FCC rejects SpaceX's $900 million subsidy request over failed Starship test flight

According to news, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced on December 13 that it had rejected SpaceX’s application for a subsidy for Starlink satellite Internet services. The reason is said to be that the FCC's confidence in SpaceX was affected due to the failure of the Starship test flight.

The FCC also cited data shared by SpaceX and pointed out that the company failed to meet the performance of the subsidy. Goal

This subsidy is a long-term subsidy under the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) program. In fact, SpaceX has received subsidies before. To receive RDOF subsidies, SpaceX must submit two applications — an initial short-term application and a final long-term application.

SpaceX previously submitted a short-term application to receive US$855 million (approximately 6.139 billion yuan) in subsidies to provide satellite Internet services to 642,925 locations in 35 states in the United States

at After SpaceX won the bid, it delegated submission of the long-term application to subsidiary Starlink. The FCC rejected the application due to multiple competitors questioning SpaceX's use of Starship rockets to build the second stage of the constellation. SpaceX then asked the FCC to reverse the decision and reexamine it, but the FCC announced yesterday that it had upheld the decision.

The FCC said it disagreed with SpaceX’s argument that because it had already been approved in Phase I, the commission had precluded it from meeting the RDOF requirements possibility.

The FCC believes that there are two main reasons why Starlink cannot meet the RDOF requirements: the first point lies in the performance of the service, and the second point lies in the Starship rocket. A key point in the dispute between the two parties also lies in Starlink’s performance data.

The FCC took out the data provided by Ookla (describing Starlink’s performance in 2021 and 2022) and believed that these data could not reflect the excellent performance of Starlink when the RDOF plan began to cover it in 2025.

#SpaceX claimed in its appeal that Ookla’s data was not representative of Starlink performance in 2025, but the FCC argued that due to the lack of a comparable system, the Ookla data was The only reliable data

The second reason why the FCC decided to uphold the verdict was SpaceX’s Starship project. According to the FCC, the agency relied on information about Starship in its assessment, which led to its lack of confidence in Starship's ability to launch second-generation Starlink satellites.

Initially, SpaceX developed two possible launch plans, using a Falcon 9 rocket or using a Starship rocket to launch Starlink satellites. However, this decision was criticized by competitors, and SpaceX later relied entirely on Starship rocket launches

SpaceX expressed great disappointment with the FCC's decision, emphasizing that Starlink is "most likely" the best option to provide RDOF coverage. . Although they considered the move too "arbitrary", the company ultimately expressed its willingness to cooperate with the committee and hope to provide services to areas that are not covered.

Advertising statement: The external jump links (including but not limited to hyperlinks, QR codes, passwords, etc.) contained in the article are used to convey more information and save selection time. The results are for reference only. All articles on the site contain this statement.

Complain about hydrologyI want to correct the error

The above is the detailed content of FCC rejects SpaceX's $900 million subsidy request over failed Starship test flight. For more information, please follow other related articles on the PHP Chinese website!