rogozin’s comments were widely interpreted as bluster, at least rhetorically, tensions began to reach the ISS.

• In early March, Russia issued a statement that implied the US couldn’t count on their partnership to extend beyond the current agreement, which ends in 2024.

• In April, Rogozin again threatened to pull out of the ISS partnership until the West lifted sanctions.

• Retired NASA astronauts began to publicly come out against continuing on with the partnership.

• In the 153 days since Russia invaded Ukraine, operations aboard the orbital outpost have continued as usual.

But then…things started to look up on the collaboration front.

In mid-April, Rogozin reaffirmed the space agency’s commitment to seat swap plans for upcoming trips to the ISS. NASA and Roscosmos put those plans in writing less than two weeks ago, putting four seat swap flights on the docket. Rogozin was also canned right around then.

The partnership nears its end: Borisov’s announcement casts doubt on hopes of orbital detente. Though it’s unlikely that Russia has the funding, parts, or manufacturing capacity to get a brand-new space station on orbit in two years, it appears likely that it will indeed leave the ISS behind soon.

Robyn Gatens, ISS director at NASA Headquarters, said yesterday that NASA had not been alerted to any changes in the ISS partnership despite Russian media reporting to the contrary.

What happens to the ISS? The Russian segment of the ISS provides the thrusters that keep the station in the proper orbit. Though Russia hasn’t provided any details about what exactly they’d take with them when they go, it’s possible that the US would no longer be able to use those thrusters.

• SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsules and Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus spacecraft are reportedly capable of docking with the ISS and providing thrust as a stopgap solution.

Looking forward: LEO could look very different in the coming years. China is currently two-thirds of the way through the buildout of its Tiangong space station. On the off chance that the ISS is deorbited and decommissioned, Tiangong could be up there alone for a while. And the West’s 20+ years of sustained crewed presence in space would be cut off.

Still, NASA’s plans currently rely on keeping the ISS up and running through 2030 to avoid a gap in access to LEO. After that, a handful of commercial space stations are headed to orbit through NASA’s Commercial LEO Destinations (CLD) program. NASA seems confident as of now that all this can still go according to plan.

Send this to a commercial space station developer who slept in late this morning:

Spectrum Beefs Know No Bounds

There are three certainties in life: death, taxes, and fights over spectrum rights.

Certainty No. 3 continued to deliver earlier this week, with a SpaceX regulatory filing to launch a new mobile service. Specifically, SpaceX petitioned the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for approval to provide mobile satellite service (MSS) in the 2 GHz band.

• MSS systems offer two-way voice and data services to users on the go.

• Fixed satellite services, by contrast, provide communications between couch potatoes specific points.

• The 2 GHz band is appealing for mobile applications, SpaceX says, and is currently being underutilized.

But where’s the beef?

There is no love lost between SpaceX and Dish, and they’ve been trading sharply worded barbs all summer. SpaceX, as Payload readers well know, is growing its Starlink constellation and rolling out new product lines.

Enter Dish. The entertainment provider and satellite operator has historically tapped its licensed frequency ranges to transmit TV to customers. But Dish also has plans to roll out a 5G network, and to do so, it wants to use 12 GHz for terrestrial purposes.

• The catch? 12 GHz is mostly used by satellite operators, including SpaceX and Dish.

• SpaceX, OneWeb, and DirecTV have warned that opening the band to terrestrial 5G could create radiofrequency interference and disrupt space-based services.

At the core of the saga is whether LEO internet services can coexist with terrestrial 5G networks in the 12 GHz band. As the companies continue to do 12 GHz battle by FCC filing, let’s not forget the 2 GHz news.

In this week’s filing, SpaceX says Dish is wasting a perfectly good opportunity. SpaceX’s David Goldman writes: “While Dish Network is currently licensed to operate in the band, there is scant evidence that Dish is actually providing MSS service to anyone, anywhere.” And the spiciness continues…“Dish has squatted on its spectrum rights for a decade with little to show for it.”

An alternative use case: Goldman calls out SpaceX’s acquisition of smallsat developer Swarm Technologies. Swarm’s satellite fleet provides connectivity to Internet of Things (IoT) devices, such as factory meters, precision agriculture sensors, and the like.

• SpaceX tells the FCC it would equip modular 2 GHz transceivers on new Starlink satellites, but would not need to launch any additional birds, nor make any modifications to Starlink orbital characteristics.

What next? If SpaceX gets its way, the latest spectrum play could lay the groundwork for a Starlink service for on-the-go users, mobile devices, and/or IoT sensors. But if recent history is any guide, Dish will stand its ground and won’t hand over spectrum without a fight.

Share this story with an overworked spectrum lawyer:

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In Other News

• Iridium ($IRDM) reported record Q2 earnings and lifted guidance for full-year service revenue growth. Read our online story for more details.

• A spent Long March 5B booster from China’s Wentian space station module launch last week is projected to make an uncontrolled reentry on July 31.

• Raytheon ($RTX) reported Q2 Intelligence & Space sales of ~$3.6B (-6% YoY).

• Orbit Fab plans to purchase a sample of lunar regolith and donate it to Breaking Ground, a lunar resources trust, to promote the sustainable and responsible management of lunar resources.

• CAS Space, a Chinese launch startup, successfully launched its Lijian-1 solid rocket for the first time and placed six satellites in orbit.

• Space Perspective unveiled the exterior design of its balloon-borne space tourism capsule.

The View from Space

Yesterday was the 51st anniversary of Apollo 15’s launch. The 1971 mission was the US space program’s fourth lunar landing and the first time NASA astronauts brought a Moon buggy with them. These battery-powered buggies walked so today's EVs (electric vehicles) could run.