LAS VEGAS — Discussions at an upcoming major telecommunications conference may set the stage for future work regulating lunar communications.
During a panel discussion at AIAA’s ASCEND conference here Oct. 23, an official with International Telecommunication Union (ITU) said delegates on the World Radiocommunication Conference 2023, or WRC-23, may determine to place lunar communications on the agenda for the next conference in 2027.
“That’s probably going to guide to a number of the most interesting technical preparatory work,” said Joanne Wilson, deputy to the director of the ITU’s Radiocommunication Bureau.
WRC-23 is scheduled for Nov. 20 to Dec. 15 in Dubai, where countries will debate changes to the Radio Regulations, the treaty-level agreement governing terrestrial and satellite radio communications. The meeting will even set the agenda for the next WRC in 2027.
She didn’t elaborate on specific issues regarding lunar communications that the ITU might consider, but said the time was now to start thinking about them. “If you happen to have a look at the timeframe it takes to construct out the space economy and so forth, you’ll be able to see that that is the subsequent step, a constructing block to future approaches to regulation of spectrum not only on the lunar surface but on other planetary bodies as well.”
In an article published by the ITU in July, Cathy Sham, lunar and human spaceflight spectrum manager at NASA and chair of an ITU working group on space communications, noted growing demand for spectrum for activities on and across the moon. “Mission planners, engineers, scientists, architects, and regulatory experts must work together to make sure adequate radio spectrum access for all users,” she wrote.
Two specific topics Sham mentioned within the article is protecting future radio astronomy observatories on the far side of the moon, shielded from terrestrial signals, from interference by spacecraft, in addition to the feasibility of spectrum allocations for space research on the moon.
The Federal Communications Commission, meanwhile, has received applications for spectrum for lunar communications, said Julie Kearney, chief of the FCC’s recent Space Bureau, on the panel. One example she cited is a proposal by Lockheed Martin for a network of satellites called Parsec providing communications and navigation services. Crescent Space Services, a brand new Lockheed subsidiary, would operate the satellites offer industrial services using them.
The FCC has issued its first license for lunar communications, she said. An Oct. 5 grant of authority to Intuitive Machines covers communications with its first Nova-C lunar lander flying on the IM-1 mission to the moon. IM-1 is scheduled to launch as soon as November, landing every week after launch and operating there for as much as two weeks.