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Satellites

This sec­tion con­tains infor­ma­tion about the upcom­ing IARU Satel­lite Fre­quen­cy Coor­di­na­tion Pan­el meet­ing, lat­est news and infor­ma­tion about IARU satel­lite fre­quen­cy coordination.

next panel meeting

The next IARU Satel­lite Fre­quen­cy Coor­di­na­tion Pan­el meet­ing will be on 24 March 2025. Sub­mit your coor­di­na­tion requests NLT 22 March. Click for the most recent ver­sion of the coor­di­na­tion request form https://www.iaru.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/iaru_amateur_satellite_coordination_request_v40.doc

IARU Satellite Frequency Coordination Reaches 1,000th Milestone

AO51 (pho­to AMSAT)

The Inter­na­tion­al Ama­teur Radio Union (IARU) recent­ly cel­e­brat­ed a sig­nif­i­cant mile­stone, hav­ing received and processed 1,000 satel­lite fre­quen­cy coor­di­na­tion requests. This achieve­ment high­lights the orga­ni­za­tion’s cru­cial role in ensur­ing the order­ly use of radio fre­quen­cies by ama­teur satel­lites in orbit. Many of these requests have result­ed in suc­cess­ful mis­sions pro­vid­ing ama­teur com­mu­ni­ca­tions and edu­ca­tion­al oppor­tu­ni­ties to sev­er­al gen­er­a­tions of tech­nol­o­gy stu­dents, pro­fes­sion­als and enthusiasts.

Since its incep­tion in the late 1990s, the IARU through its Satel­lite Fre­quen­cy Coor­di­na­tion Pan­el has been piv­otal in man­ag­ing the radio fre­quen­cy spec­trum for ama­teur satel­lites, ensur­ing opti­mal per­for­mance and min­i­mal inter­fer­ence between satel­lites and between satel­lites and ter­res­tri­al radio­com­mu­ni­ca­tion ser­vices. The coor­di­na­tion process involves close col­lab­o­ra­tion with satel­lite devel­op­ers, reg­u­la­tors and users, ensur­ing that the allo­cat­ed fre­quen­cies align with inter­na­tion­al reg­u­la­tions and that the satel­lite mis­sions can oper­ate with­out caus­ing dis­rup­tion to oth­er services.

AO73 (pho­to PA3WEG)

This mile­stone reflects the grow­ing inter­est in, and the tech­ni­cal advances that have been made to, small satel­lite tech­nol­o­gy, par­tic­u­lar­ly Cube­Sats. This has been ampli­fied by the decrease in launch costs in recent years. The increas­ing num­ber of satel­lite launch­es for ama­teur com­mu­ni­ca­tion, edu­ca­tion­al and sci­en­tif­ic pur­pos­es has under­scored the need for care­ful man­age­ment of the lim­it­ed radio fre­quen­cy spec­trum avail­able to ama­teur operators.

QO100 (pho­to Eshailsat)

1,000 coor­di­na­tion requests marks not just a numer­ic achieve­ment but also shows the ded­i­ca­tion and exper­tise of the IARU’s vol­un­teers and the glob­al ama­teur radio com­mu­ni­ty. Their efforts ensure that ama­teur satel­lites can con­tin­ue to thrive, pro­vid­ing valu­able ama­teur com­mu­ni­ca­tions and edu­ca­tion­al oppor­tu­ni­ties for glob­al users as well as facil­i­tat­ing sci­en­tif­ic research in space.

As the orbital envi­ron­ment around Earth becomes increas­ing­ly crowd­ed, the IARU’s role in fre­quen­cy coor­di­na­tion will remain vital. The organization’s ongo­ing work will help to ensure that future satel­lite mis­sions can oper­ate suc­cess­ful­ly while pre­serv­ing the integri­ty of the ama­teur and ama­teur-satel­lite ser­vice spec­trum allo­ca­tions. Since 2003 a fre­quen­cy coor­di­na­tion list is kept at IARU Sat Coor­di­na­tor . The list was devel­oped by Jim Heck G3WGM, then the Hon Sec­re­tary of AMSAT-uk on behalf of the IARU Pan­el. It is kept up to date by Gra­ham Shirville G3VZV who is a mem­ber of the pan­el and is cur­rent­ly main­tained on an AMSAT-uk serv­er by their trea­sur­er Cia­ran Mor­gan M0XTD.

Amateur Radio Satellite Frequency Coordination

Since 1961, radio ama­teurs have been respon­si­ble for cre­at­ing a con­stel­la­tion of some 150 orbit­ing space satel­lites. As the num­ber of satel­lites increas­es, both ama­teur, com­mer­cial and gov­ern­men­tal, the need for prop­er coor­di­na­tion of oper­at­ing fre­quen­cies becomes critical.

The IARU satel­lite fre­quen­cy coor­di­na­tion pan­el acts as the focus for coor­di­na­tion of oper­at­ing fre­quen­cies for ama­teur satel­lites. Here you will find a com­pre­hen­sive set of pages giv­ing the back­ground to IARU’s work and giv­ing guid­ance on apply­ing for fre­quen­cy coordination.

Coordination request version 40

On 15 May 2020 ver­sion 40 of the IARU Ama­teur Satel­lite Coor­di­na­tion Request came into effect. Ear­li­er ver­sions will no longer be accepted.

Frequency Coordination Status

Find the cur­rent fre­quen­cy coor­di­na­tion sta­tus for new satellites. 

short information paper

A short infor­ma­tion paper is avail­able, pro­vid­ing basic infor­ma­tion for IARU Mem­ber soci­eties, who act as the Point of Con­tact for indi­vid­ual ama­teurs and edu­ca­tion­al insti­tutes who wish to oper­ate a space sta­tion oper­at­ing in bands allo­cat­ed to the ama­teur-satel­lite ser­vice. This should be read in con­junc­tion with the more detailed infor­ma­tion available.

IARU aligns Satellite Coordination Guidelines with ITU WRC-15 Decisions

​Effec­tive 1 August 2017 the IARU will be fol­low­ing revised guide­lines for satel­lite fre­quen­cy coor­di­na­tion. See the news release.

Materials

  • Ama­teur Satellites​
  • iaru_amateur_satellite_coordination_request_v40
  • Satel­lite Fre­quen­cy Coor­di­na­tion in the Two-Metre Band [PDF]​
  • Con­trol­ling Satel­lites [PDF]
  • ITU Hand­book on Small Satel­lites was devel­oped in response to Res­o­lu­tion ITU‑R 68 on “Improv­ing the dis­sem­i­na­tion of knowl­edge con­cern­ing the applic­a­ble reg­u­la­to­ry pro­ce­dures for small satel­lites, includ­ing nanosatel­lites and picosatel­lites”. This stand-alone Hand­book is intend­ed to pro­mote the devel­op­ment of small satel­lites effec­tive­ly and bet­ter serve the needs of the mem­ber­ship and the entire satel­lite indus­try. The hand­book can be found on the ITU web
  • ITU fil­ing pro­ce­dures for small satel­lites, includ­ing Ama­teur Radio Satel­lites can be found on the ITU web  Besides gen­er­al infor­ma­tion about the ama­teur satel­lite ser­vice the ITU web con­tains help­files and tuto­ri­als including 
    • the API Data cap­ture and val­i­da­tion wizard
    • the Noti­fi­ca­tion Data cap­ture and val­i­da­tion wizard 
    • the BR Reg­is­tra­tion Tutorial

Advisory Panel

The IARU Ama­teur Satel­lite Advi­sor, assist­ed by a pan­el of experts, coor­di­nate fre­quen­cies and advise satel­lite builders and prospec­tive builders. The IARU Satel­lite Fre­quen­cy Coor­di­na­tion Pan­el typ­i­cal­ly meets every two to three weeks.

IARU Satellite Advisor

Hans Blondeel Tim­mer­man, PB2T: p.….@me.com

Region 1

Region 2

Region 3

Special Advisors

Print This Page Updated on March 11, 2025

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