Paul Jacobs once ran Qualcomm, the chip company that put a modem in nearly every smartphone. On 8 October, the FCC's Space Bureau quietly cleared a license for the company he now leads: 54 satellites, aimed at the same phones Qualcomm spent decades connecting.
Globalstar announced the order on 19 October, eleven days after the Space Bureau signed it. The license covers the third-generation C-3 system — 48 operational satellites and six on-orbit spares, transmitting in S-band from 1,414 kilometers.
This is not a broadband network. It carries direct-to-device traffic: emergency texts, short messages, location pings. The low-bandwidth signals that keep working when a cell tower does not.
Fifty-four spacecraft, one spectrum slice
Globalstar's advantage is regulatory before it is technical. The FCC's October fact sheet on direct-to-device rules notes that only two systems hold licenses in the Big LEO mobile-satellite bands: Globalstar and Iridium. Globalstar's CDMA allocation runs from 1610 to 1617.775 MHz.
That slice is why Amazon agreed to pay $11.57 billion for the company in April. The deal is still working through its approvals.
MDA Space is prime contractor. Rocket Lab is building the platforms, according to SatNews. The first dozen satellites go up in early-to-mid 2027 into a 680-kilometer insertion orbit, then climb to their operational plane. Ground control splits between Covington, Louisiana and Toulouse, France, backed by roughly 90 six-meter antennas across 20 countries.
54 authorized spacecraft: 48 operational plus 6 spares
1,414 km operational altitude, S-band beamforming
12 satellites in the first launch tranche, 2027
Half the fleet must be in orbit by 11 October 2032
S-band dynamic beamforming concentrates transmission power on handsets that are actually transmitting, rather than blanketing a region. At 1,414 kilometers a satellite stays in view for several minutes. Long enough for a short message. Short enough that the constellation needs dozens of spacecraft to cover one country.
Apple holds 85% of the pipe
Under long-term wholesale agreements, Apple prepays for infrastructure and controls 85% of the network's capacity, according to SatNews. The arrangement traces back to Apple's $1.5 billion investment in the constellation in November 2024.
Globalstar builds and operates the hardware. Apple supplies the demand and most of the capital. That division explains why a license granted in Washington matters more in Cupertino than in Covington.
The hardware is Globalstar's. The demand is Apple's.
Receiving this FCC authorization is a critical step forward for continuing to enhance the capabilities of our Low-Earth Orbit satellite constellations.— Paul Jacobs, CEO, Globalstar
Globalstar filed the C-3 application in February 2025. The company has held mobile-satellite authority in some form for more than three decades, a history its press release mentions without embellishment.
The 2032 deadline Amazon inherits
The order carries a hard build milestone. Globalstar must launch and operate at least half of the 48 authorized satellites by 11 October 2032, and file semi-annual conjunction reports with the Space Bureau after that — every near miss, every maneuver.
Amazon's pending acquisition adds a second clock. Amazon Leo has asked the FCC for up to 5,105 direct-to-device satellites of its own, with launches planned from 2028. If the deal closes, Amazon operates both networks and inherits Globalstar's spectrum, ground segment and deadline.
As we wrote in October, Amazon had built 1,000 satellites and put 396 in orbit. The gap between manufacturing and deployment is the constraint that matters in this sector.
Globalstar's 54 spacecraft are a small fleet by that standard. Their value sits in the license attached to them, not in the buses themselves.
What the FCC approved is a spectrum position. The 54 satellites are how Globalstar keeps it.