By Abbey White, Staff Writer, SatNews
The Velocity Pivot
In Washington, modernization is usually a euphemism for forming a committee to study a problem. For FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, it appears to be a euphemism for a demolition crew. In a statement released Tuesday, Carr summarized his first year at the helm with a metric that matters more than any policy speech: the Space Bureau processed 3,418 applications in 2025, a 21% increase over the previous year, effectively cutting the agency’s notorious backlog in half.
The numbers validate what industry insiders have felt since October’s declared “Space Month”: the regulatory friction that once defined the FCC’s interaction with the commercial space sector is being systematically stripped away. This is no longer an agency acting as a gatekeeper; it is positioning itself as a launchpad. The shift is most visible in the agency’s handling of Direct-to-Device (D2D) connectivity, where the Commission moved to allow higher power levels, effectively graduating the technology from a niche emergency service to a commercial utility.
The Space Month Dividend
The surge in activity traces back to the aggressive agenda set in October 2025, which prioritized “speed, simplicity, security, and spectrum abundance.” But the retrospective highlights that this wasn’t just rhetoric. By reimagining the technical rules that limit Low Earth Orbit (LEO) systems, specifically the Equivalent Power Flux Density (EPFD) limits, the FCC claims to have unlocked a pathway to boost broadband capacity by 180%.
This is a critical piece of the puzzle for operators like SpaceX and Amazon Leo. The legacy rules, designed to protect geostationary (GEO) incumbents from interference, had become a mathematical straitjacket for LEO constellations. By loosening these constraints, Carr is effectively betting that modern beam-forming technology can handle interference better than old regulations ever could.
Structural Reform: The End of “Bespoke” Licensing
Perhaps the most significant long-term victory mentioned in the report is the formal initiation of the “Part 100” rulemaking. This proposal seeks to replace the decades-old Part 25 framework with a modular, industrialized licensing model.
The transition from artisanal satellite licensing, where every mission is treated as a unique snowflake, to an assembly line approach is existential for the industry. With mega-constellations deploying thousands of nodes, the old manual review process had become a single point of failure for the U.S. space economy. The 2025 scorecard suggests that the “Part 100” era is not just a proposal, but the active operating logic of the Space Bureau.
Consolidation and Realpolitik
The Chairman’s victory lap also highlighted the approval of the SES and Intelsat merger, a deal that created a multi-orbit giant capable of competing with the economics of new LEO players. In previous administrations, such a consolidation might have faced withering antitrust scrutiny. Under Carr’s “Build America” agenda, it was fast-tracked as a necessary evolution to ensure Western operators remain solvent and competitive.
This aligns with the broader “Spectrum Abundance” initiative, which teed up 20,000 megahertz of spectrum for satellite broadband, a volume exceeding all currently available satellite spectrum combined. This massive release of bandwidth is the regulatory equivalent of a land rush, designed to ensure that U.S. companies claim the high ground before international competitors can file conflicting claims.
The Environmental Bypass
However, the speed comes with a distinct ideological edge. Carr’s report proudly notes the “axing” of a Biden-era proposal to increase environmental regulatory burdens on infrastructure builds and the streamlining of historic permitting rules. While the industry cheers the removal of National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) bottlenecks, this bulldoze-first approach may yet invite litigation from environmental groups, particularly as the launch cadence accelerates.
Outlook: The 2026 Agenda
The Chairman closed with a clear signal: “This is just the beginning.” With the backlog cut in half and the “Part 100” framework in motion, 2026 will likely shift focus from cleanup to offense. The agenda implies a year of aggressive spectrum auctions and the final implementation of the neutral-host ground station rules.
For the commercial space sector, the message from the 2025 scorecard is clear: The FCC is no longer asking “Why?” It is now asking “How fast?”