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.

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.

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.