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Pre-Launch · Wyoming · 2026

Regulatory · FCC

The US source of truth for satellite authorisations.

The International Bureau Filing System is the FCC's electronic docket for satellite space-station and earth-station applications, modifications and assignments. For any cleared instrument whose underlying references a US-authorised licence, IBFS — not our registry — is authoritative. We reconcile nightly and surface divergence as an alert, not a warning.
See reconciliation recordsITU SNS coordination

Source

FCC IBFS public docket

Reconciliation

Nightly, signed

Scope

Space & earth stations · US

Most recent FCC action

EPFD Order · Apr 30 2026

Most recent FCC action · April 30 2026

EPFD modernisation — private bargaining is the new default.

On April 30, 2026 the Commission adopted the EPFD modernisation Order. The replacement regime is explicit: NGSO and GSO operators can bargain for interference protections through voluntary, private agreement. The Order applies to current NGSO licensees, market-access grantees, pending applicants, and every future applicant. The FCC's own estimate is $2 billion+ in unlocked economic benefit and a sevenfold increase in space-based broadband capacity. Private spectrum coordination is now the regulatory default — and the post-trade infrastructure it requires is what Wavestar is.

FCC EPFD Order · April 30 2026 · summary

Action
Modernisation of EPFD framework

Replaces fixed Article 22 / §25.146 limits with a private-bargaining regime for NGSO/GSO interference coordination.

Scope
Current licensees, market-access grantees, pending and future applicants

Comprehensive — applies across the existing and future NGSO/GSO ecosystem.

Default coordination model
Voluntary private agreement

Operators negotiate interference protection privately. Fixed regulatory protections remain as a backstop, not the default.

FCC economic estimate
$2 billion+ unlocked

Up to a sevenfold increase in space-based broadband capacity, per the Commission's own analysis.

Wavestar implication
Post-trade infrastructure for private bargaining

Cleared spectrum-hour leases, neutral price discovery, and observer-signed reconciliation map directly onto the new private-bargaining regime.

NGSO and GSO operators can bargain for appropriate interference protections through voluntary, private agreement.
FCC EPFD Order·Adopted April 30, 2026
See the cleared Spectrum-Hours market →

What we track

Every US space-station and earth-station touchpoint.

The FCC's International Bureau issues and administers satellite-related authorisations in the US. We read that docket end-to-end and pin each authoritative record into the Wavestar registry.
  • 01

    Space-station applications

    Initial applications for space-station authorisations — geostationary, non-geostationary, and experimental — with full call-sign, frequency and orbital characteristics indexed against the underlying filing.
  • 02

    Earth-station applications

    Blanket earth-station, individually-licensed earth-station, and teleport applications. Gateway and user-terminal deployments tracked per operator, per class of service.
  • 03

    Modifications and waivers

    Any modification to an authorised space station or earth station — power, coverage, polarisation, frequency — captured as a new registry event with a supersedes-edge to the prior state.
  • 04

    Assignments and transfers of control

    Assignments of authorisations and transfers of control trigger registry updates with the new licensee's did:orbit identifier and the signed FCC consent record.
  • 05

    Milestone monitoring

    FCC-imposed milestone deadlines — for example, NGSO constellation build-out milestones — tracked per authorisation. Terminal surfaces approaching milestones to the relevant licensee.
  • 06

    Special Temporary Authority (STA)

    STA grants and extensions tracked separately from the underlying authorisation. Cleared instruments referencing STA capacity are clearly labelled as such.

Reconciliation workflow

Pull, diff, sign, anchor.

  1. 03:00 ETComplete

    IBFS public docket ingestion

    We pull the full day's IBFS docket activity — applications, grants, comments, consents — along with any late-evening modifications. The pull runs after FCC-docket end-of-day to capture same-day actions.
  2. 03:20 ETComplete

    Event normalisation

    Docket items normalised into registry-event types (application, grant, modification, assignment, STA, forfeiture, etc.). Each normalised event is tied to the underlying IBFS file number and call sign.
  3. 03:45 ETComplete

    Divergence computation

    Per-filing comparison against the current registry state. Missing records, stale records and contradictory records all flagged with severity.
  4. 04:00 ETComplete

    Signed divergence report

    Canonicalised divergence report signed by the registry service, appended to the transparency log, and anchored in the hourly Ethereum and Bitcoin anchors. On-call operations receives the signed summary.
  5. 04:15 ETComplete

    Member notifications

    Operators whose own authorisations changed overnight receive Terminal and email notifications with the matched IBFS reference and the signed registry update.

Ongoing obligations

The reconciliation job is never 'done'.

Public documents

Reconciliation is a published artefact, not an internal tool.

FCC IBFS reconciliation register

Daily reconciliation report
Report archive

Last ninety days of signed reports publicly accessible.

Reconciliation SLA
Published SLA

Committed overnight reconciliation window, with remediation timelines for misses.

Schema mapping
IBFS → did:orbit mapping

Every IBFS field and how it is represented in our registry.

Enforcement event feed
Public enforcement feed

NALs, forfeitures, consent decrees indexed against authorisation identifiers.

Milestone tracker
Constellation milestone register

NGSO milestone deadlines tracked per authorisation.

The evergreen pieces

Reconciliation feeds the rulebook.

The rulebook defines what happens when an authoritative record changes mid-contract — suspension, mark-to-market adjustment, recovery. Read the rulebook for the full procedure.

Clearing Member RulebookAll filings