{"id":57452,"date":"2021-05-24T19:38:05","date_gmt":"2021-05-24T11:38:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/viasat-may-seek-stay-from-dc-circuit-for-fcc-approved-starlink-modification\/"},"modified":"2021-05-24T19:38:05","modified_gmt":"2021-05-24T11:38:05","slug":"viasat-may-seek-stay-from-dc-circuit-for-fcc-approved-starlink-modification","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/viasat-may-seek-stay-from-dc-circuit-for-fcc-approved-starlink-modification\/","title":{"rendered":"Viasat May Seek Stay From DC Circuit for FCC-Approved Starlink Modification"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n<p><strong>Viasat<\/strong> continues its opposition against <strong>SpaceX<\/strong>\u2019s Starlink constellation on environmental grounds, and said in its latest filing to the <strong>FCC<\/strong> that if the commission does not stay its approval of SpaceX\u2019s Starlink altitude change, Viasat intends to seek a stay from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The issue in question is that the FCC granted SpaceX\u2019s request to lower the altitude of future satellites in the Starlink Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) constellation. The FCC\u2019s decision in April came despite protests from Viasat, <b>Amazon<\/b>, <b>SES<\/b>, and other satellite competitors.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Viasat had previously requested the FCC prepare an environmental impact statement on Starlink \u2014 a request the FCC denied as it approved SpaceX\u2019s request.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe believe the FCC failed to conduct a legally required environmental review under NEPA [National Environmental Policy Act] and did not honor the Biden-Harris administration\u2019s commitment to a science-based approach to protecting the atmosphere, the Earth\u2019s climate, space and the well-being of U.S. citizens before authorizing the launch of thousands of new Starlink satellites into low-earth orbit,\u201d John Janka, Viasat\u2019s chief officer of Global &amp; Regulatory Affairs said in a media statement. \u201cAs such, we have asked the commission to stay its order until the federal courts review its legality.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Viasat\u2019s request to the FCC was filed on May 21. In the filing, Viasat said if the FCC does not grant a stay on SpaceX\u2019s approval by June 1, Viasat will seek a stay from the D.C. Circuit.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Viasat\u2019s environmental objections to Starlink, detailed in its earlier filing, take issue with metallic compounds it says are left behind in the atmosphere when a satellite is deorbited that can lead to global warming. Concerns also include light pollution and collisions\/space debris.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThese consequences warrant at least an environmental assessment [EA] before making a decision. Yet the commission did not even require SpaceX to prepare an EA, the most basic analysis under NEPA. Instead, largely ignoring Viasat\u2019s arguments and evidence, the commission concluded that SpaceX\u2019s unprecedented deployment of thousands of satellites did not even create the potential for a significant environmental impact. The D.C. Circuit is likely to set aside that decision,\u201d Viasat said in the filing.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Viasat faces commercial competition from SpaceX\u2019s Starlink service, and the operator acknowledged that in the filing, which dug into the harms the operator believes it will suffer from the increasing number of Starlink satellites.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The operator said its existing and planned space operations could be harmed by debris if a SpaceX satellite is involved in a collision; Starlink satellites crowd the orbital environment and require operators to spend more resources managing their satellites; SpaceX is taking up physical space in LEO that limits Viasat\u2019s own ability to carry out LEO projects; and Starlink service will compete directly for Viasat\u2019s satellite broadband customers.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>According to the filing, Viasat believes the D.C. Circuit is likely to vacate the FCC\u2019s order for failing to comply with NEPA. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Viasat continues its opposition against SpaceX\u2019s Starlink constellation on environmental grounds, and said in its latest filing to the FCC that if the commission does not stay its approval of SpaceX\u2019s Starlink altitude change, Viasat intends to seek a stay from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.&nbsp; The issue in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":51837,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-57452","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57452"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57452"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57452\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51837"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57452"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57452"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57452"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}