The Federal Communications Commission has adopted guidance on rules regarding orbital debris mitigation as part of efforts to promote space innovation.

FCC said Thursday the Order on Reconsideration provides satellite operators with guidance on complying with orbital debris mitigation policies implemented in 2020.

Through the order, the commission addresses concerns regarding the use of “free-flying” deployment devices and satellite maneuverability disclosure requirements and offers guidance on methods for performing a re-contact risk analysis.

FCC also clarifies how the rules apply to space stations that do not have licenses in the U.S.; the applicability of the 0.99 disposal reliability goal for large satellites; and the requirements for limiting the release of persistent liquids in space.

“In this decision we reaffirm the updates we made earlier to our orbital debris mitigation rules and offer additional guidance for satellite operators deploying their systems,” FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said in a statement.

She noted that the move seeks to reinforce the commission’s commitment to space sustainability, which is part of FCC’s Space Innovation agenda.

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NASA and Boeing teams will be busy in the next couple of months preparing for the Starliner’s first crewed flight by mid-April 2024. The spacecraft will transport two NASA astronauts to the International Space Station.

Under contracts with NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, the mission will mirror the activities of regular crew rotation flights for Boeing’s Starliner. Thus far, there has reportedly been significant progress in resolving technical issues NASA identified during its flight certification process.

On January 9, the agency tested the modified parachute system for the spacecraft over the Arizona desert. The primary test objectives were met based on the preliminary data analysis of the two-parachute test. NASA also confirmed the parachute deployment and a soft landing of the test article.

Meanwhile, NASA and Boeing have more work to do to complete the overall Crew Flight Test certification. The teams must put the finishing touches on the Starliner spacecraft and run simulations of operational conditions to rehearse each mission phase with the crew, flight controllers and ground operations teams.

Other tasks include fueling the spacecraft with propellants for its onboard thrusters for in-space maneuvering. The teams will stack the ULA Atlas V rocket and Starliner spacecraft and subsequently roll them to the Space Launch Complex-41 pad at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.

Last, they will conduct detailed systems reviews resulting in a flight readiness assessment days before launch to verify the system and teams are ready. United Launch Alliance teams are preparing the Atlas V rocket hardware for processing and spacecraft integration. Boeing hopes to complete the Starliner assembly at the end of January.

Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams are the NASA astronauts in Starliner’s first Crew Flight Test. They will stay on the space station for one to two weeks, then return to Earth and land in the southwest United States.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is soliciting abstracts for the second technical area of the Space-domain Wide Area Tracking and Characterization, or the Space-WATCH program.

Space-WATCH seeks to facilitate real-time persistent tracking of all objects in low Earth orbit to inform ground-based operators of any anomaly and enable them to plan and carry out appropriate actions, DARPA said Wednesday.

Real-Time Automated Data Fusion and Exploitation is the second technical area — TA2 — of the Space-WATCH program and aims to generate alerts on tactically actionable timescales and develop a level of space domain awareness that enables the protection of on-orbit assets in an evolving environment.

DARPA is considering multiple awards in the form of an other transaction authority agreement for the technical area and wants vendors to build data service applications designed to curate, deduce and fuse sensor data collected from data-as-a-service product offerings.

Abstracts are due Feb. 8.

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The GOES-U spacecraft has arrived in Florida, where it will undergo final processing ahead of its launch — set to take place no earlier than April 30.

The spacecraft was transported by military aircraft to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center on Jan. 23 and was then moved to the Astrotech Space Operations facility in Titusville, where it will be fueled, mated to a payload adapter and encapsulated in a payload fairing, NASA said Tuesday.

GOES-U is the fourth and final member of the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite-R Series, the latest in a line of weather observation and environmental monitoring satellites that date back to 1975. Once online, GOES-U is expected to keep the GOES satellite system operationally available until 2036.

At present, only GOES-R and GOES-T are in operation, with GOES-S serving as primary backup to both.

The GOES-R Series satellites are built by Lockheed Martin and operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The primary instrument on the spacecraft, called the Advanced Baseline Imager, and the ground systems are both provided by L3Harris Technologies.

GOES-R Series launches are managed by NASA. For GOES-U, the launch provider is SpaceX.