The Ka-Band Role Reversal: SpaceX Moves to Reopen the ViaSat-3 F2 Grant
SpaceX petitions the FCC to deny ViaSat-3 F2 market access in NGSO-primary Ka-band, filed on day 30 of the recon window. The role reversal, explained.
SpaceX Wants the ViaSat-3 F2 Grant Reopened Because, It Says, the Band Belongs to LEO
A petition for reconsideration filed on 28 August, the thirtieth day after the grant, asks the Federal Communications Commission to deny ViaSat-3 F2 the US market access it received in July for two Ka-band segments the rules reserve for non-geostationary systems, on the argument that Viasat has operated there for years without ever completing coordination. For a decade the incumbents used that argument against Starlink, and this week it came back around.
29 Jul 2026
Grant stamp issued for ViaSat-3 F2 US market access at 79 degrees West, with coordination conditions, International Communications Filing System (ICFS) file SAT-PPL-20211207-00172
2 bands
18.8–19.3 GHz down and 28.6–29.1 GHz up, the Ka-band segments the FCC designates as NGSO-primary
Day 30
SpaceX’s petition for reconsideration lands on 28 August, two days before the Section 1.106 window closed, signed by David Goldman
4M+
Viasat terminals SpaceX alleged in a June 2021 Enforcement Bureau complaint were operating in the same bands without meeting pre-operating conditions (allegation, attached as Exhibit A)
Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) has asked the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to reconsider the United States market-access grant it stamped on 29 July for ViaSat-3 F2, the geostationary orbit (GEO) broadband satellite Viasat launched last November, and to deny that access outright in two Ka-band segments. The petition, filed 28 August in the F2 proceeding under call sign S3113, argues that those segments are primary for non-geostationary orbit (NGSO) fixed-satellite service, the category Starlink lives in, and that Viasat has spent more than half a decade operating in them without ever completing the coordination its licenses require. That is the filing in one sentence, and it is also the reason this is the most significant event of the week, ahead of a busier news cycle around Airbus, Telesat and AST SpaceMobile.
The significance lies not in the interference claim but in who is making it. From the first Starlink applications in 2016 through the Gen2 partial grants and into this year’s fight over equivalent power flux density (EPFD) limits, the GEO operators, Viasat prominent among them, have used coordination and band-priority objections to slow the low Earth orbit (LEO) entrants down. Viasat took the Commission to the D.C. Circuit over Starlink’s altitude modification and lost in August 2022. Now the largest LEO operator on Earth is telling the regulator that a GEO satellite is the one parked in the wrong band, and it is using the incumbents’ own rulebook to say so.
What exactly is SpaceX asking the Commission to do?
Denial of F2’s US market access in two Ka-band segments, 18.8 to 19.3 GHz on the downlink and 28.6 to 29.1 GHz on the uplink, and at minimum an order directing Viasat to cease operating there now. In the FCC’s Ka-band plan those segments are primary for NGSO systems; GEO operators may use them only on a secondary basis after coordinating with the NGSO licensees, and SpaceX says that coordination never happened. The grant already carries a coordination condition; SpaceX’s argument is that Viasat has ignored identical conditions on its earth station licenses since 2017, so a condition is not a remedy. If the Commission agrees, F2 keeps flying but loses those bands over the United States weeks after Viasat filed the paperwork to bring it into service.
One caution belongs on the record before the analysis begins. Every characterization of Viasat’s conduct below is SpaceX’s allegation, drawn from the petition and its 2021 exhibit, and Viasat has not yet filed its opposition. The Commission’s own findings in the grant are identified as such where they appear. And nothing in what follows concerns Viasat’s inflight or government businesses; the lens is enterprise Ka-band capacity and what a buyer of it should do this month.
The remaining four sections are for paid members.
The analysis below covers what the pleading argues and where it is weak, why a priority case is a sharper instrument than an interference case, how the timing lands against F2’s service entry, and the two questions a Ka-band capacity buyer should now put to any GEO provider in writing. Members get every Tuesday Deep Dive in full.
- 02What SpaceX actually filed
- 03Priority beats noise
- 04A satellite waiting to earn
- 05What Ka-band buyers do now
Independent weekly intelligence on the satellite communications sector. No hype. A point of view. Cancel in one click.
