Expediting Initial Processing of Satellite and Earth Station Applications; Space Innovation

<RULE> FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION <CFR>47 CFR Parts 1 and 25</CFR> <DEPDOC>[IB Docket Nos. 22-411, 22-271; FCC 25-48; FR ID 309341]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Expediting Initial Processing of Satellite and Earth Station Applications; Space Innovation</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Federal Communications Commission. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> In this document, the Federal Communications Commission (Commission or we) adopts a <E T="03">Second Report and Order</E> with variety measures to expedite space and earth station approvals, including by eliminating the requirement to file certain license modification applications and eliminating outdated rules. In particular, the <E T="03">Second Report and Order</E> provides regulatory certainty for, and eliminates burdens on, the nascent Ground-Station-as-a-Service industry, where a neutral host establishes connectivity to multiple satellite systems in space. As licensing activity before the Commission increases in complexity and number, concrete measures to expedite earth and space station applications will support U.S. leadership in the growing space economy. Accordingly, adoption of these concrete measures to expedite the processing of applications for authority to operate space and earth stations under part 25 of the Commission's rules would be vital to supporting U.S. leadership in the growing space economy. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> These rules are effective September 26, 2025, except for the amendments to §§ 25.110(e) (amendatory instruction 4), 25.117(i) (amendatory instruction 6), 25.118(a)(3), 25.118(b)(1), (2), and (3), and (e)(4), and (h) (amendatory instruction 8), and 25.137(h) (amendatory instruction 10), which are indefinitely delayed. The Commission will publish a document in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> announcing the effective date of these rule sections. </EFFDATE> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Gregory Coutros, Space Bureau, Earth Station Licensing Division, at <E T="03">gregory.coutros@fcc.gov</E> or at (202) 418-2351. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> This is a summary of the Commission's <E T="03">Second Report and Order</E> ( <E T="03">Order</E> ), FCC 25-48, adopted August 7, 2025, and released August 8, 2025. The document is available for public inspection online at <E T="03"> https://docs.fcc.gov/public/ attachments/FCC-25-48A1.pdf. </E> The document is also available for inspection and copying during business hours in the FCC Reference Center, 45 L Street NE, Washington, DC 20554. To request materials in accessible formats for people with disabilities, send an email to <E T="03">FCC504@fcc.gov</E> or call the Consumer & Governmental Affairs Bureau at 202-418-0530 (voice), 202-418-0432 (TTY). <HD SOURCE="HD1">Final Regulatory Flexibility Analysis</HD> The Regulatory Flexibility Act of 1980, as amended (RFA), requires that an agency prepare a regulatory flexibility analysis for notice and comment rulemakings, unless the agency certifies that “the rule will not, if promulgated, have a significant economic impact on a substantial number of small entities.” Accordingly, the Commission has prepared a Final Regulatory Flexibility Analysis (FRFA) concerning the possible impact of the rule and policy changes contained in the <E T="03">Order</E> on small entities. The FRFA is set forth in Section IV below. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Final Paperwork Reduction Act Analysis</HD> The <E T="03">Order</E> may contain new or substantively modified information collection requirements subject to the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (PRA), Public Law 104-13. All such requirements will be submitted to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for review under Section 3507(d) of the PRA. OMB, the general public, and other federal agencies will be invited to comment on any new or modified information collection requirements contained in this proceeding. In addition, we note that pursuant to the Small Business Paperwork Relief Act of 2002, Public Law 107-198, <E T="03">see</E> 44 U.S.C. 3506(c)(4), we previously sought specific comment on how the Commission might further reduce the information collection burden for small business concerns with fewer than 25 employees. In the document, we have assessed the effects of revising the Commission's earth station licensing rules and adopting streamlined earth station rules and rules related to relocating geostationary orbit (GSO) satellites and certain applicants for special temporary authority (STA) and find that they will have a small impact on small business concerns. Due to the significant costs involved in earth station and space station development and deployment, we anticipate that few entities impacted by this rulemaking would qualify as small businesses. Additionally, the document may contain non-substantive modifications to approved information collections. Any such modifications will be submitted to OMB for review pursuant to OMB's non-substantive modification process. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Congressional Review Act</HD> The Commission has determined, and the Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, OMB, concurs that this rule is “non-major” under the Congressional Review Act, 5 U.S.C. 804(2). The Commission will send a copy of the <E T="03">Order</E> to Congress and the Government Accountability Office pursuant to 5 U.S.C. 801(a)(1)(A). <HD SOURCE="HD1">Synopsis</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Introduction</HD> 1. To support America's booming space economy, the Commission is undertaking a series of reforms to better orient its rules toward permissionless innovation. Through sensible changes, we are eliminating outdated barriers to space industry business models, giving satellite operators more flexibility to deliver new services, and deleting burdensome, unnecessary requirements. Today's action represents another milestone in the Commission's work to streamline, simplify, and modernize the processing of space and earth station applications. 2. The Commission's existing regulatory framework was developed for a space economy of the past. While the space industry has become a pivotal force for America's economy and national security, the Commission's rules have not kept pace. In 2023, the U.S. space economy accounted for $142.5 billion of total U.S. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and $240.9 billion of gross output. Additionally, the global space economy expanded by 4 percent with the satellite ground segment specifically generating $155.3 billion in 2024. The growth in economic output has created new jobs. The Commission, meanwhile, has seen a corresponding surge in licensing activity, as applications to operate space and earth stations have grown in complexity and number. Faced with this uptick, the agency's licensing rules have resulted in inefficiencies and backlog. We are accordingly focused on revising and updating the Commission's part 25 space and earth station license application policies and processing procedures. 3. In the <E T="03">Order,</E> we take the following actions to free operators of unnecessary regulatory hurdles: • First, we adopt a new process by which earth station operators may receive a baseline license without identifying a specific satellite point of communication, and adopt processes by which earth station applicants can easily add or remove identified points of communication. Under the Commission's prior rules, earth station operators could not receive a license without an identified point of communication and thus could not establish themselves as Ground-Station-as-a-Service (GSaaS) providers until they had already secured a satellite client, causing a classic chicken and egg problem. These changes will support GSaaS business models, which in turn will increase access to the infrastructure needed by space companies small and large. • Second, we expand the list of license modifications that do not require prior authorization. For earth stations, we remove the overly restrictive “electrically identical” language in the Commission's prior rules. GSO satellites no longer will be required to file for STA for relocation during drift, so long as certain conditions are satisfied. And for NGSO satellites, we no longer require prior authorization for certain minor changes, which previously became effective only once acted upon by the Commission. Such changes now will become effective in most cases upon 60 days notification to the Commission. These actions will free operators to make certain system changes without the burden of regulatory paperwork or waiting for Commission action. • Third, we eliminate the outdated requirement to retain paper copies of applications. The Commission's prior rules included a requirement that operators print and retain a paper copy of the International Communications Filing System (ICFS) application for their files. • Fourth, we adopt expanded timeframes to file license renewal applications for earth stations and space stations. The prior rules had two different filing windows for earth station and NGSO space stations, each of which was early in the license term. • Fifth, we change the default <E T="03">ex parte</E> status of all applications to “permit-but-disclose.” Changing the default <E T="03">ex parte</E> status will eliminate the need to change the status for each individual application where broad public participation is desired. • Sixth, we provide non-U.S. licensed market access grantees the ability to receive a grant of special temporary access. Under prior rules, which did not allow for STA for market access grantees, such changes were required to be made through a modification. • Lastly, we adopt a 30-day shot clock for earth station renewal ap ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 85k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━