FCC SSAL refresh

Operator runbook for refreshing FCC license rows. Clarke does not scrape fcc.gov. The Approved Space Station List sits behind Akamai bot protection; automated curl / headless Chromium requests return Access Denied. The product as-of date is the workbook vintage (sheet name, e.g. Updated 30 April 2026), not ingest_meta.last_run.

Daily ingest.yml still skips FCC so a re-parse of the same committed file cannot claim “updated today.” A weekly job re-parses data/ssal.xlsx and records vintage + sha256 without pretending the file was re-downloaded.

Weekly (automated)

npm run ingest:fcc

This:

1. Reads data/ssal.xlsx (must exist, non-empty).

2. Parses sheet 0; GEO rows with an N.N W.L. / E.L. location.

3. Refuses to wipe fcc_authorizations if zero GEO rows parsed.

4. Writes ingest_meta for FCC-SSAL: last_run (parse clock), file_vintage / source_as_of (sheet “Updated …” date), file_sha256.

5. Diffs call signs vs the previous table (new / lapsed / licensee / grant-status events).

GitHub Actions: .github/workflows/ingest-fcc.yml (Mondays + workflow_dispatch). It commits data/clarke.db only if the database changed.

Human refresh (when the FCC publishes a new list)

1. Open https://www.fcc.gov/approved-space-station-list.

2. Download the Excel workbook (Approved Space Station List).

3. Replace data/ssal.xlsx in this repo (keep the filename).

4. Confirm the first sheet name looks like Updated <day> <Month> <year> — that string is the product as-of.

5. Run:

npm run ingest:fcc
npm run vintages          # backfill UCS / TLE vintages without re-downloading those feeds

6. Commit data/ssal.xlsx and data/clarke.db.

7. Check /orbital/101w: FCC as-of should match the sheet date; the Trust bar stale chip clears when as-of is ≤ 14 days old.

What the Terminal shows

Occupancy stays TLE-primary and does not wait on FCC.

Credentials

None. No FCC API key. Space-Track credentials are unrelated (ingest:spacetrack only).