Attachment Ex Parte Letter

Ex Parte Letter

LETTER submitted by Latham & Watkins

Ex Parte Letter

2008-04-09

This document pretains to SES-MFS-20071107-01535 for Modification w/ Foreign Satellite (earth station) on a Satellite Earth Station filing.

IBFS_SESMFS2007110701535_635775

                                                                       555 Eleventh Street, N.W., Suite 1000
                                                                       Washington, D.C. 20004—1304
                                                                       Tel: +1.202.637.2200 Fax: +1.202.637.2201
                                                                       www.lw.com

                                                                       FIRM / AFFILIATE OFFICES
L AT H A M &WAT K I N S LLP                                            Barcelona        New Jersey
                                                                       Brussels         New York
                                                                       Chicago          Northern Virginia
                                                                       Frankfurt        Orange County
                                                                       Hamburg          Paris
                                                                       Hong Kong        San Diego
      Aprll 9, 2008                                                    London           San Fran.msco
                                                                       Los Angeles      Shanghai
                                                                       Madrid           Silicon Valley
                                                                       NMilan           Singapore

      Ms. Marlene Dortch                                               Moscow           Tokyo
                                                                       Munich           Washington, D.C.
      Secretary
      Federal Communications Commission
      445 12th Street, N.W.
      Washington, DC 20554

                      Re:    Notice of Ex Parte Communication
                             File Numbers Listed on Exhibit A

      Dear Ms. Dortch:

                      On April 9, 2008, Diane Cornell, Christopher Murphy, Ruy Pinto, Dean Hope, all
      of Inmarsat, and John Janka, of Latham & Watkins LLP, had a teleconference with Karl
      Kensinger, Scott Kotler and Stephen Duall of the International Bureau to discuss the station—
      keeping condition in the licenses referenced in Exhibit A. The attached ex parte letter dated
      January 9, 2004, which we provided, and Inmarsat‘s positions of record in the proceedings listed
      in Exhibit A, served as the basis for the discussion.

                                                    Sincerely yours,

                                                       /J%, ..{.)
                                                    John P. Jank:


      ce:    Karl Kensinger
             Scott Kotler
             Stephen Duall




      Attachment


                               EXHIBIT A

          Applicant/Call Signs                   File Nos.

Stratos Communications, Inc.

E000180                                SES—MFS—20051122—01614
E010048                                SES—MFS—20051122—01616
E010049                                SES—MFS—20051122—01617
E010047                                SES—MFS—20051122—01618
E050249                                SES—LFS—20050826—01 175

Vizada

KA312                                  SES—MFS—20051123—01626
KA313                                  SES—MFS—20051123—01627
WA28                                   SES—MFS—20051123—01629
WB36                                   SES—MFS—20051123—01630
E000280                                SES—MFS—20060118—00050
E000282                                SES—MFS—20060118—00051
E000283                                SES—MEFS—20060118—00052
E000285                                SES—MFS—20060118—00053
KB34                                   SES—MFS—20071011—01413

SkyWave Mobile Communications Corp.

E030055                                SES—MFS—20051207—01709

Amtech Systems LLC

E990316                                SES—MFS—200705 1 1—00637
E030120                                SES—MFS—20070511—00638

Deere & Company

E010011                                SES—MFS—20071107—01535


                                                                       555 Eleventh Street, N.W., Suite 1000
                                                                       Washington, D.C. 20004—1304
                                                                       Tel: (202) 637—2200   Fax: (202) 637—2201
                                                                       wow.w.com

                                                                       FIRM / AFFILIATE OFFICES
LATHAM&WATKl N SU‘P                                                    Boston         New Jersey
                                                                       Brussols         New York
                                                                       Chicago          Northem Virginia
                                                                       Frankfurt        Orange County
                                                                       Hamburg          Paris
    January 9, 2004                       @             @              Hong Kong        San Diego
                                                                       London          San Francisco
                                          m'c'm 1                      Los Angelss     Silicon Vatley
                                      .         4                      Milan           Singapore
    BY HAND                                                            Moscow          Tokyo
                                                                                       Washington, D.C.
    Ms. Marlene H. Dortch
    Secretary
    Federal Communications Commission
    445 12"" Street, S.W.
    Washington, D.C. 20554

                      Re:    Ex Parte Presentation:
                             In the Matter of Mitigation of Orbital Debris, IB Docket No, 02—54

    Dear Ms. Dortch:

                      This letter is written on behalf of Inmarsat Ventures Limited ("Inmarsat") to
    elaborate on matters discussed with Commission staff in Inmarsat‘s ex parte presentation of
    December 22, 2003. For the reasons set forth below, Inmarsat urges the Commission not to
    reduce the +0.10 degree east/west station keeping tolerance that currently applies to MSS
    spacecraft. If the Commission nonetheless does so, (i) the Commission should not retroactively
    apply this requirement to MSS spacecraft that are in orbit or are being physically constructed,
    and (ii) the Commission should define the requirement so that compliance is measured in terms
    of east/west motion at the equatorial plane, and not at locations north or south of that plane.

                   In the NPRM in this proceeding, the Commission proposed to slightly modify
    certain FCC service rules that have governed thestation keeping tolerance for FSS spacecraft;
    namely, the requirement that GSO FSS spacecraft be maintained at £0.05 degrees oftheir
    assigned longitudes. Significantly, the Commission did not propose extending this +0.05 degree
    east/west station keeping tolerance requirement to MSS networks, which use FSS frequencies for
    feeder links (communications between the MSS spacecraft and the large "gateway" terminals
    that provide interconnections to the public switched network}. Rather, the Commission simply
    asked whether the requirement should be extended to space stations in other services, such as
    MSS networks and remote sensing satellites.‘

                      No party endorsed such a requirement, and Inmarsat is not aware of any
    information in the record that would warrant extending this £0.05 degree east/west station
    keeping requirement to MSS networks. To the contrary, MSS networks, such as Inmarsat‘s,
    have been designed and implemented in accordance with longstanding ITU standards requiring



    ‘ NPRM at § 47.


    DC\645059.1


   «.   January 9, 2004
        Page 2


LATHAMaWATKINS
        that they maintain a +0.10 degree east/west station keeping tolerance, which is identical to the
        Commission‘s longstanding station keeping standard for both MSS and DBS systems. The
        current £0.10 degree east/west station keeping tolerance accommodates a number offactors that
        drive the design and orbital performance of MSS spacecraft. This tolerance should be changed
        only in order to solve a compelling problem where the associated cost of not changing it
        outweighs the resulting increased design and daily operational burdens of changing it.

                      As Inmarsat explained in its December 22, 2003 ex parte presentation, applying a
        +0.05 degree east/west station keeping requirement to MSS spacecraft would change one of the
        fundamental "rules of the road" under which MSS spacecraft have been designed and have
        operated for years. In order to take advantage of the performance of MSS user terminals, and
        maximize the life of the spacecraft, MSS spacecraft typically do not maintain the type of orbit
        that FSS spacecraft maintain. Rather, MSS spacecraft are designed to utilize an inclined orbit,
        which results in the spacecraft tracing a "figure eight" in the sky, from the perspective of a user
        on the earth‘s surface. This means that the spacecraft, in the course of a day, spends most ofits
        time above and below the equatorial plane, as opposed to most FSS spacecraft, which are
        maintained close to equatorial plane. An example of an inclined orbit is shown in Figure 1
        below.




                                                     Figure 1




        DC\45059.1


    +   January 9, 2004
        Page 3



LATHAMeWATKINS«

                        Figure 1 depicts the motion of an ideal inclined orbit spacecraft whose north/south
        inclination in 3.4 degrees. The position noted on the vertical axis as 0.00 degrees represents the
        equatorial plane. At locations above and below the equatorial plane, the width of the figure eight
        orbit is a function of the height of the orbit. The width of the figure eight is a matter of physics.
        As the height of the figure eight orbit increases, its width rapidly expands as the square ofits
        height. And once the height of the figure eight extends above 2.7 degrees north/south, an MSS
        operator has to significantly increase the number of operating maneuvers in order to limit
        cast/west motion of the spacecraft to within +0.05 degrees. These maneuvers consume valuable
        fuel on board the spacecraft, and thereby shorten the life of the spacecraft. Thus, they are not
        typically undertaken unless absolutely necessary, And once the height of the figure eight
        extends above approximately 3.4 degrees north/south, it is no longer possible to maintain a £+0.05
        cast/west station keeping tolerance, as shown in Figure 1. No amount of east/west station
        keeping can change this.

                          There are other factors that affect the east/west station keeping of a spacecraft.
        Due to varying gravitational forces at different longitudes in the geostationary orbit (caused by
        the fact that the Earth is not a perfect sphere), some orbital locations are more susceptible to
        longitude drift than others. There are four gravitational "nulls" around the geostationary orbit
        located at longitudes of 75°E, 162°E, 105°W and 11.5°W. Unfortunately, for most operators,
        their spacecraft are located in the regions between these nulls where they experience non—zero
        drift accelerations which must be opposed in order to keep the spacecraft within the assigned
        station keeping box. The longitude drift causes the whole figure eight pattern to move from one
        edge of the box across to the other, thus, the size of the longitude margin between the edge of the
        figure eight and the edge of the box directly determines how often an operator must perform
        east/west station keeping. A smaller box requires more frequent station keeping maneuvers.

                          Moreover, east/west station keeping is affected by the amount of eccentricity in
        the orbit of an MSS spacecraft, which is driven of the physical characteristics of a spacecraft.
        An ideal spacecraft that presented no surface area to the sun in a perfectly circular orbit would
        trace a perfect figure eight in the sky, and, putting aside the effects of longitude drift, would
        cross the equatorial plane at the same place each day. Unfortunately, no objects in space, neither
        the moon, the earth, nor man—made spacecraft are ideal. Much like the sail of a sailboat
        "catches" the wind, large reflector antennas and solar arrays on spacecraft tend to "catch" solar
        particles, which increase the eccentricity of their orbit. The impact of these particles add to the
        orbit velocity of the spacecraft as it moves away from the sun (the night side) and conversely,
        they subtract from the orbit velocity as the spacecraft approaches the sun (the morning side). As
        a result, the figure eight in the orbit of an MSS spacecraft becomes distorted, and it then
        intersects the equatorial plane at different locations.

                        Figure 2 shows the effects of unmanaged eccentricity combined with 14 days of
        longitude drift. By contrast, Figure 3 shows that rotating perigee into the equatorial plane would
        restore a more symmetric figure eight and thus, minimizes longitude excursions at the equatorial
        plane.




        DC\645059.1


    >   January 9, 2004
        Page 4



LATHAMeWATKEIN S«




        PC145059.1


    +   January 9, 2004
        Page 5



LATH A MeWATKINSu

                          The extent of orbit eccentricity is driven by the surface area presented to the solar
        wind. This is clearly dependent on the size of the spacecraft and its appendages such as large
        solar arrays and large communications antenna reflectors. Information that Inmarsat has recently
        received in its discussions with manufacturers aboutthe future of spacecraft design indicates that
        future MSS spacecraft will be larger, have bigger antenna reflectors, bigger solar arrays, and
        therefore, will be even more susceptible to eccentric orbit longitude excursions than MSS
        spacecraft today.

                          Each of the separate factors explained above———the impact of north/south
        excursion in an inclined orbit, longitude drift, and orbital eccentricity———contributes to the overall
        east/west station keeping tolerance that could be maintained by an MSS spacecraft. The
        north/south orbital excursion establishes a nominal east/west tolerance that is theoretically
        achievable, but that value needs to be increased to take into account other variables such as (i)
        longitude drift, which varies at different orbital locations around the world, and (ii) eccentricity,
        which is driven by the size and physical configuration of an MSS spacecraft. Combined, these
        factors make it simply infeasible to maintain an MSS spacecraft within +0.05 degrees east/west
        in all parts ofits orbit.

                        Inmarsat believes that the Commission‘s current +0.10 degree east/west station
        keeping requirement for MSS spacecraft adequately accounts for the impact of each of these
        factors, and that this tolerance does not have any material adverse impact on the operation of
        other spacecraft. Inmarsat therefore believes that no change in the Commission‘s rules regarding
        station keeping of MSS spacecraft is warranted. Any rule that would limit east/west station
        keeping to less than +0.10 degrees would unnecessarily constrain future spacecraft design. And
        even if the operations of MSS spacecraft that are in orbit or are being built could be modified to
        comply with a new east/west station keeping tolerance of +0.05 degrees (which is far from
        certain), doing so would adversely impact the operation and reduce the useful life of those
        spacecraft.

                        Moreover, the Commission should not adopt any regulation governing the
        characteristics of inclined orbits that could require satellite operators to license a patent from
        another entity. Just after Inmarsat‘s December 22, 2003 ex parte meeting, Boeing alerted the
        Commission that it holds a U.S. patent for a method of controlling the eccentricity of inclined
        GSO orbit spacecraft." Inmarsat is still assessing this patent. Before adopting any +0.05 degree
        east/west station keeping tolerance requirement, the Commission should be certain that space
        station operators would not have to use techniques that potentially overlap with this or other
        existing patents in order to manage orbital eccentricity and thereby comply with such a station
        keeping requirement.

                       Furthermore, any station keeping tolerance regulation that is adopted should be
        applied only on a prospective basis, andit should not apply to MSS spacecraft that are either in—
        orbit or currently under physical construction. Inmarsat is in the midst of completing its next
        generation Inmarsat 4 satellites, at an investment of over $1.5 Billion (U.S.). This mobile


        * United States Patent No. USO06305646B1, October 23, 2001 (Inventor: Jeoffrey R. McAllister, et al.)



        DC\645039.1


    *   January 8, 2004
        Page 6



LATHAMeWATEKIN Sue

        satellite system has been designed in conformance with the existing ITU and FCC +0.10 degree
        east/west station keeping tolerance requirement for MSS spacecraft.

                          The Inmarsat 4 spacecraft are the heaviest commercial satellite generation in
        existence, have large solar arrays and antenna reflectors, and therefore are more susceptible to
        the types of orbit eccentricity issues discussed above. These spacecraft are designed with the
        latest available propulsion system technology: each Inmarsat 4 satellite will use plasma thrusters
        for both north/south station keeping and for eccentricity control, and will rely on standard
        chemical propulsion only for longitude drift control. However, Inmarsat has not yet gained
        operational experience in maintaining this new type of spacecraft, It therefore is far from certain
        whether, in practice, an Inmarsat 4 spacecraft could comply with a £+0.05 degree east/west station
        keeping tolerance that is adopted at this very late stage in the Inmarsat 4 program.

                          Should the Commission nonetheless adopt an east/west station keeping
        requirement for MSS spacecraft, Inmarsat urges the Commission to define it with reference to
        the equatorial plane as follows:

                  MSS space stations operated in the geostationary satellite orbit must be maintained within
                  +0.05° of their assigned orbital location in the east/west direction at the equatorial plane,
                  unless specifically authorized by the Commission to operate with a different longitudinal
                  tolerance, and except as provided in Section 25.282 (End—of—life disposal).

        Doing so would achieve a number of things. First, it would constrain east/west drift only at the
        location of concern—at the equatorial plane. Second, it would not constrain the width of the
        "figure eight" above and below the equatorial plane that is inherent in the orbit of a spacecraft in
        an inclined orbit. Third, it would allow for the possibility of "non—grandfathered" future MSS
        spacecraft coordinating greater than +0.05° station keeping tolerances with respect to other
        spacecraft in adjacent orbit locations.

                        In conclusion, Inmarsat urges the Commission not to impose a +0.05 degree
        east/west station keeping tolerance on MSS spacecraft. But if the Commission nonetheless does
        so, Inmarsat requests that the Commission (i) apply such a requirement only on a prospective
        basis, and not to MSS spacecraft that are in—orbit or are currently under physical construction,
        and (ti) define the requirement so that compliance is measured in terms of east/west motion at the
        equatorial plane, and not at locations north or south of that plane.

                          An original and three copies are enclosed.

                                                        Respectfully submitted,


                                                      M VULLL
                                                        John P. Janka
                                                        Alex D. Hoehn—Saric




        DC\45059. I


    +.   January 9, 2004
         Page 7



LATHAMsWATKINS«




         co:       Sheryl Wilkerson
                   Rod Porter
                   John Martin
                   Jackie Ruff
                   Sankar Persaud
                   Steven Spacth
                   Karl Kensinger
                   Stephen Duall
                   JoAnn Lucanik




          DC\A5059.1



Document Created: 2008-04-16 11:46:00
Document Modified: 2008-04-16 11:46:00

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