Robert Field

Federal Communications Commission 45 L Street NE Washington, DC 20554 News Media Information 202-418-0500 Internet: www.fcc.gov DA 26-113 Released: February 4, 2026 SPACE BUREAU ACCEPTS FOR FILING SPACEX'S APPLICATION FOR ORBITAL DATA CENTERS ICFS File No. SAT-LOA-20260108-00016 Comments/Petitions Due: March 6, 2026 Response to Comments/Oppositions to Petition Due: March 16, 2026 Replies to Responses/Oppositions Due: March 23, 2026 By this Public Notice, the Space Bureau (Bureau) accepts for filing and seeks comment on an application by Space Exploration Holdings, LLC (SpaceX) for a new non-geostationary orbit (NGSO) system of up to one million satellites. This satellite system will represent the "first step towards becoming a Kardashev Il-level civilization - one that can harness the Sun's full power," according to SpaceX. On January 30, 2026, SpaceX filed an application seeking authority to launch and operate a new NGSO satellite system of up to one million satellites to operate as the "Space Orbital Data Center system" (System). The System will operate at altitudes ranging from 500 km to 2,000 km and in 30 degree and sun-synchronous orbit inclinations within orbital shells spanning up to 50 km each. The proposed satellites will use high-bandwidth optical inter-satellite links and conduct telemetry, tracking, and command (TT&C) operations.* The Bureau seeks comment on the application and the associated requests for waiver.

Really can't make this stuff up

I did not have a fast-tracked FCC application for an actual megaconstellation (1 million satellites) justified as "taking the first step towards becoming a Kardashev Il-level civilization" on my 2026 bingo card

What are we doing friends

dannnng😬

Regulations are the reason your food and water is not full of lead.

Moving satellites to meet a plane for rare reentry data When satellites eventually fall back down to Earth, they mostly burn up because of the friction caused by the atmosphere. Scientific data about this atmospheric reentry process is urgently needed to d...

Fun fact: we recently moved two satellites to meet a plane. Why? For valuable scientific data on atmospheric reentries.

Find out more about the why & how 👉 www.esa.int/Space_Safety...

Ok, but cut them a little slack and here's what that looks like in 2031

A million xAI satellites at, say, 1 ton each, deployed over, say, 2036-2040, on Starships with, say, 100 ton capacity would look like this on top of that

Yearly mass put into orbit by rocket family through the megaconstellation era

ICFS Application Summary - ICFS Portal

SpaceX has put in a kinda-sorta-application to the FCC for an orbital data center constellation with a MILLION satellites. However, the description is rather vague without the usual specifics of the orbital parameters of each shell. fccprod.servicenowservices.com/icfs?id=ibfs...

Congratulations @fpappenberger.bsky.social!!!

‘The land will be left as ashes’: why Patagonia’s wildfires are almost impossible to stop Funding cuts, conspiracy theories and ‘powder keg’ pine plantations have seen January’s forest fires tear through Chubut in southern Argentina

‘The land will be left as ashes’: why Patagonia’s wildfires are almost impossible to stop

Canadian wildfire smoke hits Minneapolis, prompting air quality warnings on May 18, 2023. Credit: Chad Davis via Wikimedia Commons

New analysis of air quality data from the past 70 years by Robert Field, Olivia Clifton, Konstantinos Tsigaridis of NASA GISS and co-authors shows that Canada's record wildfire smoke in 2023 is part of a broader, continent-wide trend toward smokier skies: https://bit.ly/3NSuXro

Multi-dataset comparison of global temperatures from 1850-2025, with 2025 values highlighted in a separate panel for each individual dataset. Baseline is a combination of 1850-1900 means.

Most 2025 global temperatures are now out (degrees C above 1850-1900 baseline)

1.41 HadCRUT5
1.44 Berkeley
1.46 JRA-3Q
1.47 Copernicus
1.53 DCENT-I

NOAA and NASA GISS values will be public at 2pm UK time and but based on already public Jan-Nov data they will likely be between 1.3 and 1.4 degC.

NASA Releases Global Temperature Data - NASA Global temperatures in 2025 were cooler than 2024, with average temperatures of 2.14 degrees Fahrenheit (1.19 degrees Celsius) above the 1951 to 1980 average.

NASA have a press release...

www.nasa.gov/news-release...

Ok, but EPA at least show some pictures of what you mean
www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

CNN is covering the Kalshi prediction markets as though they are news

NASA’s Isaacman to Treat ‘Exceptional’ Staff to Private Jet Ride NASA employees now have another incentive to outperform for new agency head Jared Isaacman: rides in his private F-5 jets.

NASA administrator Jared Isaacman has donated his own private jets to the agency and is offering incentive rides on them to NASA employees who do exceptional work. What are your thoughts on this move? www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Compound atmospheric drivers of the 2025 Los Angeles urban firestorm…Analysis shows driven by rare “jet-forced Santa Ana” wind wextreme northerly flow, subsidence & mountain waves. While extreme sfc winds not unprecedented, occurrence before 1st rains was uncommon.

www.nature.com/articles/s44...

Trump moves to dismantle major US climate research center in Colorado The Trump administration is breaking up the National Center for Atmospheric Research, taking aim at one of the world's leading climate research labs.

Exclusive: The Trump administration is moving to dismantle the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado, according to a senior White House official, taking aim at one of the world's leading climate research labs.

The number of active satellites in orbit has now passed the 14000 mark according to my estimates:

See "Science behind the News" by fire researchers, on the fires last summer

Wow... NYC's congestion pricing has led to big drops in PM2.5 and real improvements in local air quality.

Really did not know that mega-constellations could affect space telescopes!

Cuts at Natural Resources Canada ‘decimate’ wildfire and flood tracking capacity, unions warn Carney's cuts have hit Natural Resources Canada, causing uproar from public sector unions warning the layoffs will hurt Canada's ability to respond to cliamte change and protect Canadians from wildfir...

The recent massive cuts to climate change adaptation and hazard expertise at the Federal Gov of Canada are just going to end up costing Canadians millions (billions?) of dollars eventually. We've seen this story before.

www.nationalobserver.com/2025/12/05/n...

So cool

@mark-carney.bsky.social:
- awesome at banking
- supports the right team edmontonjournal.com/sports/hocke...
- cool taste in music youtu.be/TZmh_PNMImE?...
- 🤢 on climate

Happening today at CUNY!

@princetonupress.bsky.social

💯...but alongside 'reducing uncertainty', provide their best estimate of it. Those scores always seemed so weird without some kind of uncertainty range.

Composite burn index map for fire perimeters analysed in this study (a); inset map of the fire location (b); classified composite burn severity classes across the study area and severity for large patches are presented in insets (i), (ii) and (iii).

Partial dependence plots of each variable with the respective relative contributions to the model in parentheses. The dashed lines represent the partial dependence values, while the solid line shows a fitted curve with loess smoothing applied. The density distribution of the sampled test data is shown at the bottom of each plot for continuous variables and alongside predicted response for a categorical variable. The red dots represent the predicted response for each vegetation type. CBI: Composite Burn Index.

Bar plot showing the mean forest cover (%) for different forest age classes in Quebec. Analysis is based on forest cover data from four studies ( Hansen et al. 2013; Sexton et al. 2013; Matasci et al. 2018; Feng et al. 2022) and age class data from Maltman et al. (2023). The error bars represent the standard deviation (s.d.) of the mean cover for each age class.

🔥New in IJWF:

Mackey et al.

The 2023 Québec fires burned 4.5 M ha of boreal forest. Using Sentinel-2 CBI mapping the authors show burn severity peaks on dry topographic positions, under extreme fire weather, and in 20–40-year forests.

🔗 doi.org/10.1071/WF24175
#IJWildlandFire

Two plots with the global mean annual burned area (left) and fuel consumption (right), for the 2002–2022 period, in grasslands & non-grasslands.

The new Global Fire Emissions Database (GFED5, 2002–2022) shows that at the global scale 1) by far, most area burned are grasslands; 2) area burned is declining; & 3) fuel consumption is increasing: ie, fires are increasing in forests & encroached grasslands.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

🧪🌍🔥🌳🌐