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FCC IBFS Satellite Filings Scraper

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FCC IBFS Satellite Filings Scraper

Extract structured data from FCC International Bureau Filing System (IBFS) satellite service filings at fcc.report. No account required.

What it does

The actor crawls FCC IBFS filing category pages and fetches individual filing detail pages, returning structured records for each filing. It covers:

  • SAT filings — Space station applications: launch-and-operate (LOA), modifications (MOD), special temporary authority (STA), amended filings (AMD), and transfer of control
  • SES filings — Earth station applications: licenses (LIC), modifications (MOD), renewals (RWL), registrations (REG), and special temporary authority (STA)

Each record includes the applicant name, filing/action dates, status, satellite service type, frequency bands, attached document URLs, and public notice dates.

Use cases

  • Competitive intelligence — Track competitor satellite operator filings: Starlink, Kuiper, OneWeb, Viasat, SES, Intelsat, and hundreds more
  • Spectrum law — Monitor NGSO market access requests, frequency coordination filings, and FCC action on pending applications
  • M&A diligence — Enumerate a company's FCC spectrum licenses and pending modifications
  • RF coordination — Build earth-station databases for interference analysis and frequency coordination
  • Regulatory monitoring — Set up incremental runs with date filters to receive alerts on new and modified IBFS filings

Input

Field Type Description
maxItems integer Maximum number of filings to scrape (default: 50)
filingTypes string[] Filing type prefixes, e.g. ["SAT-LOA", "SES-MOD"]. Leave empty for all types
startDate string Filter by action date on or after (YYYY-MM-DD). Leave empty for all dates
endDate string Filter by action date on or before (YYYY-MM-DD). Leave empty for all dates

Supported filing types

Prefix Category Description
SAT-LOA Space Station Application to Launch and Operate
SAT-MOD Space Station Modification
SAT-STA Space Station Special Temporal Authority
SAT-AMD Space Station Amended Filing
SAT-T-C Space Station Transfer of Control
SES-LIC Earth Station License
SES-MOD Earth Station Modification
SES-RWL Earth Station Renewal
SES-STA Earth Station Special Temporal Authority
SES-REG Earth Station Earth Station Registration

Output

Each item in the dataset represents one IBFS filing:

{
  "file_number": "SAT-MOD-20230412-00081",
  "filing_type": "SAT",
  "application_type": "MOD",
  "applicant_name": "Astranis Projects USA LLC",
  "bureau": "International Bureau",
  "filing_date": "2023-04-12",
  "action_date": "2023-05-19",
  "status": "Accepted for Filing Public Notice",
  "filing_description": "Modification to adjust the TT&C frequencies for the Arcturus satellite.",
  "service_type": "Fixed Satellite Service",
  "frequency_bands": "[{\"lower\":\"18200\",\"upper\":\"20200\"},{\"lower\":\"28000\",\"upper\":\"30000\"}]",
  "attached_documents": "[{\"url\":\"https://fcc.report/IBFS/.../21518303\",\"name\":\"Attachment Narrative\"}]",
  "call_sign": "S3092",
  "public_notice_date": null,
  "filing_url": "https://fcc.report/IBFS/SAT-MOD-20230412-00081",
  "fcc_url": "https://licensing.fcc.gov/cgi-bin/ws.exe/..."
}

Field reference

Field Description
file_number FCC IBFS filing identifier (e.g. SES-MOD-20201204-01305)
filing_type Top-level filing type: SAT (space station) or SES (earth station)
application_type Sub-type: LOA, MOD, RWL, STA, LIC, REG, AMD, T-C
applicant_name Company or individual name
bureau FCC bureau (always "International Bureau" for IBFS)
filing_date Date the application was submitted
action_date Date of the most recent FCC action
status Current status: Granted, Pending, Filed, Action Taken, etc.
filing_description Narrative description of the filing purpose
service_type Satellite service: Fixed Satellite Service, Mobile Satellite Service, NGSO, etc.
frequency_bands JSON string array of {lower, upper} frequency pairs in MHz
attached_documents JSON string array of {url, name} for attached PDF documents
call_sign FCC call sign assigned to earth station filings
public_notice_date Most recent public notice date
filing_url Canonical fcc.report detail page URL
fcc_url FCC licensing.fcc.gov URL for the filing
source_page_html Raw HTML of the filing metadata block for downstream parsing

Rate limits and politeness

The actor makes requests at approximately 1 request per second. For large runs, use startDate/endDate filters to run incrementally rather than requesting full history in one pass.

Data source

All data is sourced from fcc.report, a free public mirror of the FCC International Bureau Filing System. The original data is published by the FCC under public domain terms.

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