Weekly Wrap: No more room in space?

Over the 2025 Christmas holidays, the largest application for LEONGSO, or non-geostationary satellite orbit… satellites in China’s history was made to the ITUThe International Telecommunication U…. Filed on behalf of members of China’s Institute of Radio Spectrum Utilization and Technological Innovation, a large business and research consortium, it was for a massive 203,000 satellites.

The institute, which was only registered in China on 30 December and does not have a website, includes several organisations, ranging from Chinese universities to commercial enterprises. The two largest proposed constellations – CTC-1 and CTC-2 – cover 96,714 satellites each. The applications for these two were submitted one day before the institute was registered.

We have been here before. Filings do not necessarily lead to satellite launches. Rwanda’s Cinnamon-937 constellation of 337,320 satellites, dubbed “paper” filings by many commentators, is the crowning example. None have yet been put into orbit, and the country lacks the capacity to launch satellites itself.

SpaceX, which is consistently putting satellites into space (2,300 in 2025), has also made filings through several different countries for thousands of satellites it may not ever actually need.

In 2023, the company applied to the ITU to launch 29,998 satellites through the Kingdom of Tonga. Currently, Elon Musk’s company has around 9,357 LEO satellites in orbit.

All this shows how easy it is for companies to stake an improbable claim to finite spectrum resources and potentially block other users.

The ITU has a defence in the form of measures introduced at WRC-19 that require non-GSO systems to achieve 10% deployment within two years, 50% within five years and a complete constellation deployment within seven years.

However, some researchers have noted that the first satellite can be launched up to seven years from the initial filing, and it could be a decade before it is understood if a constellation is realistic.

This is because the ITU currently enforces a seven-year window from the date of receipt of the satellite filing request for the frequencies assigned to be brought into use. In theory, a company could launch a LEO satellite in the seventh year of the initial window, and then use the following seven years to gradually bring its full constellation online in the framework of the new milestone regulation.

This could result in 14 years where spectrum is warehoused by the applicant.

In the US, the regulator is backing a large increase in satellite launches. Its chair Brendan Carr touted a new “licensing assembly line” last year, which makes the proper operation of the ITU’s rules more important than ever.

This rush to space may be at the expense of scientific missions, which do not have the lobbying power of governments or huge commercial interests.

Spectrum is finite and as this situation develops into a satellite-driven space race between the US and China, the interests of other users must be protected.

The risk of collision, due to a lack of clear international rules or to simple errors, is more of a threat when there is such competition for territory and uncertainty over the effectiveness of regulation.

What is the solution? Is it time to ask for market-based fees for satellite filings? The acceleration of interest in satellite is fast and furious, making this an urgent policy issue.

Here is what else PolicyTracker reported on this week:

• The UK has broken from the EU’s 6 GHz caution and emphasised a will to move ahead with a prioritised band split.
• More progress has been made towards global regulatory recognition for PMSE.
• Poland is set to intensify its cooperation with other European targets of Russian GNSSGlobal Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) … interference.
• Italian operators Fastweb+Vodafone and TIM have reached a preliminary network sharing agreement to speed up the rollout of 5G in Italy.
• Belgium’s 26 GHz consultation confirmed that operators are still uninterested in using the band.