Secure Space Act of 2026

Regulatory or Legal Changes Top 1

Ban on Satellite Licenses for Covered List Entities

Bars the FCC from issuing satellite licenses, U.S. market access, or earth station authorizations to any entity on the agency's Covered List of untrusted communications providers or to any affiliate of such an entity. Allows the FCC to issue a report assessing supply chain security risks when a licensed satellite operator or earth station uses communications equipment made by a Covered List entity, without expanding or contracting existing FCC authority.

• Population Scope Low The prohibition directly affects only those satellite operators, earth station licensees, and market-access petitioners that are on the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Covered List or are their affiliates — a narrow set of entities, not the general public.
• Budgetary Magnitude Low The bill neither authorizes nor appropriates funds; it imposes a licensing prohibition and directs FCC to issue rules, generating at most modest administrative costs.
• Legal / Regulatory Depth High Creates a new binding statutory prohibition — a hard categorical bar on FCC licensing authority — that forecloses a class of otherwise permissible agency grants and cannot be waived by agency discretion.
• Degree of Discretion Granted Medium The core prohibition is mandatory ('may not grant'), leaving no FCC discretion, but the supply-chain risk report is permissive ('may issue'), and FCC retains rulemaking discretion in implementing the ban within the one-year deadline.
• Implementation & Enforcement Burden Medium Compliance requires FCC to conduct affiliate-relationship determinations on a case-by-case basis against a 10-percent ownership threshold, imposing recurring adjudicatory load without standing up new enforcement infrastructure or penalties.
• Temporal Commitment High The prohibition applies to all grants on or after enactment with no expiration date, persisting indefinitely until Congress acts to repeal or modify it.