A private navigation constellation now has its building permit. The Federal Communications Commission has cleared Xona to transmit its Pulsar navigation signals from a planned fleet exceeding 250 satellites in low Earth orbit, the company announced on August 3, and the first six production spacecraft are slated for launch in October.
Via Satellite reported that the approval covers radionavigation signals in L-band spectrum, adjacent to GPS, and expands the license beyond Pulsar-0, the demonstration satellite, to the whole planned system.
What Pulsar promises
Xona claims signal strength of up to 100 times GPS and a dynamic cryptographic watermark to defeat spoofing. Because the broadcasts sit in L-band beside the center frequencies GPS uses, many existing receivers could take them on through integration rather than replacement. The company builds its satellites in Burlingame, California, and says the design delivers native centimeter-level precision plus a software-defined architecture that keeps improving after launch.
Proof on orbit
Pulsar-0, launched in June of last year, has logged more than 350 transmission passes and shown compatibility with existing GNSS, according to the company. Xona counts some six billion GNSS-enabled devices in use worldwide, and it designed the signal so manufacturers can switch on support by software or firmware update wherever the installed hardware permits.
“From the beginning, we were told that what we wanted to do was impossible,” said Xona co-founder and CEO Brian Manning. “A commercial company had never built a system like Pulsar, and no one had been authorized to introduce a new, high-power navigation signal alongside GPS.”
“This decision is the culmination of years of engineering, testing and coordination, clearing the way for a capability the world increasingly needs.” Manning added that the years of testing also proved a stronger commercial signal could operate safely beside GPS.
The field it enters
Satellite navigation has belonged to nation-states since its invention. With the FCC decision in hand, Xona says it becomes the only federally authorized private navigation constellation operating next to the systems of the United States, Europe, China and Russia. Company co-founder and CTO Tyler Reid has described compatibility as work that reaches across satellites, chipmakers, test equipment providers, receiver manufacturers, regulators and customers: “compatibility is not a single technical decision”. Xona runs a program called Pulsar Verified for companies building compatible chipsets, receivers and simulation tools.
The commercial logic rests on GPS strain. Spoofing and jamming have grown common, signals built for an earlier era weaken in urban centers and conflict zones, and drones, robotics and autonomous machines keep multiplying. Xona frames its signal as protection for what already depends on navigation and a lane for whatever arrives next.
First proof comes with the October launch of the first six production satellites, the rest to follow from the Burlingame production line. The constellation is authorized. The build now has to fill it.
Sources
- Xona Gets Approval to Deploy Commercial Navigation Constellation – Via Satellite
- Pulsar receives first-of-its-kind FCC authorization for full deployment – Xona
