Industries · Manufacturing, Industrials & Mobility
Space and Satellite Legal Recruitment
A commercial space company answers to three federal authorisations in the United States before it answers to a customer. Spectrum, launch and remote sensing are the in-house job. The satellite manufacturing contract is the easy file.
Three authorisations, one in-house owner.
Commercial space companies hire an operator general counsel, spectrum counsel and export-controls counsel. The United States splits the file across the FCC (spectrum and orbits), the FAA (launch and re-entry) and NOAA (remote sensing); the ITU Radio Regulations sit behind the national administration that notifies the filing. We recruit those seats. We do not staff this as an ITAR-prime search.
- US stack
- FCC Space Bureau for spectrum and orbits; FAA for launch and re-entry (Commercial Space Launch Act 1984); NOAA Office of Space Commerce for remote sensing.
- ITU layer
- National administrations notify satellite networks under the ITU Radio Regulations. Ofcom is the UK notifying administration; the FCC is the US one.
- The priced line
- An NGSO system fee sits in the hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. A UK orbital operator licence is in the low thousands of pounds. The conditions, not the fee, create the seat.
- Search clock
- GC/CLO 24 days to shortlist, 11 weeks to accepted offer (n=38 since 2017). Specialist counsel 18 days / 8 weeks.
- Corporate book
- 230+ in-house placements since 2017; 96% offer acceptance; 12-month replacement on retained GC/CLO/CCO searches.
The talent-market essay is space and satellite regulatory counsel. This page is the company service layer: who to hire, which search product, which city. Companies that copy a brief from aerospace and defense hire a government-contracts lawyer and then discover the FCC milestone is what actually kills the constellation.
The customer MSA is the easy file. The license condition is the job.
Legal leadership companies hire here.
General counsel, commercial space operator
Holds FCC (or Ofcom) spectrum, FAA launch, NOAA remote-sensing and the ITU notification chain in one seat. Often the first lawyer. A copied aerospace-and-defense GC description, written for ITAR primes, is the usual error.
First general counsel search 02Spectrum and orbital licensing counsel
FCC Space Bureau filings, deployment milestones, the five-year disposal condition, and the administration that notifies the ITU. In the UK the activity licence sits with the CAA and the notifying administration is Ofcom. One company, two statutes.
In-house counsel recruiting 03Head of sanctions and export controls
ITAR, EAR, OFAC and the EU dual-use regime on buses, payloads and ground stations. This is a commercial-space brief, not a prime-contractor ITAR shop. Run through sanctions and export-controls search.
Sanctions and export-controls search 04Launch liability and insurance counsel
FAA launch and re-entry licensing (Commercial Space Launch Act of 1984, as amended), indemnities, and the UK liability-cap regime under the Space Industry (Indemnities) Act 2025. The lawyer who has closed a launch licence, not the lawyer who has read about one.
In-house counsel recruiting 05Deputy GC / Head of Legal
Second chair once the operator holds more than one constellation filing or a second jurisdiction. Splits spectrum from export controls. Of 47 deputy placements since 2017.
Deputy GC search 06Chief compliance officer
License-condition monitoring, milestone reporting and the debris file. Appears when the operator crosses from an experimental licence to a constellation. Audit-committee line on larger platforms.
Chief compliance officer searchWhat the regulators have actually priced and dated.
- FCC fee
- The Commission prices a non-geostationary system in the hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. The fee is the smallest line in the budget; the license conditions attached to it are the in-house job.
- FCC regulatory fees order (FY2024)
- 5 years
- Post-mission disposal benchmark for low-earth orbit, adopted 29 September 2022 in FCC 22-74, replacing a 25-year guideline. It is a license condition, not guidance. A year later the Commission issued its first orbital-debris forfeiture: $150,000 against DISH Network on 2 October 2023.
- FCC 22-74, Mitigation of Orbital Debris in the New Space Age (adopted 29 September 2022)
- UK Act 2025
- The Space Industry (Indemnities) Act 2025 made liability caps mandatory for licensed spaceflight. The Civil Aviation Authority prices an orbital operator licence in the low thousands of pounds; launch, spaceport and range-control authorisations carry no fee. London licenses the activity; Washington prices the spectrum.
- Space Industry (Indemnities) Act 2025; UK CAA, Space licensing in the UK
| Jurisdiction | Instrument | What it costs / dates |
|---|---|---|
| United States | FCC FY2024 NGSO system fee | Hundreds of thousands of dollars a year |
| United States | FCC 22-74 LEO disposal (29 Sept 2022) | 5-year condition, replacing 25-year guideline |
| United States | First orbital-debris forfeiture | $150,000, DISH Network, 2 Oct 2023 |
| United Kingdom | Space Industry Act 2018 activity licences | Orbital operator licence in the low thousands of pounds; launch/spaceport/range: no fee |
| United Kingdom | Space Industry (Indemnities) Act 2025 | Liability caps mandatory for licensed spaceflight |
| ITU | Radio Regulations / national notification | Ofcom (UK) and FCC (US) as notifying administrations |
Source: FCC FY2024 fees order; FCC 22-74; UK CAA (September 2025); Space Industry (Indemnities) Act 2025.
Milestones, debris and the second country.
- i.
Deployment milestones
An FCC licence that requires half a constellation on orbit by a dated day is a corporate calendar, not a regulatory curiosity. Miss it and the next round of spectrum is a waiver petition. That petition is why the operator GC exists.
- ii.
Debris as a licence condition
Five years, not twenty-five. FCC 22-74 made disposal a condition; the 2023 DISH forfeiture showed the Commission will price a miss. In-house counsel who still treat debris as a sustainability slide are the wrong hire.
- iii.
Export controls on a commercial bus
This is where the brief collides with sanctions and export-controls search and with semiconductors and hardware. A payload that looks like a telecoms product on the customer slide is still an EAR or ITAR file on the shipping dock.
- iv.
The second jurisdiction
The Space Industry (Indemnities) Act 2025 made liability caps mandatory for licensed UK spaceflight. Luxembourg and other European space acts add a criminal overlay. The second-country hire is usually a deputy, not a second GC. Cross-border seats on our book: 28 days to shortlist, 14 weeks to offer.
How we run the search is in methodology. The corporate offer path is for companies.
Adjacent legal markets.
Aerospace & Defense
ITAR primes and government-contracts counsel — adjacent, not the same product.
Open the sub-sectorAviation
Airlines, lessors and Cape Town — different statute, sometimes the same insurer.
Open the sub-sectorAutomotive & Mobility
Mobility companies whose satellite connectivity now sits on the same licence stack.
Open the sub-sectorAdvanced Manufacturing
Component and bus manufacturers feeding commercial launch.
Open the sub-sectorHub: Manufacturing, Industrials & Mobility. Index: all industries. Research programme: /research/.
Hiring space and satellite counsel — questions from operator GCs
Is commercial-space legal hiring the same as aerospace-and-defense?
No. ITAR primes hire government-contracts and export-controls counsel against a different statute. Commercial operators hire spectrum, launch-liability and ITU-notification counsel. Keep aerospace and defense for the prime; use this page for the operator.
Which in-house seat owns FCC spectrum and ITU notification?
Spectrum and orbital licensing counsel, usually under the operator GC. Washington licenses spectrum and orbits; the national administration notifies the ITU. In the UK that split is CAA activity licence and Ofcom as notifying administration. See space and satellite regulatory counsel.
When does a space company need export-controls counsel rather than a bigger GC?
When buses, payloads or ground stations cross ITAR, EAR or EU dual-use. That is head of sanctions and export controls, not a generalist deputy. The semiconductor-era note on the same family of work is export controls and sanctions lawyers.
Where do you run commercial-space searches?
Washington, Los Angeles, London and Houston. City pages: Washington, Los Angeles, London and Houston.
How long does a retained operator-GC search take?
Shortlist in 24 days on GC and CLO searches; accepted offer in 11 weeks median, of 38 such searches since 2017. Specialist spectrum or export-controls counsel runs on the senior-counsel clock: 18 days, 8 weeks.
Can one lawyer cover the FCC and a European national space act?
Rarely as a standing sole seat. The statutes, the fee schedules and the liability caps diverge. Plan for a GC plus a jurisdiction specialist, or a deputy in the second market. Deputy GC search is the usual second requisition.
Start a conversation
Staff the licence before the constellation waiver.
Retained for GC, CLO and CCO searches. Fixed fee, three instalments, 12-month replacement. We map against FCC, FAA, CAA and export-control history — not against a space-industry mailing list.