The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) denied The DirecTV Group Inc.’s request to launch and operate two geostationary satellites in the Ka-band.

In a Dec. 30, 2004 letter to DirecTV that was made public Jan. 3, FCC said that DirecTV had requested authority to launch and operate DIRECTV 10 and DIRECTV 11. Those satellites would serve as “partial replacements” for Spaceway-2 and Spaceway-1, respectively.

However, the FCC said in its letter that because the Spaceway satellites no longer held the authority to operate in the specified frequency bands, those orbital slots are considered “available for reassignment” and the public will have an equal opportunity to obtain the orbital locations previously occupied by the Spaceway satellites. This is why DirecTV’s request for launch and operation authority was denied. The FCC did say that DirecTV could submit an application when the spectrum was available for reassignment.