A New Framework for a Booming Industry
The satellite industry is growing faster than the regulatory apparatus designed to govern it. Thousands of new spacecraft are entering orbit every year, mega-constellations are reshaping the communications landscape, and operators are iterating on their hardware at a pace that legacy licensing frameworks were never built to accommodate. Jay Schwarz, head of the Federal Communications Commission's Space Bureau, is trying to change that. Speaking at the SmallSat Symposium in Mountain View, California, on February 11, Schwarz laid out an ambitious reform agenda that would fundamentally reshape how the United States regulates commercial space activities.
The initiative falls under the FCC's broader Build America Agenda and targets three areas that industry stakeholders have long identified as bottlenecks: spectrum access, licensing speed, and operational flexibility.
Opening 20,000 Megahertz of New Spectrum
The centerpiece of Schwarz's proposal is a massive spectrum expansion. Under what the bureau calls the "Spectrum Abundance" initiative, the FCC would open approximately 20,000 megahertz of additional radio frequency capacity across multiple bands, including the 12, 42, and 51 gigahertz frequencies as well as allocations in the W-band. The agency is also exploring shared-use arrangements between satellite operators and terrestrial wireless systems in the Upper Microwave Flexible Use Service bands above 24 gigahertz.
Spectrum is the lifeblood of satellite communications. Every broadband constellation, every Earth observation downlink, every direct-to-device service competes for finite radio frequency resources. As the number of active satellites has exploded -- SpaceX alone operates more than 6,000 Starlink spacecraft -- the demand for clean, interference-free spectrum has intensified. Opening 20,000 megahertz would represent a substantial injection of capacity, potentially easing congestion and enabling new services that current allocations cannot support.
Schwarz also signaled that the FCC is preparing aggressively for the 2027 World Radio Conference (WRC) in China, where global spectrum allocations will be negotiated. "We are prepared, so that our operators can win," he said, underscoring the competitive dimension of spectrum policy at a time when China and Europe are advancing their own satellite broadband programs.
Building a Licensing Assembly Line
Beyond spectrum, the Space Bureau intends to overhaul the satellite licensing process itself. Schwarz described plans to establish what he called a "licensing assembly line" with predetermined timeframes for regulatory decisions. The current process, which can stretch for months or even years depending on the complexity of an application, has drawn persistent criticism from operators who argue that regulatory delays erode their ability to compete and deploy services on commercially viable timelines.
The reform would also streamline modification procedures for existing licenses. Modern satellite operators do not deploy a constellation and leave it static for 15 years; they continuously upgrade their fleets with improved hardware, updated software, and revised orbital parameters. The FCC's rules, however, often treat each modification as a separate regulatory event requiring its own review cycle. Schwarz acknowledged this disconnect, stating that the regulatory framework must "enable" continuous improvement rather than treat satellites as unchanging assets.
Why It Matters
The FCC's Space Bureau was established only recently, in 2023, as a recognition that space activities had grown too large and too complex to be managed as a subset of the commission's general wireless portfolio. Schwarz's agenda represents the bureau's most detailed public articulation yet of what regulatory modernization should look like in practice.
For the commercial space industry, the stakes are substantial. Companies like SpaceX, Amazon (Project Kuiper), Telesat, and dozens of smaller operators are collectively investing tens of billions of dollars in orbital infrastructure. The pace at which they can deploy, modify, and operate those systems depends in no small part on how quickly the FCC can process their paperwork. A faster, more predictable licensing regime could accelerate deployment timelines, reduce capital costs, and give American operators a meaningful edge over international competitors.
Expanding governmental capacity to handle this surge of innovation while maintaining coordination with other federal agencies -- including the Department of Commerce, the FAA, and the Department of Defense -- will be a defining challenge. Schwarz's proposals are ambitious, but turning them into enforceable rules will require navigating a complex interagency landscape and surviving the inevitable pushback from incumbent spectrum holders who may resist sharing their bands with satellite operators.
