Worldwide Satellite Magazine SatMagazineSatMagazine July / August 2021

Agile satelllite manufacturing — image is courtesy of LeoStella

Are you ready to put your teleport service ALWAYS in the hands of a world-class team? 2019 Teleport of the Year Publishing Operations InfoBeam Features Silvano Payne, Publisher + Executive Writer SpaceX Transporter-2 Mission...... 4 Focus: LeoStella — ...... 26 Simon Payne, Chief Technical Officer Continuous Manufacturing Agility For Smallsats Hartley G. Lesser, Editorial Director NOAA...... 6 Authors: Brian Rider + Breanne Tuttle, LeoStella Pattie Lesser, Executive Editor Donald McGee, Production Manager Wavestream...... 8 Teresa Sanderson, Operations Director Sean Payne, Business Development Manager NASA + Space Flight Laboratory...... 8 Dan Makinster, Technical Advisor Bharti Global + OneWeb...... 10 Advancing Electric Propulsion Engine...... 30 Ground Testing Intuitive Machines + Goonhilly...... 12 Author: Anne Wainscott-Sargent, Georgia Institute of Technology Infostellar and Amazon Web Services...... 13 Senior Columnists / Contributors Chris Forrester, Broadgate Publications Gilmour Space...... 14 Karl Fuchs, iDirect Government Bob Gough, Goonhilly Earth Station Rocket Factory Augsburg (RFA)...... 16 A Kratos Constellations Conversation With...... 34 Rebecca M. Cowen-Hirsch, Inmarsat Robert Bell, World Teleport Association (WTA) Ken Peterman, Viasat Microchip...... 16 Giles Peters, Track24 Defense Leaf Space...... 17 Koen Willems, ST Engineering Mike Young, Envistacom D-Orbit + Stellar Project...... 18

Astroscale UK + RUAG Space...... 20 Path Diversity With Satellite Connectivity...... 38 Fortifies Comms For Emergency Response Virgin Orbit...... 20 Author: Tony Bardo, Hughes Network Systems Issue’s Authors Northrop Grumman...... 22 Tony Bardo LeoLabs...... 24 Ken Grelck At Home Connectivity In Rural Locations...... 40 With LEO Satellites Will Mudge Author: Will Mudge, Speedcast Advertisers Brian Rider ACORDE Technologies. S.A...... 19 Paul Townley-Smith Advantech Wireless...... 23 The Way Ahead When Commercializing...... 44 AirBorn, Inc...... 29 Breanne Tuttle Space Optics Arabsat Satellite...... 21 Author: Paul Townley-Smith, ZYGO Electro Optics Anne Wainscott-Sargent AvL Technologies...... 11 Boeing Defense, Space and Security (BDS)...... 5 Comtech EF Data...... 13 CPI SATCOM Products...... 17 Better Satellite World:...... 48 Is There A Satellite Within? EM Solutions, Inc. (EMS)...... 25 Author: SSPI Background image: The SpaceX, Falcon Mission Microwave Technologies, LLC...... 9 9 launch of their Transporter-2 mission. Image is courtesy of SpaceX. RF-Design...... 15 Santander Teleport...... 1 Satellite Innovation 2021 Silicon Valley...... 53 Why Now Is The Time To Transform...... 50 SATCOM Service Delivery SpaceBridge...... 49 Author: Ken Grelck, Capgemini Engineering Space Foundation — 36th Space Symposium...... 37 ST Engineering iDirect...... 3 Wavestream Corporation...... 7

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The SpaceX Transporter-2 Mission Launches Without A Hitch

The Transporter-2 launch.

Liftoff occurred from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida on schedule, with this Falcon 9’s first stage booster previously having supported the launch of GPS III Space Vehicle 03, Turksat 5A and five Starlink missions. SpaceX Falcon 9 Transporter-2 mission fairing before launch. All story imagery is courtesy of SpaceX.

Following a disappointing ‘No Go’ yesterday, June 29, for the launch of the Transporter-2 mission, today’s launch attempt by SpaceX (June 30, 2021) experienced the exact opposite result… success!

Then quite a feat occurred, as three Merlin engines engaged in burns to reduce speed of the 1st stage for landing… at Cape Canaveral and not out in the Atlantic Ocean aboard one of the firm’s droneships.

Quite an amazing site watching the first stage accurately land in the exact, defined spot for its return.

The successful launch of the SpaceX Transporter-2 mission from Cape Canaveral.

This day, the weather was cooperating and the downrange indicators were all clear, unlike yesterday’s (June 29) incursion into this zone by an aircraft that caused a halt to the launch proceedings.

Although the 88 commercial and government payloads within the 70-meter tall, Falcon 9 launch vehicle’s, 17-feet in diameter fairing — it’s third flight — for this Transporter-2 mission is not A perfect 1st stage landing for the SpaceX Transporter-2 mission quite the same number as the 144 smallsats SpaceX launched by the company on January 24, 2021, what makes this a unique, historic launch for the company is that, this time around, SpaceX is pushing more mass to orbit for the firm’s customers than their previous Transporter-1 mission.

SatMagazine Page 4 July / August 2021 B:8.75" T:8.5" S:8" B:11.25" S:10.5" T:11"

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NOAA’s GOES-T will replace GOES-17 as the new satellite in the GOES-West position, following its scheduled liftoff (which is scheduled for December 7th, 2021) from Cape Canaveral, Florida, top NOAA officials announced on June 24th, in an announcement posted on the NOAA- National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS) website.

Liftoff info (as of this writing):

• Launch time: 2140 GMT (4:40 p.m. EST) The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced plans on June • Launch site: SLC-41, Cape Canaveral Space 25, 2021, to move the agency’s newest geostationary Force Station, Florida weather satellite, GOES T, into an operational role “as soon as possible.” The launch is expected to A United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket will launch GOES-T, occur in December. the third, next-generation, geostationary weather satellite for NASA and NOAA. GOES-T will orbit 22,300 miles above the equator to monitor weather conditions across the United States. The rocket will fly in the 541 vehicle configuration with a five-meter fairing, four solid rocket boosters and a single- engine Centaur upper stage.

Artistic rendition of the GOES T satellite is courtesy of NOAA.

This advances the previous GOES-T flyout and operational status schedule by a whopping four years. No word as of yet for GOES 17’s fate. The assumption is that the satellite could be placed in on-orbit storage in a “central” location in geostationary orbit and called into service as needed as a backup, like GOES-15, or during complex weather conditions like hurricane and tropical storms seasons.

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InfoBeam

The decision to place GOES-T into operational service as soon as possible after launch is a result of the blockage in the loop heat pipe of the Advanced Baseline Imager (ABI), the key instrument on GOES-17. The LHP issue was overcome by engineers, and GOES-17 was able to deliver 98% of it’s intended data.

GOES-T, which is the third satellite in NOAA’s advanced GOES-R series, will be renamed GOES-18 following a Wavestream is proceeding according to plan with orders that now successful two-week post-launch checkout phase. Once exceed 800 Gateway-Class SSPAs. Wavestream’s PowerStream operational and in service, the satellite will work in tandem with 160Ka is designed specifically for networks using wide bandwidth GOES-16, which operates in the GOES East position. uplinks and high order modulation schemes, thus best addressing the stringent requirements of Non-Geostationary Satellite Orbit Reported by Carl Reinemann of USRADIOGUY.com, (NGSO) constellations installed in remote locations.

“The high-volume manufacturing of these highly-complex Gateway- class SSPAs is proceeding at an unprecedented production rate, with all deliveries expected in the next 12 months,” said Bob Huffman, Wavestream’s General Manager. “Our manufacturing capacity, product reliability, and experience with high-power Ka-Band SSPA technologies stand alone in the NGSO Gateway market, and we are honored to be trusted to deliver more than 1,000 of these Gilat’s Wavestream Receives units for the entire program.” Million$ For LEO Constellations NASA’s StarBurst Smallsat Gateway Support Mission To Be Developed By

Gilat Satellite Networks Ltd. (Nasdaq: GILT, TASE: Space Flight Laboratory GILT) has received $9 million in orders for support of gateways of Low Earth Orbit (LEO) constellations.

NASA Marshall Space Flight Center has contracted Space Flight Laboratory (SFL) to develop a smallsat platform for the StarBurst astrophysics mission — part of the newly formed NASA Pioneers Program, StarBurst seeks to detect high-energy gamma rays that are emitted from events such as the mergers of neutron stars.

NASA announced the Pioneers Program in 2020 to develop Gilat’s subsidiary, Wavestream, was selected as the vendor of small-scale astrophysics missions using smallsats, balloons, choice to supply Gateway Solid State Power Amplifiers (SSPAs) and modest International Space Station payloads to explore to a leading satellite operator to support the LEO constellation cosmic phenomena. gateways. The orders were received as part of the previously announced contract.

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Extra Bharti Cash Fully Funds OneWeb

Bharti Global has invested an extra $500 million (€420.5 million) into satellite constellation OneWeb and that means the business is now fully funded at $2.4 billion.

In the first round, NASA selected four proposals to study galaxy evolution, exoplanets, high-energy neutrinos, and neutron star merger.

Managed by the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, StarBurst will focus on neutron star research, using a 250 kg smallsat built by SFL to observe the gamma rays emitted from these merger events, which form most of the heavy metals, such as gold and platinum, in the universe. It is believed StarBurst could observe up to 10 neutron star mergers every year.

SFL will develop the StarBurst mission on its space-proven 1x1x1-meter scalable DAUNTLESS bus. Under Phase A of the program, SFL will complete the platform concept design, and Bharti’s influx of extra cash means that the company now owns upon approval by NASA, will then proceed with detailed design, 38.6 percent of the business. The other key investors, Eutelsat, integration, and testing of the spacecraft. SFL will also support the UK government and Softbank, each hold 19.3 percent of the the launch, commissioning, and operation of StarBurst, notionally company. The new money from Bharti came as a result of a Call scheduled for 2025. Option to investors. This current shareholding might change if one or the other of the remaining investors decides to respond “SFL is pleased that NASA has chosen us to participate positively with more money. in the Pioneers Program that was created specifically to perform astrophysics science with smaller, more cost- OneWeb’s Executive Chairman, Sunil Bharti Mittal, said, effective hardware, including small spacecraft developed the “OneWeb represents a unique opportunity for investors at a microspace way,” said SFL Director Dr. Robert E. Zee. key moment in the commercialization of Space. With its Global ITU LEO Spectrum priority, Telco partnerships, successful launch momentum and reliable satellites, OneWeb is ready to serve the vital needs of high-speed broadband connectivity for those who have been left behind. Nation states can accelerate their universal service obligations, Telcos, their backhaul and Enterprise and Governments can serve remote installations.”

Neil Masterson, CEO of OneWeb, added, “The completion of our funding puts OneWeb in a powerful position. We have significantly lower entry cost of any LEO. We benefit from $3.4 billion of pre-Chapter 11 investment by the original shareholders, making new OneWeb a three-times lower cost Constellation. With the forthcoming launch we will have completed 40 percent of our Network. We are intently focused on execution and just ten more launches will enable us to deliver global coverage.”

SatMagazine Page 10 July / August 2021 avltech.com InfoBeam

Intuitive Machines’ Moon Missions Will be Supported By Goonhilly

Intuitive Machines (IM) has entered a long-term agreement with Goonhilly Earth Station Ltd. to support every stage of IM’s missions to the Moon, from launch and early operations, through transit, and including lunar operations — the company will use Goonhilly’s services for its 2022 IM-1 mission to the Moon as well as future missions. Goonhilly’s GHY-6 32m X/S-band communication antenna.

IM’s LTN includes other large parabolic dishes spread across the globe to provide near continuous spacecraft command, control, and communications at lunar distance. The LTN, along with IM’s control center, Nova Control, is a complete service offering to any commercial or government partners operating in cislunar space.

“The addition of Goonhilly’s GHY-6 deep space antenna adds significant data downlink capability to IM’s robust Lunar Telemetry and Tracking Network (LTN),” said Intuitive Machines’ Vice President of Control Centers, Troy LeBlanc, Goonhilly Earth Station Ltd. will be providing access to their Ph.D. “Creating the first commercially available lunar distance newly upgraded deep space antenna GHY-6 to facilitate communication network is a communications challenge and communications between the Intuitive Machines lunar mission will require the technical support and expertise that the team and the ground. GHY-6 is a former satellite communications at Goonhilly is ready to provide for mission tracking and data antenna that has been given a new life supporting deep space downlink services.” missions for ESA, NASA, and commercial endeavors, serving as the world’s first private deep space communications asset. “This opportunity is very exciting for Goonhilly and we’re ready Qualification and testing of the refurbished ground station has to provide services to the rapidly growing commercial space been underway for many months, and the Intuitive Machines sector,” said Goonhilly CTO, Matt Cosby. “For many years, mission will be amongst the first spacecraft to be supported different organizations have worked on coordination and by GHY-6. standardization of mission operations and communications, allowing interoperability and flexibility that will drive down costs and development times for everyone involved.”

SatMagazine Page 12 July / August 2021 InfoBeam

Infostellar Integrating AWS Ground Station In Their Mission Control Software

Infostellar Inc. is collaborating with Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS) to make AWS Ground Station available within StellarStation. The combination will give satellite operators more opportunities to communicate with their space workloads, downlink geospatial data faster and easier, and decrease the time it takes to get data to decision makers on Earth. Infostellar also plans to leverage AWS for customer integration, testing and other onboarding activities to reduce the time it takes to scale successful operations across a global ground network.

Satellite operators require an increasingly large, global footprint Make of satellite antennas and expansive ground networks to get decision Budgets Go makers the most recent satellite data and track and manage fast-changing conditions. Larger ground coverage Further areas also provide satellite operators with more options to downlink their data during each orbit. Offshore

The AWS Ground Station network allows customers to cost-effectively control satellite operations, ingest satellite data, integrate the data with applications and other services running in AWS, and scale operations without having to worry about building or managing their own ground infrastructure.

Many older offshore networks are inefficient and use too much space segment, which is inflating StellarStation gives satellite capacity bills. This can leave service providers in a no-win situation. You need to reduce operational operators a common interface to expenses, but you can’t afford the upfront costs to replace those legacy VSAT networks in today’s leverage ground stations from a environment. So, how can you improve operational efficiency without incurring major CapEx? variety of providers around the globe Comtech has the solutions. Some of our customers have improved link efficiency by over 400%. so they can schedule satellite passes Learn how you can leverage our efficient solutions to reduce today’s OpEx and prepare for a and monitor and exchange data in a return to growth tomorrow. Get our whitepaper now: https://bit.ly/3wbSQfr. standard manner.

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“Leveraging AWS Ground Station allows Infostellar to expand our infrastructure very rapidly with the addition of key locations to our global network of ground stations. AWS also shows the benefits of our cloud-based ground service aggregation platform, StellarStation, to the global community of spacecraft operators,” said Naomi Kurahara, Infostellar CEO. “With Infostellar and AWS, satellite customers can migrate their workloads to AWS in order to benefit from its agility, cost savings, elasticity, and global connectivity.”

“We are excited to provide AWS Ground Station services through Infostellar. AWS Ground Station makes it easy for customers to communicate with their satellites and quickly move data around the globe, process and store it in the AWS send engineers to each site around the world. Instead, they can cloud. StellarStation customers can schedule satellite contacts reuse their integration and test efforts across multiple global at AWS Ground Station locations around the world and take sites simultaneously. advantage of Amazon’s low-latency, high-bandwidth global network to deliver data.” said Jim Caggy, General Manager, The combination of AWS Ground Station and StellarStation AWS Ground Station. helps satellite operators to provide customers with near real- time data through an expanded ground coverage area, including “The combination of AWS Ground Station and InfoStellar’s an automated ground network with virtual data and mission StellarStation mission control software will provide satellite management capabilities. operators with more frequent communication with their satellites. This collaboration will allow us to better schedule Through the API integration of AWS Ground Station on shooting star events for the ALE man-made shooting StellarStation, customers will be able to schedule contacts across star experience and provide more flexible options for our both ground networks from a single scheduling interface and customers. This combination is very important to us here at specify data endpoints in their AWS Management Console or in ALE; we look forward to it helping us delight customers all over their own data reception facility. the world,” said Lena Okajima, CEO, ALE Co, Ltd.

Using AWS Ground Station, Infostellar customers can immediately access AWS storage, compute, and analytics Gilmour Space Corrals services, such as Amazon Simple Storage Services (Amazon S3), to store the downloaded data; Amazon Kinesis Data Streams, for Million$$ In Series C Private managing data ingestion from satellites; and Amazon SageMaker for building custom machine learning applications that can be Equity Investments applied to a wide variety of data sets.

Customer onboarding, including spectrum licensing, will be coordinated between the two ground operators. Among initial customers of AWS Ground Station on StellarStation mission control software could be Japan-based space start-up ALE Co, Ltd.

Gilmour Space Technologies has secured AUD$61 million (approximately $47 million) from global investors in what is the largest private equity investment raised by a space company in Australia.

SatMagazine Page 14 July / August 2021 InfoBeam

The Series C round, which includes US-based Fine Structure “It’s fantastic to see the global support for our mission to build Ventures, Australian venture capital firms Blackbird and Main and launch lower cost rockets and satellites to orbit,” said Sequence, and Australian superannuation funds HESTA, Gilmour Space CEO and Co-Founder, Adam Gilmour. “This Hostplus, and NGS Super, brings the company’s total funds new investment will give us runway to launch our first orbital raised to date to $87 million. rocket in 2022. It will help us develop multiple Eris vehicles, grow our team from 70 to 120 in the next 12 months, build Since launching its first hybrid rocket in mid 2016, Gilmour Space our sovereign space manufacturing capability for rockets has achieved a series of significant technology milestones to and satellites, and facilitate a commercial spaceport in become a leader in orbital-class hybrid propulsion technologies that Queensland, where we hope to launch the world’s first hybrid use safer and lower cost fuels than traditional chemical propulsion rocket to space. My brother James and I started the rocket rockets. In recent months, the company has also secured launch program in 2015 with the goal of one day sending humans contracts with Australian and international customers including to space. We always knew it would be a difficult journey, but US-based Momentus, Sydney-based Space Machines Company it makes me proud to think that our ambition and progress and South Australia’s Fleet Space Technologies. With more than have contributed to the tremendous growth of Australia’s new 70 employees in its Gold Coast, Queensland, rocket facility and a space industry. Today, we are growing an amazing team growing network of 300 partners and suppliers, Gilmour Space is committed to providing affordable and reliable satellites and defining space manufacturing in Australia. rocket launches to our global customers. We’re backed by top investors, and we are proud to be supporting some of Brett Rome, lead investor and Managing Partner at Fine Structure the world’s most innovative space companies as they look to Ventures, a venture capital fund affiliated with FMR LLC, the create significant and positive outcomes for humanity.” parent company of Fidelity Investments. “The team at Gilmour is building the leading sovereign launch company in Australia, and using their innovative hybrid rocket engine to efficiently address the growing global demand for putting satellites into orbit.”

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Rocket Factory Augsburg (RFA) The US companies SpaceX and Blue Origin were the latest private companies to have developed this sophisticated Successfully Tests Full-Scale, technology with the “Raptor” full-flow staged combustion engine and “BE-4” staged combustion engine. Staged-Combustion Engine “The successful test of our full-scale staged combustion engine reinforces our claim for market leadership,” said Dr. Stefan Brieschenk, the company’s Chief Operating Officer.

“Our technology allows us to carry 30 percent more payload into space at the same cost to the customer,” added Jörn Spurmann, RFA’s Chief Commercial Officer.

Microchip Boosts Their GaN RF Portfolio

Launch service provider Rocket Factory Augsburg (RFA) has announced their successful firing-tests of the company’s full-scale staged combustion engine.

During the 2 second test, which was carried out in Kiruna (Sweden), RFA successfully commissioned the first staged- combustion engine in Western Europe. Staged combustion technology is characterized by higher efficiencies and performances compared to traditional rocket engine designs.

The partially unburnt exhaust gases from the turbopump are fed back to the main combustion chamber, thereby avoiding the release of unburned fuel. The recycling of the exhaust gases significantly increases the overall efficiency of the launch vehicle while reducing launch costs and also minimizing CO2-footprints of Satellite communication systems use complex the launch activity. modulation schemes to achieve the blazingly fast data rates required to deliver video and broadband data. Two planned milestones were already reached at the start of To attain this, they must deliver high RF output power May of this year. In the “power-pack test,” the turbopump and while simultaneously ensuring the signals retain their pre-burner were started and operated in a stable, steady-state desired characteristics. thermo-mechanical condition for a total burn-time of 8 seconds. In the next development step, the first ignitions of the main The new GMICP2731-10 GaN MMIC power amplifier combustion chamber were conducted, after which the test team announced by Microchip Technology Inc. (Nasdaq: MCHP) connected the “power pack” to all systems of the full-scale engine helps meet both of these requirements. This new chip is designed and performed the complete system-level test. for use in commercial and defense SATCOM, 5G networks and other aerospace and defense systems. RFA stands-out as the ninth company worldwide to have successfully tested a full-scale rocket engine using staged The GMICP2731-10 is fabricated using GaN-on-Silicon Carbide combustion. Staged combustion is the technological back bone (SiC) technology and delivers up to 10W of saturated RF output of some of the world’s most successfully space companies and to power across the 3.5 GHz of bandwidth between 27.5 to 31 GHz. this point, was limited to the United States, Russia, China, India, The chip’s power-added efficiency is 20 percent, with 22 dB of Japan and Ukraine. small-signal gain and 15 dB of return loss.

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A balanced architecture allows the GMICP2731-10 to be well matched to 50-ohms and includes integrated DC blocking capacitors at the output to simplify design integration.

“As communication systems employ complex modulation schemes such as 128-QAM and as the power of solid-state power amplifiers (SSPAs) trends ever upwards, RF power amplifier designers have the difficult challenge of finding higher power solutions while at the same time reducing weight and power consumption,” said Leon Gross, vice president of Microchip’s Discrete Products Group business unit. “GaN MMICs used in high power SSPAs can achieve greater than 30 percent lower power and weight as compared to their GaAs counterparts, which is a huge gain for satellite OEMS. This product delivers on the promise of GaN and enables the size, weight, power (SWaP) and cost OEMs are searching for.”

Microchip’s GMICP2731-10 complements the company’s existing portfolio of GaAs MMIC RF power amplifiers, switches, low-noise Download amplifiers, and Wi-Fi front-end modules, as well as a GaN-on- SiC High Electron Mobility Transistor (HEMT) driver and final amplifier transistors for radar systems. the CPI

Microchip provides board design support to help with design-ins, as does the company’s distribution partners. The company also mobile app! provides compact models for the GMICP2731-10, which allow customers to model the performance and expedite the design of the power amplifier in their systems more easily.

HPA RF calculator Leaf Space’s Ground Station Network Is Expanding Across Quickly access HPA data sheets The Globe TWTA/SSPA product finder Leaf Space is adding three ground stations to the company’s global Leaf Line Network — these new Convenient contact info stations will be installed in Sri Lanka, the Azores and Scotland and will enhance Leaf Space’s capability to provide Ground Stations as a Service (GSaaS) solutions to their growing list of customers. Search: CPI Satcom

SatMagazine Page 17 July / August 2021 InfoBeam

With these additional ground stations, Leaf Space now fully Engine, which optimizes automatic scheduling and data owns and operates 12 stations globally. The new, state of the transfer for customers, guaranteeing efficiency, eliminating the art, 3.7 meter antenna, paired with high performance, baseband risk of conflicts and leveraging at scale cloud services.” processing hardware, add important additional coverage for Leaf Space’s customers, allowing satellite operators expanded opportunity to communicate with spacecraft, sending and receiving critical data to support each mission. With these Hosted Payload Agreement additional ground stations, Leaf Space now fully owns and operates 12 stations globally. Inked Between D-Orbit and

Leaf Space’s new ground station in Sri Lanka will expand the Stellar Project range of missions the company can support, adding equatorial orbit to the company’s list of capabilities. Further distributing Leaf D-Orbit has signed a launch service contract with Space’s medium-latitude network provides customers with a Stellar Project, an Italian satellite component developer strategic advantage as it helps to mitigate the risk of interference, and manufacturer, for the launch and operations of band saturation and licensing as well as overlapping, providing Stellar Project’s LaserCube payload on D-Orbit’s customers with more capacity using fewer antennas. upcoming ION Satellite Carrier’s mission.

The station in Northern Scotland also adds a desirable high northern latitude location to Leaf Space’s distributed ground station network, positioned on the 61st parallel.

Stellar Project’s LaserCube is a patented, miniature, low power, high performance, laser communication terminal that has been specifically designed for smallsats.

With an independent pointing capability that allows throughput performance more than 10 times higher than traditional radio devices, LaserCube will enable innovative business opportunities in fields such as Earth imagery, weather In addition to announcing the expansion of the company’s forecasting, global telecommunications, and internet services. distributed ground station network this week, Leaf Space will also be supporting 14 new spacecraft from six different international LaserCube, as the optical telecommunication highway customers on SpaceX’s Transporter-2 dedicated Falcon 9 for smallsats, will deliver an increase in data volume, rideshare mission — that launch will signal an important milestone communication security and speed: another step toward for Leaf Space, as the company will be supporting their largest accessible and affordable space technology for all. number of customers in a single launch to date. ION Satellite Carrier (photo on the next page) is an orbital “These three stations build upon our already robust network and transportation vehicle designed, manufactured and operated improve our ability to deliver industry leading GSaaS solutions by D-Orbit that is capable of precisely deploying smallsats into to our customers,” said Jonata Puglia, CEO and co-founder their operational orbital slot and of operating multiple third-party of Leaf Space. “Ownership of our own proprietary network payloads during the same mission. offers customers complete management and flexibility to customize operations and scale quickly. We are continuing to “We are excited to test Stellar Project’s innovative pursue additional expansion to support the daily increases in technology,” said Matteo Andreas Lorenzoni, D-Orbit’s demand from our customers and are on schedule to activate Launch Strategy Manager. “As a company that has begun three more stations in Q3, with the goal of doubling our their journey in Italy, we are proud to collaborate with an global network to 19 total this year. Our expanding ground Italian startup that aims at revolutionizing the New Space station network is further powered by our end-to-end network industry and becoming a leader in its field.” orchestration and management software, the Network Cloud

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“We are very happy of the collaboration with D-Orbit to carry out the first mission of our “LaserCube,” said Alessandro Francesconi, Stellar Project’s Co-founder and Managing Director. “We look forward to exploring the potential of our technology as a first step toward the enablement of optical communication in space for small satellites.”

According to the agreement, D-Orbit will integrate the LaserCube payload onboard ION as well as arrange ground transportation from the integration site to the launch site at Cape Canaveral, and will overview the integration onboard the launch vehicle until launch to the target orbit. D-Orbit will then initiate the on-orbit demonstration (IOD) phase of the mission, operate the payload onboard according to a plan of operations agreed with Stellar Project, and downlink all the relevant data. The mission, named WILD RIDE, is scheduled for launch in June of 2021.

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Astroscale UK + RUAG Space Once on-orbit, the computer controls the ELSA-M spacecraft, enabling repeated, multi-debris removal maneuvers and Developing The Brains Behind management of equipment, reaction wheels and magnetometers linked to it. The Former’s ELSA-M Space The OBC is designed to be a highly flexible, Off-The-Shelf Debris Removal Spacecraft computer with high integration, short lead times and enabling high volume manufacturing.

The computer system developed in partnership with RUAG Space – with the software from Astroscale and the hardware from RUAG Space – will support the rendezvous between Astroscale’s servicer spacecraft and the client spacecraft, a retired or defunct satellite.

Virgin Orbit’s 1st Operational Mission A Success

Astroscale UK has been working in partnership with RUAG Space to develop the “brains” to command Astroscale’s space debris removing ELSA-M Servicer spacecraft, all based on RUAG Space constellation’s On Board Computer (OBC),

Virgin Orbit‘s LauncherOne was certainly ready to fly into space once again — and the company’s Tubular Bells: Part One mission has successfully launched from Cosmic Girl.

The removal of space debris is a growing concern for the space industry. Astroscale is pioneering the End-of-Life Services by Astroscale (ELSA), a spacecraft decommissioning service for satellite operators that is progressing into a new commercialization phase this year with ELSA-M.

ELSA-M will remove multiple satellites — M stands for multi-client servicer. Astroscale’s ELSA-M servicer is specifically designed for the servicing of constellation satellites, such as those launched by the global satellite communications network OneWeb.

For these kinds of innovative missions, a high performing OBC At 0950 hours, PST, the company’s Cosmic Girl carrier plane — is needed. The computer from RUAG Space will include a Global a Boeing 747 that has been modified — took off from the Mojave Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) receiver and interface unit, Air and Space Port in California with the 70 foot in length all in a single box.

SatMagazine Page 20 July / August 2021

InfoBeam

LauncherOne rocket securely affixed to the underside of the jet’s Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus left wing. Departs ISS To Launch The drop point for LauncherOne was 50 miles to the south of the Channel Islands in the Pacific Ocean and this action was Five Smallsats auspiciously concluded at an altitude of approximately 300k feet.

The release of LauncherOne from Cosmic Girl carrier plane. The Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE: NOC) Cygnus spacecraft has departed from the The rocket can handle payloads of approximately 1,100 pounds International Space Station to start the next phase of and deliver them to their orbits. Planned are three additional the NG-15 mission. test flights.

There are three customer payloads for this seven smallsat delivery mission — the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), SatRevolution and the Royal Netherlands Air Force. All entrusted LauncherOne to uplift their smallsat spacecraft into orbit and demonstrated the unique advantages of air launch to make space more accessible for customers from all corners of the map.

The Royal Netherlands Air Force payload is a defense satellite, Cygnus was released by the station’s robotic arm at 12:32 p.m. the first such spacecraft for that nation. ET, carrying more than 8,000 pounds of disposable cargo. Cygnus will remain in orbit for approximately three days to carry Additionally, two EO smallsats for SatRevolution were included out the secondary phase of the mission. in this mission, with the expectation of certainly more smallsats to be driven to orbit, given that the firm intends to build out a 14 The S.S. Katherine Johnson will now deploy five cubesats via two smallsat constellation. separate cubesat deployers, Slingshot and Nanoracks. This cubesat deployment includes Dhabisat, the second cubesat developed by Khalifa University in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.

The DoD’s Rapid Launch Initiative placed a cubesat with Virgin Orbit for launch as a demo to measure smallsat flexibility and the ability to launch smallsats when a short timeframe is demanded for delivery to orbit of sensitive space-based tech. The S.S. Katherine Johnson starts the second phase of its mission after leaving the International Space Station. Image is courtesy of NASA.

SatMagazine Page 22 July / August 2021

InfoBeam

The vehicle has been berthed with the orbiting laboratory since February 22.

“Our Cygnus cargo resupply missions to the International Space Station help enable humans to live and work in space,” said Frank DeMauro, vice president and general manager, tactical space systems, Northrop Grumman. “With each mission, we grow our capabilities beyond cargo resupply as we operate a high performing science laboratory for both civil and commercial companies during the secondary phase of our flight.”

LeoLabs’ Next Space Radar Site Will Be In The Azores

Photo of Khalifa University’s Dhabisat.

Dhabisat was developed as part of Khalifa’s Space Systems and Technology Concentration, a joint program developed in collaboration with UAE-based satellite operator Al Yah Satellite Communications Company (Yahsat) and Northrop Grumman.

The NG-15 Cygnus spacecraft was launched on February 20 aboard Northrop Grumman’s Antares rocket (photo below), carrying nearly 8,000 pounds of scientific research, supplies and equipment to the astronauts living on the station.

LeoLabs, Inc. has revealed that the Azores is the location selected for the company’s next space radar. As a strategic addition to LeoLabs expanding global constellation of LEO sensors, the Azores Space Radar will go operational in the first half of 2022.

LeoLabs’ Azores Space Radar investment also reflects alignment with Portugal’s goals at the national and regional levels. The company’s investment in Portugal represents an important addition to LeoLabs’ global radar constellation, and a key element of infrastructure to inform satellite operators, defense, space and regulatory agencies,

“We are very excited about our decision to locate in the Azores,” said Dan Ceperley, CEO and LeoLabs co-Founder. “This is a multi-decade investment on the part of LeoLabs, and a great opportunity for us to support the space sustainability goals of Portugal as they grow their presence in the global space community. It also signals LeoLabs commitment to a long-term presence in Europe. The mission of LeoLabs remains clear: serve the growth of the LEO economy, and ensure the long-term survivability of LEO for future generations. Today we are the only end-to-end supplier of radar infrastructure and services that can execute on this mission. Our global network already produces

SatMagazine Page 24 July / August 2021 InfoBeam

the world’s largest number of LEO observations, and the Azores further validates our Santa Maria Teleport as an innovative Space Radar will build on that and expand our tracking of LEO model capable of attracting international investment from the objects by an additional 25%. This opens our ability to grow our space sector. We look forward to a long-term engagement with LEO catalogue from tracking 15,000 objects today to a massive LeoLabs, and for the Azores to become a bridge to space just 250,000 objects. The Azores Space Radar also adds more timely as we are a bridge across the Atlantic.” updates on critical events in LEO, including collisions, breakups, maneuvers, new launches, and re-entries.”

“We welcome LeoLabs to Portugal with the installation of a new space radar in the Azores,” said Ricardo Conde, President of Portugal Space. “LEO has rapidly emerged as a sphere of commercial opportunity for innovators like LeoLabs, and it is important to build infrastructure that allows us to mitigate the risks of increased space debris. The radar will improve mapping and cataloguing services that identify the positioning and dynamics of these objects in LEO and inform our Photo of the Azores. ability to set policies that address risks.”

“We are pleased to welcome this ground-breaking investment by LeoLabs in the Azores,” said Dr. Susete Amaro, Azores Regional Secretary for Culture, Science and Digital Transition. “The Azores Space Radar represents an important contribution to the development of Santa Maria’s space ecosystem. It

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SatMagazineEMS - MilSat Magazine Half Page Ad - 2021-05.indd 1 Page 25 July / August20-04-2021 2021 7:52 am Focus: LeoStella Continuous Manufacturing Agility For Smallsats

Authors: Brian Rider, Chief Technical Officer, and Breanne Tuttle, Head of Production, LeoStella

SatMagazine Page 26 July / August 2021 The smallsat revolution holds enormous promise for society and our industry. That promise is fueled by several innovative and enabling technologies, processes and businesses. One area, however, is often overlooked — the benefit of continuous manufacturing agility.

Outlined in this article are the benefits of this approach, and how supply chain actors can position themselves to exploit those benefits and bring them to market in a tangible manner.

Key approaches include inventory management, advance production, modular integration processes and ongoing product validation.

Inventory Management

The industry often refers to Commercial-Off-The-Shelf (COTS) products as enablers in a responsive market. What does COTS actually mean?

It means that continuous manufacturers need to have products literally on the shelf — or, more specifically, long-lead items on the shelf ready to be configured in the event of an alternate mission that is different than the one originally intended to be brought to fruition.

It’s not always easy to stockpile inventory unless you’re practicing continuous manufacturing with a steady flow of parts into a factory.

Continuous manufacturers treat major subsystems much like traditional long-lead items. Those Production focused systems, such as Kanban, enable ordering might include flight computers, batteries, power control avionics additional stock and leveraging existing supply chain contracts and imaging telescopes, among others. when the inventory gets low.

The key to agility is offering a responsive system that’s operated continuously and in a proactive manner, enabling a timely response when a new demand function occurs.

SatMagazine Page 27 July / August 2021 Advance Production The same is also true for product customization. Using an existing COTS bus, with pre-defined interfaces, helps simplify the payload LeoStella is often asked, “What does it take to buy a satellite to bus interface development cycle. off the production line, and how soon can I have it?” While the benefits of just-in-time manufacturing are effective for other Having easy-to-understand interfaces can speed the joint industries, LeoStella finds that continuously manufacturing at engineering phase for tailored products that can sometimes be a an accelerated rate creates an opportunity to be responsive to critical-path schedule item. A sometimes lengthy process can be unexpected customer demand cycles. streamlined, allowing for rapid decision making.

Manufacturers can utilize short “window of opportunity” programs Modular Integration Processes that need a near-immediate solution where schedule is sacrosanct, but mission specific capabilities might be negotiable. It’s important to design modularity and flexible interfaces into a satellite product design. However, it’s equally important to Several key factors lead to rapid reaction and rapid delivery, two build modularity into the integration and test approach for significant outcomes an agile process can provide. Having long- those satellites. lead parts on hand as well as producing and testing full satellites in advance of the launch dates allows the company to build a small and powerful inventory of ready-to-go satellites. These can be brought off the production line and delivered in weeks or months, rather than years.

SatMagazine Page 28 July / August 2021 A flexible payload interface enables a broader range of payload For the first time in satellite industry history, we are on the brink interfaces. While that is critical to success, from a production of fully maximizing the agility, resources, pipeline and innovative agility perspective, having a high degree of integration modularity manufacturing approaches of continuous manufacturing. means that satellites can be built with interchangeable subsystems and subassemblies. We have witnessed the power of these resources at LeoStella, where we produce satellites day-in and day-out. We look forward In a continuous manufacturing environment, the smallsat to the future when our entire industry is taking advantage of continuous manufacturer can mix and match subsystems from continuous manufacturing agility — much like the consumer parallel production lines in order to keep critical satellites products industry has been accomplishing for many years. on schedule. leostella.com Ongoing Product Validation

A traditional approach in the space industry is to discuss the flight heritage of various components to mitigate concerns about overall system performance risk.

One of the unique features of continuous manufacturing is the feedback cycle between anchor customers and the satellite production, development and engineering teams. For example, being part of every satellite launch and commissioning process, and having a steady stream of flight telemetry across a fleet of satellites allows an agile manufacturer to constantly evaluate, understand, correlate and improve product performance for customers. Constant product evolution can be achieved through software updates and targeted hardware upgrades.

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SatMagazine Page 29 July / August 2021 Advancing Electric Propulsion Engine Ground Testing

The JANUS Director on academia uniting to tackle the ground testing challenge

Author: Anne Wainscott-Sargent, Research Communications, Georgia Institute of Technology

For America to achieve its ambitions for deep space exploration, it will need high- power electric propulsion to carry crews and cargo farther into space and keep them on mission longer but testing these next-generation thrusters runs into problems on the ground, where infrastructure issues unique to Earth make it difficult to predict performance in space.

For the first time, NASA is bringing together top U.S. researchers in space propulsion and related engineering fields to tackle this challenge.

NASA recently announced the creation of the Joint Advanced Propulsion Institute (JANUS) with $15 million in funding, naming Mitchell Walker, Professor in the Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology, its first director.

Professor Walker’s primary research interests lie in electric propulsion, plasma physics, and hypersonic aerodynamics/ plasma interaction. He has extensive design and testing experience with Hall thrusters and ion engines. Walker has performed seminal work in Hall thruster clustering and vacuum chamber facility effects. His current research activities involve both theoretical and experimental work in advanced space craft propulsion systems, diagnostics, plasma physics, helicon plasma sources, magnetoplasmadynamic thrusters, and pulsed inductive thrusters.

SatMagazine Page 30 July / August 2021 As one of NASA’s newest Space Technology Research Three issues really slow us down. Number one is that these Institutes, JANUS will draw upon an interdisciplinary thrusters are designed to operate in the vacuum of space, where team of 17 researchers from nine partner universities — there’s little to no pressure outside. Ground-based test facilities all focused on enabling and proliferating high-power attempt to pump out all the gas while the thruster is operating, electric propulsion systems. but there is always some residual gas in the test facility. So, the gas left over in the facility interacts with thruster operation, and this Starting in October of 2021, JANUS will tackle core reduces our confidence in the prediction of performance in space. challenges to electric propulsion ground testing The question is, “How do we take the data that we collect including pressure in the vacuum facility, material on the ground where the pressure is high, and extrapolate it to erosion and deposits, and electrical circuits that don’t predict what’s going to happen in space?” When the thruster is exist in space the way they do on Earth. small, and the test facility is large, we do a great job predicting the performance in space. For the last 25 years, electric propulsion researchers However, when you contemplate next-generation electric have known that ground testing presented challenges. propulsion systems that will have 50 or even 100 kilowatts of Until now, however, there has never been a dedicated power, we don’t currently have the test facilities or methodologies group of researchers across multiple fields from different to make high-confidence predictions of thruster performance universities working together to solve the problem. in space. The second problem is contamination. The thrusters are Professor Walker on the challenge... incredibly efficient, but they have very low thrust and must operate for thousands of hours in space. Thus, their lifetime requirements “We are bringing together the people who are experts in all are drastically different than conventional chemical engines that the pieces of the problem,” explained Walker, a lifelong engine only need to operate for a few minutes. enthusiast and 20-year research veteran of electric propulsion, To quantify the system’s reliability, you would like to operate plasma physics, and plasma-material interactions. “Together, the thruster on the ground for a comparable amount of time. we as researchers can work side by side to develop a complete The problem is, when you’re running the thruster on the ground, understanding of what to do next. We can then give guidance to thruster lifetime is impacted by facility contamination. the electric propulsion testing community, not just NASA, but the The high-energy ion beam from the thruster can backsputter Department of Defense, and industry suppliers. If we get this right test facility wall material onto the thruster. Test facilities are lined in the U.S., it could result in an international standard for how to with graphite to minimize this effect, but experiments still show do the testing and will move everyone forward.” deposition, layering, flaking, and spalling of films deposited on thruster surfaces. ”It will take considerable infrastructure and expertise to improve These processes will never occur in space but complicate our how we test and mature these types of systems. The JANUS measurements of erosion as well as lead to electrical shorting framework aims to help solve this challenge,” added Claudia between components. The net effect of contaminant coating of the Meyer, NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate program thruster is reduced confidence in predictions of thruster lifetime. executive over space technology research grants. The third issue involves electrical circuits between the thruster and test facility. In space, we ionize the propellant — you have In a wide-ranging discussion with SatMagazine, Walker discusses an ion and an electron. The high-speed ion leaves the thruster the technical hurdles in electric propulsion ground testing and to generate thrust, and an electron emitted from the neutralizer how JANUS is working collaboratively to build a model to predict eventually catches up, neutralizing it. It works perfectly in space. how new more powerful electric propulsion systems as NASA and However, on the ground, the ion and electron leave the thruster commercial space partners eye missions to the moon and Mars. and hit the conductive metal wall of the test facility. The charged particles electrically couple the thruster to the test facility. The Professor Walker, what are the main limitations effects of this interaction include low resistance paths between of today’s ground-based testing of electric thruster surfaces and the test facility, modified electron mobility, propulsion systems? and facility-enhanced beam neutralization. These processes only occur in the ground-test facility, thus reducing confidence in Professor Walker predictions of discharge stability and performance in space. The challenge is that in existing facilities we don’t know how to accurately test electric propulsion devices big enough to push What level of performance leaps will these new electric spacecraft and cargo to their destination within the time limits propulsion systems need to achieve to support deep of future NASA missions. JANUS will address this challenge by space missions? ensuring accurate ground testing and data translation to the space environment so that high-power electric propulsion can enhance Professor Walker space travel. For shuttling people or cargo around the moon and possibly to Mars, you need much higher power thrusters. Most systems NASA is looking at are at the megawatt level. We currently build engines at the five to 10-kilowatt level. So, we need to go up at least an

SatMagazine Page 31 July / August 2021 order of magnitude higher — approaching 100 kilowatts of power. Ideally, we want the graduate students to continually collaborate, If we could cluster some of these engines together, we could sharing emails 24x7 and serving as the intellectual “glue” for deliver the power needed for those kinds of missions. JANUS. When you get the grad students talking, good things are going to happen. For this effort, we have 18 grad students and Is this the first time that academic researchers have five postdocs. come together at this scale to address this challenge? How are you working with the commercial partners Professor Walker such as Busek, Aerojet Rocketdyne and Aerospace Yes. I think it has not occurred before because the challenge is Corporation, who all serve on the JANUS Advisory so unique that no individual research group has all the talent or Committee? infrastructure to attack it. Most of us have chosen to focus on one part problem: the pressure part, the contamination part or Professor Walker the electrical part. The only way we can successfully create a JANUS has an external, independent advisory board that provides predictive model that addresses all these areas is to pull everyone’s a top-level assessment of research progress and resource utilization intellectual and infrastructure resources together. to balance the strong academic perspective of the team. The board includes members from commercial companies, government, non- Why is it so important to tackle this as a community profit organizations, and academia. We will meet with them several versus continuing to do disparate research? times per year to share what we are doing, what we have learned, and where we are going next. Professor Walker There will be public-private partnering that comes out of At the end of the day, the goal is not to test thrusters. Instead, the JANUS, but we’re still sorting out suitable mechanisms for those goal is to create a predictive capability that can extrapolate ground- opportunities. Having commercial entities advising JANUS is based thruster performance measurements to the performance of essential. Even though NASA drives many U.S. space activities, the the thruster in space. people, the infrastructure, and a lot of the technology development We have to bring together our best thinking in each area if we are accelerated by commercial and defense needs. want those models to be truly predictive. It’s really the modeling In many ways, the commercial world is driven by “How do you that is pulling the answer together, and if you only have disjointed quickly get something reliable built and launched that’s needed pieces, it will be difficult to reach the goal. today?” They bring a lot of insight. NASA will need to contract with these commercial suppliers to get high-power electric propulsion How are you structuring JANUS to leverage nine designed and built, so it’s important that commercial partners are research universities? included at the beginning of the process.

Professor Walker What novel technologies or process approaches are That was the most challenging part of putting together the JANUS you most excited about that offer the greatest promise effort. We need everyone’s contributions recognized, and we fully for creating a model for testing propulsion systems on leverage the facilities. the ground? First, we had to all agree on the three big problems. Then, we agreed to bring the universities together to share their resources, as Professor Walker well as have the modelers in the room before experiments started We went around and around about this problem. The beautiful so we could understand what was being measured, including thing I like about this team is the depth of their expertise; many the level of uncertainty required to gain confidence in the model members have been engaged in this problem for well over a results. We also brought in uncertainty quantification — that is, decade, most for multiple decades. The team understands that the things in the model that you must get right. And then, based there is no silver bullet- that’s going to fix this. on the sensitivity of the model, deciding where we should direct We didn’t approach it like that. We said, “Okay, let’s get a the research effort. hold of the model, the overarching model that’s going to predict performance, contamination, and electrical coupling, and let’s Will you bring the researchers together? look at the results and understand where we need to have more fidelity in our measurements and more physics in our models if we Professor Walker want more confidence in our predictions.” Based on that, we will The entire membership of JANUS will meet twice a year, a day-long adjust the focus of our research. This approach will enable us to virtual meeting every six months and one in-face review meeting per move the needle forward for system-level predictions. year. To enhance engagement, the location of the entire membership meeting will rotate between the lead institutions. Georgia Tech What do you need to get right with the model? will host a JANUS student/postdoc retreat on the GT campus to promote collaboration among the labs and create a common bond Professor Walker for the diverse group. We will also share and rotate graduate and When we build these thrusters, we want to have high confidence undergraduate students between projects during the summer. that they will meet the performance requirements. The way to do that is to have a detailed, physics-based model that has been

SatMagazine Page 32 July / August 2021 validated with high-quality data. In this work, there are parts of the existing models that need to be enhanced if we’re going to do that. Specificareas that we need enhancements include 3D instabilities in the plasma, deposition of sputtered wall material onto components during ground tests, and understanding the electrical circuits, composed of the beam plasma and conducting vacuum facility walls, that affect thruster operation and the power processing units.

Is there a timetable that JANUS is looking at for delivering any actionable findings?

Professor Walker By the end of the fifth year, we aim to have a predictive engineering model framework for making probabilistic assessments of in-space performance and lifetime of high-power electric propulsion, new test standards and requirements for high-power electric propulsion Professor Walker and team members. testing, procedures and techniques for facility design and upgrades to meet new testing requirements, as well as training the next from JANUS so that we can make this new space future a reality. generation of engineers and scientists to implement high-power EP. I’m incredibly proud that my colleagues have trusted me in this effort. Is the engine propulsion market growing dramatically given the increased focus and investment in space?

Professor Walker Who’s Who in JANUS The electric propulsion market has exploded in the last decade. Ten years ago, there were about three companies that did electric JANUS partner universities include... propulsion; today, we have more than 15 companies, and it seems as though a new one stands up every day. Georgia Institute of Technology (Mitchell Walker, What’s amazing is they all have customers. This is being driven Maryam Saeedifard) by the space economy and our space-based global infrastructure. Countries, organizations, and people no longer install telephone University of Michigan (John Foster, Alec Gallimore, Alex poles and lay cables in the dirt. Instead, an entity purchases a Gorodetsky, Benjamin Jorns) satellite, distributes phones, transmitters, and receivers, and you have an instant data infrastructure that can deploy over an entire University of California, Los Angeles (Richard Wirz, country that is resilient to political upheavals and natural disasters. Jaime Marian) Another driver is the rapid rise in on-orbit sensing, where smallsats can now take pictures worldwide. When a large container ship University of Illinois (Huck Beng Chew, Deborah Levin, blocked the Suez Canal this past March, we had a live video feed Joshua Rovey) with a couple of hours. The feed wasn’t from CNN or a helicopter, but from a Planet Labs satellite, which also measured how many Colorado State University (John Williams, Azer Yalin) other boats were being blocked and what cargo was on the boats, and how the incident impacted ports and mines around the world. Pennsylvania State University (Sarah Cusson) You can now watch the global economy in real-time due to satellites. The space economy is exploding and we’re getting new Stanford University (Ken Hara); capabilities every day. If you look at many of these new companies, you will see graduate students and university professors who have University of Colorado Boulder (Iain Boyd); taken IP developed with NASA funding and are spinning off their innovations into the commercial space market. Western Michigan University (Kristina Lemmer)

What do you want readers to know about this effort? Clark Atlanta University (Issifu Harruna)

Professor Walker Chicago State University (Valerie Goss) That we are aware of the challenges that exist around building the next level of spacecraft assets — and the propulsion needed to City Colleges of Chicago (Phillip Vargas). get them into orbit. We are listening and will share the advances Industry partners include The Aerospace Corporation, Aerojet Rocketdyne and Busek.

SatMagazine Page 33 July / August 2021 A Kratos Constellations Conversation With... Robert Bell Executive Director, World Teleport Association

The growing adoption of virtualization is having a But there’s been a sea-change in our industry to realize that rather profound impact in the satellite industry. Virtualization than being 1 percent of global telecom, which what satellite is in holds the promise of enabling significant benefits for the terms of its revenue and services, that if you could plug into the teleport, including scalability, cost savings, and better rest of telecom, you could actually get to 2 or 3 percent or even integration with customers, vendors, and partners. more, and that’s a lot of money.

Robert Bell, Executive John Gilroy Director of the World Let’s talk about the teleport operators themselves. Teleport Association How are they applying the power of virtualizations to (WTA) shares the their businesses? findings from the recent

report, “The Virtual Teleport,” and how Robert Bell teleport operators are It ranges from the cost side to revenue. On the cost side, automating embracing virtualization. network operations is first and foremost, which is something terrestrial telco has been doing for decades at this point. With He shares insights as to all the things being done manually in the NOC for a long time, virtualization’s benefits, virtualization gives you the ability to monitor performance across the barriers as well as a whole enormously dispersed set of assets, whether they’re in what the future holds. your local facility or thousands of miles away. It lets you go from being reactive in your network monitoring and maintenance to Constellation Podcast Host, John Gilroy: proactive because you can see trends evolving because of the Robert, we’re hearing this term virtualization more level of information you have in everything. and more, but it seems to mean different things to A level above that is service orchestration, which is basically the different people. How do you define it as it relates to manager of managers. So we have all these network operating the teleport? systems, and service orchestration aligns those applications, the data, and the infrastructure with your business requirements. This Robert Bell gets to business rules and policies, and automated monitoring of It actually only means one thing. It just has different flavors. service levels, and the ability to dynamically reconfigure systems Virtualization is all about abstracting the software level of what automatically based on rules that take into account changes in goes on in your computer from the hardware level. The physical what the customer might be doing. infrastructure of the server is almost completely independent from But it goes on from there to one of the hot new areas of RF what runs on it. And you can run a single program across multiple or radio frequency. That’s a very physical thing. We bring down servers, and you can divide up that server into multiple bits and RF from the sky and we run it through wave guides, get it into a use each one independently. receiver and then convert it with a modem. So it’s really incredibly powerful technology that runs everything The trend now is to push the conversion process as close to the from email and internet to the very sophisticated systems running antenna as possible so instead you’re just dealing with a stream of inside teleports. And it is of course the foundation of cloud bits. The flexibility that gives you in your operation by virtualizing services, so it’s in pretty much everything we do today. that physical signal is enormous. It gives you the ability to run multiple facilities from a single control center, to trading traffic with John Gilroy fiber in new and exciting ways. You go from there to the cloud. Why is virtualization now becoming more prevalent in Once we’re virtual, it becomes a lot easier for a teleport operator the satellite industry? Where was it before? to integrate the cloud into their services. And now we have this new revenue model called ‘ground segment as-a-service’, which is Robert Bell going to transform operations over time. The satellite industry has always lagged behind IT and telecom. We’ve been in our own little niche, serving very narrow markets John Gilroy with proprietary solutions that nothing else really needed to work From a practical standpoint of ROI, where are the with. So, we’ve got sunk investments and the industry running these opportunities for return on investment for virtualizing standalone, closed-loop systems using proprietary standards. the teleport?

SatMagazine Page 34 July / August 2021 Robert Bell Robert Bell In our study, one teleport operator that runs hundreds of video Absolutely. It’s very much like what you’ll hear from a cloud channel monitors is monitoring 5,000 devices at local and service company selling you on the concept of flexibility. remote sites around the world through this sophisticated network They can bring it up when you need it and take it down when management system. Just imagine the army of people and you don’t need it. It’s about optimizing the capacity, which equipment you’d need if you weren’t operating in this virtualized is of course the most expensive part of any satellite service. world. They’re able to serve their customer much faster, at a much Traditionally, the capacity you pay for to deliver the greatest value lower cost and they’re able to scale. Which means you can make to your end customer, you don’t have fine grain control to know more money in terms of margin. what you can get out of it. You sort of have to buy a whole lot to A simpler case is where an operator runs two teleports, one make sure you’ve got enough margin. And SDN really does a lot staffed and the other completely unstaffed. They’ve proven it to strip that down, which makes satellite ultimately a more cost- works, so their plan for all future expansion is unstaffed facilities effective solution. because they can run all of them from one central place. This also helps build revenues because you can expand John Gilroy geographically with a very light footprint, accessing business We’re seeing a new generation of satellites going you’d never have been able to access otherwise. And then there’s up now that are much more dynamic than previous the customers of these teleports, particularly those serving telco, ones. How does virtualization and software-defined data, or enterprise customers, that increasingly demand that you networking enable the teleport to better support not run a manual operation, that instead you give them a website these operations? so they can see what’s going on. They want the teleport operator, the satellite operator, to Robert Bell integrate right into their operational support system, their OSS, or It’s going to be crucial when we talk about more dynamic satellites, their business support system, their BSS, so that it’s all automated, which is a pretty big bucket because we’re talking about LEO so that it all looks the same as what they’re already running. And configurations, where you have high-capacity spacecraft moving that’s the power that real success with the virtualization provides to across the sky, but also electronically configurable satellites a service provider in this industry. that are being developed, which create complexity for service. You’ll need a highly virtualized network management system John Gilroy overlooking everything just to be able to deliver the quality of That’s a lot of ROI. Let’s talk about the related topic of service that’s needed, and to get the advantage of that massive software-defined networking, which is included in your influx of bandwidth that’s being provided. report. How does this concept of a software-defined network relate to virtualization? John Gilroy Earlier, you mentioned this concept of ‘ground station as Robert Bell a service’ and the early adopters of virtualization in the It’s virtualization applied to the network. Software-defined cloud. What lessons can be learned from these pioneers networks are really, again, kind of magical. If you step back, it really that can be applied to the wider satellite industry? reminds you of that Arthur C. Clarke law that sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. The idea is that a layer Robert Bell with SDN is monitoring multiple channels. Quite a few. Instead of all these little fiefdoms sitting independent, So let’s say you have a complex network with fiber, with a bunch the idea of the virtual teleport is that you link these all together so of satellite hops, that’s maybe serving cruise lines, where we also they actually can exchange traffic, they can serve as each other’s have cellular operations in some of the ports. On a software- backup facility and so forth. When you talk about this ground defined network, all these different channels can be monitored segment as a service, for most of these companies, their secret automatically, every few milliseconds, to find the ones that have sauce is the operating system they’ve developed. And it’s really the best quality service, lowest congestion, highest throughput, kind of an amazing idea. It’s based on the idea that you’ve got lowest error rate. Traffic, whatever it might be, is automatically a lot of facilities sitting around the world, antennas, power, and routed to that. connectivity, that’s underutilized. And so instead of just sitting there with one circuit that’s doing There’s a lot of spare capacity out there and wouldn’t it be great well, and another that’s doing badly and trying to figure out what’s if it could be used. And so what these operators have are systems, going on with it, the system has taken care of that for you. And basically partnerships, with a lot of owners and operators of the net of that, in addition to quality of service, is that you have physical infrastructure to use that capacity on their systems when optimized your usage. You actually need less overall bandwidth it’s available and appropriate. From a business standpoint you because the system is looking at optimization all the time. sort of think of them as competitors, but they’re actually teleport customers because they’re paying to use the facilities when they John Gilroy need them, as well as being business generators, bringing new It seems like it really increases flexibility for the kinds of business to teleport operators. So, it’s a really interesting operator to control their quality of service. business model.

SatMagazine Page 35 July / August 2021 One hidden problem of virtualization is that when you put that virtualization can play a big role in this idea of everything into data and you’re connecting all these disparate integrating satellite and terrestrial networks. facilities, you are now in the land of gigantic data pipes, really enormous amounts of data connectivity, which costs something. Robert Bell So they’re constantly trying to manage that balance between Yes, and it all comes down to those things I mentioned before, what they can do with the one or two facilities they operate versus the BSS and the OSS. If you can get what looks like a seamless remote facilities. connection between your satellite, your satellite systems and your The cost factor is fluid and can be difficult to manage. And the terrestrial systems, you’ve accomplished something that has been same thing applies to when they’re using cloud compute capacity, standing in the way of the industry for its entire history. The idea that as part of their solution. The cloud companies are growing fast we’re going to remain in our little silo, with our special processes, and are profitable because they charge good fees for ingress and with terrestrial thinking satellite is expensive, unreliable, or they egress, getting onto and off their network. Those costs can run up don’t understand it. But if it’s just a port on their router that follows pretty fast and produce an uneconomic solution if you don’t really all the standards that they’re used to, then those concerns go away. design it carefully. So it’s a breakthrough idea, but you have to get And standards are a really big part of this. Again, our industry the new fundamentals of the business. has always been resistant to open standards. Generally speaking, we’ve always tried to play the proprietary standards game, and John Gilroy the IT and telco industry left that behind a long time ago. This You listed a lot of the benefits to virtualization, and is an opportunity for our industry to catch up and plug into the some of the challenges with the data pipes. What are standards, not only to help us get business, but quite frankly, to the barriers to adopting this new technology? make the satellite and teleport business better as well.

Robert Bell John Gilroy There’s always barriers to something new, and they’re the things With all the benefits you’ve listed with the adoption of that you would expect. It is expensive to get started. I mentioned virtualization, what’s a teleport of the future going to big data pipes. Even though most teleports already have some look like in four or five years from now? form of data center or other, you’re probably going to need a bigger one because again, there’s always going to be a need for Robert Bell local compute capacity and storage capacity and other things to Like I say, teleports are already data centers with dishes because make the whole thing work. You’ll need a new set of skills from the they have to be. Even if you’re carrying broadcast quality video, ones you have. ultimately they’re carrying bits. So I think you’re going to see that One CEO said he doesn’t actually have any RF engineers. And optimal kind of connection between terrestrial telco, terrestrial IT that’s because they’re at his partner facilities. “They’re the experts and satellite. about that…that’s not what we do,” he said. So there’s new skill One executive said he wants his satellite service to be sold by sets, new equipment, the fact you’re going to need big capacity a telecom partner, so that it’s an invisible part of their solution. pipes and you’re going to have to think through your business Making the teleport more invisible is kind of an odd thing to say. models to make all of that work. But once it becomes invisible, which has been kind of a problem It’s not a slam dunk, but ultimately it opens a doorway to for 50 years, it will turn out to be a huge advantage because it will optimize teleport operations, wherever they might be. And no become part of accepted global infrastructure and everybody will matter how traditional the facility is, there’s a lot of play here for make a lot more money. business improvement. Listen to this and more than 100 other podcast interviews on John Gilroy Constellations — www.kratoscomms.com/constellations-podcast The traditional way of managing satellites and communications really changes when applying Review the full list of interviews and subscribe at virtualization and cloud technology, doesn’t it? www.kratosdefense.com/constellations-podcast

Robert Bell Interested in a particular topic for discussion? When we go through this process of virtualizing and more importantly, automating any set of processes, you get into serious Email Constellations at [email protected] change management. One of the more advanced operators that I know has just put a tremendous amount of time, energy, and effort into building out their change management process so that it’s very rigorous, because you don’t want to get it wrong. All teleports have tried to be good at this. I think it’s a step change in operations.

John Gilroy Across the federal government and the DoD, you hear more and more about interoperability. Seems

SatMagazine Page 36 July / August 2021 The Premier Global, Commercial, Civil, Military, and Emergent Space Conference

Register Here SpaceSymposium.org

+1.800.691.4000 Share: Path Diversity With Satellite Connectivity Fortifies Comms For Emergency Response

Author: Tony Bardo, Assistant Vice President of Government Solutions, Hughes Network Systems

After a record-breaking hurricane season in 2020, forecasters warn Americans to brace for yet another active, above-normal season this year. For government agencies coping with ongoing pandemic response amid the accelerating number and intensity of storms, this forecast is a call-to-action for emergency preparation and, as society has become so dependent on connectivity, a sobering reminder to shore up communications networks for whatever may come next.

For decades, satellite technology has been the go-to major drug store and grocery store chains across the U.S. connectivity solution in disaster response, ensuring first use satellite to back-up their networks. These networks can responders and communities can communicate when land- switch seamlessly to satellite broadband when necessary — based networks fail. ensuring customers can receive their vital prescriptions or medicine, have access to clean water and purchase groceries. However, in an increasingly network-dependent world amid the threat of natural and man-made disasters, satellite Plus, 40,000 ATMs across India depend on VSAT connectivity systems at the ready may not be enough. In fact, as in from Hughes for primary service — extending financial commercial enterprise, path-diverse communications that access to people who live in places beyond the reach of include both terrestrial and non-terrestrial broadband enable cable and fiber. businesses and governments to serve end users seamlessly in a wide range of scenarios, both planned and unexpected. Beyond natural disaster response, satellite connectivity also allows governments and businesses to maintain essential Satellite To The Rescue operations when their primary broadband connection at a site or in the region fails. It’s no secret that, compared to land-based networks, satellite technology is considerably less susceptible to In example, in 2020, amidst election season, a severed outages in times of disaster. From Hurricane Sandy to fiber optic cable shut down the state of Virginia’s Typhoon Haiyan, when wireline connections were wiped voter registration system, causing massive complaints out, satellite VSATs came to the rescue, enabling first that exacerbated voter fraud concerns. Investing in a responders, government and citizens to access critical satellite back-up solution would have enabled the state information and supplies. to continue its registration operations seamlessly despite the terrestrial outage. In fact, many state and local governments and federal agencies, such as the Federal Emergency Management Multi-Transport Solutions Agency (FEMA) in the U.S., will pre-purchase VSAT terminals and satellite service in preparation for storm In addition to back-up systems, investing in a strategic season as a safety measure. They may contract to have the and reliable, path-diverse, communication networks with equipment and capacity available on-demand or even pre- satellite transport can guard against communications failure stage the VSATs near disaster-prone communities or along and supply first responders and essential businesses with the predicted path of a coming storm. the connectivity they need.

Purchasing service and equipment early provides governments In an age when connectivity is as essential as electricity, with the flexibility to engage satellite capabilities quickly to governments and businesses alike increasingly depend get online in the immediate aftermath of a storm. Similarly, on multi-transport network diversity to build resiliency many businesses utilize satellite as an ancillary, secondary and redundancy. Multi-transport solutions that use or tertiary back-up network to ensure their locations stay satellite and another form of connectivity keep mission- online, even in times of natural or man-made disaster. critical applications online when a disruption — be it a storm or fiber cut — compromises terrestrial connections. The value of satellite to connect business quickly was on full display in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria in Puerto One such multi-transport solution is a combined satellite/ Rico, enabling medical facilities and pharmacies to provide cellular “bubble,” ideal for on-demand connectivity when essential care to citizens. As a matter of good business, terrestrial networks are compromised or don’t exist. With a

SatMagazine Page 38 July / August 2021 cellular pack and portable satellite antenna, first responders, law Path Diversity In The Future Of Connectivity enforcement and government workers can have much-needed wireless connectivity for up to 100 “bring-your-own” devices Satellite connectivity and path-diverse networks play an important (BYOD) within a 1.25 mile (2 km) range. role in saving lives in the face of natural disasters and keeping essential operations running. The bottom line is that no single The rapidly deployable, LTE network bubble enables workers transport technology can satisfy all the demand for seamless, reliable to connect reliably to one another and with the outside world, connectivity in times of disaster or any other time. Instead, the future enhancing critical response capabilities no matter the impact of connectivity depends on a ubiquitous network that leverages all to infrastructure. When terrestrial infrastructure is unavailable, transport types – GEO, MEO and LEO satellites, plus cable, fiber, 4G/ the accessibility and ease of installation of the multi-transport LTE, 5G, Wi-Fi and more. Satellite brings a unique set of advantages satellite/cellular solution enables emergency response teams and to that networking ecosystem, in large part as the only connectivity communities to set up one or multiple command centers or locations alternative that does not rely on vulnerable terrestrial infrastructure. for citizens to take shelter. The on-demand connection enables first responders to communicate effortlessly through radios, cellphones Looking ahead, path-diverse networks with satellite transport will or other BYOD devices, supporting response and recovery efforts. play a critical role in building an always-on network vital to keeping government and essential businesses online and to enabling Another multi-transport solution quickly gaining traction in the effective communications during disaster response and all the government space is Managed Software Defined Wide Area time. With multi-transport, always-on networks, governments can Networks (SD-WAN). This type of multi-transport solution keep serving the public — especially when they need it most. optimizes the network across sites and transport types, ensuring the right performance and price to meet the organization’s needs Author Tony Bardo has over 30 years’ experience and automatically applying data traffic rules and prioritization to with strategic communication technologies keep essential locations online. that serve the complex needs of government. Since joining Hughes in January 2006, Bardo has This intelligent prioritization of broadband types and application served as assistant vice president of Government traffic at each site helps to deliver a more reliable, seamless user Solutions, where he is focused on providing experience in a cost-effective manner. Hughes managed network broadband solutions and applications to Federal, State, and Local Tony Bardo Satellite connectivity as part of the SD-WAN network helps extend governments. Bardo also served as Chair of the the network to hard-to-reach locations and ensures availability. Networks and Telecommunications Shared Interest Group Satellite can even support traffic prioritization/cost management (SIG) for the Industry Advisory Council, an advisory body when an organization may choose to reserve its satellite system to the American Council for Technology (ACT). Before for large data transfers and network back-up while directing other joining Hughes, Bardo was with Qwest Government Services application traffic over cable or fiber connections. for nearly five years where he was senior director of US Government Civilian Agencies sales and marketing, senior director of marketing, and senior director of business development. Prior to Qwest, Bardo spent 14 years with the government markets group at MCI where he held the position of executive director for civilian agencies.

SatMagazine Page 39 July / August 2021 At Home Connectivity In Rural Locations With LEO Satellites Author: Will Mudge, Vice President, Engineering Operations, Speedcast

This is no secret to anyone — connectivity demands are on the rise. The days when computers and mobile phones were our only connected devices are far, far in the past, and we are now using more tablets, smart watches and connected gaming devices than ever before experienced.

Not only are we using more connected devices, but we spend a lot more time being connected using them. Living in a smartphone generation means we all expect to be able to access search engines, social media and the latest news at any given time. In fact, recent studies show the average adult spends between three and four hours on their mobile phone every single day.

SatMagazine Page 40 July / August 2021 The Stoneywood teleport

Within industry, connectivity is also on the rise. Factories, mines Applications such as Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems and energy platforms at sea are using connected Internet of Things cannot withstand latency, and industrial equipment controlled (IoT) devices to streamline operations, reduce the risk of human via the internet could potentially become dangerous if that error and maximize profits through efficiency. The prediction is connection were to fail. that the number of Industrial IoT connections will increase from 17.7 billion in 2020 to 36.8 billion in 2025, representing an overall The Evolution Of Satellite growth rate of 207 percent. Although there is currently an undeniable buzz around LEO LEO For Rural Connectivity satellites, they, themselves have been used for off-grid connectivity for decades. Geosynchronous Equatorial Orbit (GEO) satellites In urban areas, connecting to the internet is rarely a problem. The have been around for 50 years and, thanks to their size and extreme same cannot be said for rural locations, which are often beyond the distance away from the ground, only three such spacecraft are reach of terrestrial networks. As a result, the general assumption is required to cover the entire surface of the Earth. that the more rural or challenging your location, the poorer your connectivity is likely to be. Of course, today there are many more than that — in fact, according to the UCS Satellite Database, as of 2021, there are 562 However, thanks to the potential of LEO satellites, those that operating GEO satellites. However, this distance from Earth does are far from the reach of terrestrial networks can enjoy internet mean their connection has high latency plus they are expensive to connectivity as if they were in a bustling metropolitan area. produce and send into orbit. That means that even the most isolated locations — such as oil and gas rigs, cruise ships or rural mines — can use the same For a signal to travel to and from a GEO satellite, that is the connectivity for entertainment and industrial IoT as those at less equivalent of sending a signal around the Earth... twice. Medium challenging locations. Earth Orbit (MEO) satellites are much closer to the Earth, slotted between LEO and GEO satellites. This means they orbit at a lower This could be a game-changer for applications that require a real- altitude, decreasing the time it takes for a signal to reach the Earth, time connection to function. therefore decreasing latency when compared with a GEO satellite.

New generations of internet, such as 5G, are enabling innovative use cases that thrive on a high-speed connection as well as require it to reliably function.

SatMagazine Page 41 July / August 2021 In recent years, this decrease in latency has enabled use cases, Sites that are within an area served by 5G could receive bandwidth such as safety monitoring, that GEO satellites were just too slow greater than that of 4G or private LTE. However, 5G does not to handle. A similar example to this improvement is that a signal currently have the global reach that satellite can offer, which is to and from the satellite is equivalent to a call between major cities why a collaborative approach should be taken. halfway around the world. Software that seamlessly manages the transition between terrestrial Our connectivity demands are only increasing, and even the networks and different satellite types allows organizations to get relatively speedy MEO signals cannot enable the innovative use the best of whichever signal is going to serve them most effectively. cases that are developing. As cellular technology has progressed They benefit from always-on connectivity, using complimentary from 3G to 4G, to 4G LTE and now to 5G, our software is becoming technologies to ensure a connection, even if one method fails. more complex and demands faster data transmission than ever. Companies like Speedcast offer automated management LEO satellites are being used to meet this demand, offering higher technologies, such as SIGMA or SD-WAN, which can make speeds of transmission and lower latency than was previously the correct choice of network based on programmed, possible. At-home connectivity LEO satellites enable such high- priority parameters. speed connectivity because of their low altitude position, just 500 to 1,600 km above the Earth’s surface. This allows a delay of 0.04 When you are out of range from the cellular network, the LEO, seconds, enabling technologies that need a real-time connection. MEO or GEO satellite that is the most effective for each unique situation will be automatically selected. Once 4G LTE or 5G Recent Phase I performance testing by Speedcast of LEO satellites becomes available again, the software can automatically switch to showed latencies of just 35 milliseconds plus the ability to move the best available option. data reliably across the satellite. This test demonstrated data passing dependably across a Ka-band link, with latency equivalent A strong internet connection is not enough to ensure seamless to a home or urban office setting. business operations. As satellite networks grow, enterprises should use network management solutions to transition between The results indicate that, while connected to a LEO satellite, those terrestrial networks and solutions such as LEO satellites. Doing so working or living in remote onshore and offshore locations can use will enable fast connectivity, maximize bandwidth and give rise to innovative connected technology as freely as those connected to innovative IoT technologies. terrestrial networks. Author Will Mudge is Vice President Engineering Unlike their GEO counterparts, LEO satellites are not able to cover Operations at Speedcast developing global a large range due to their proximity to Earth. This means that, in teleport and Low Earth Orbit Constellation coming years, expect to see tens of thousands of LEO satellites strategies. Prior to his current role, Will was the deployed into orbit, forming entire LEO constellations. Director of Satellite Capacity and Technology USA, head of R&D engineering, Strategic This need is driving mass production and lowering costs per Product Marketing Manager, and Program unit, which makes them increasingly, financially viable. Not only Manager at Speedcast and Harris Caprock. Will will a stronger connection be received on existing devices, has a degree from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical but technologies that were previously not able to use satellite University in Engineering Physics. connectivity will now be able to rely on it. www.speedcast.com A Collaborative Effort

The surge of popularity in LEO satellites does not mean that GEO and MEO satellites are not still valuable assets. Companies that are leveraging the potential of LEO satellites will not be entirely replacing MEO and GEO, but instead adding LEO to their existing toolkits of dependable, connectivity infrastructure. Then, depending on the unique application, location and other requirements, the most appropriate satellites can be selected.

Similarly, 5G plays a vital part in the final equation — 4G and 5G share capacity between users through network slicing and have seen billions worth of financial investment, meaning they are very advanced, and when installed on a remote site for local connectivity, outperform private LTE and Wi-Fi.

SatMagazine Page 42 July / August 2021 Speedcast has recently received a contract from JSC “Kayenmyvaam and Kavralyanskaya sites required a compact Ku- Chukotka Mining and Geological Company, a Kinross band VSAT terminal which needed to be flown in by helicopter subsidiary, to expand the company’s very small aperture due to their extremely remote locations. Providing this type of terminal (VSAT) network supporting the development critical communications solution at the most challenging and of the Udinsk Gold open-pit mine to two new license remote sites is our business,” said James Trevelyan, Senior Vice areas in the Russian Far East. President of Enterprise and Emerging Markets at Speedcast.

Kinross Gold Corporation is one of the world’s leading gold Speedcast is a leading communications and IT services mining companies. provider, delivering critical communications services to the Maritime, Energy, Mining, Media, Telecom, Cruise, NGO, The Kayenmyvaam and Kavralyanskaya areas are early-stage gold Government, and Enterprise sectors. The company leverages prospecting sites that previously depended on satellite phones its global network platform to provide fully connected for connectivity. systems that harness technologies and applications to transform what remote operations can achieve. With the Speedcast will provide a fully managed wide-area network (WAN) world’s most comprehensive network, Speedcast enables connectivity service for Kinross and has installed dedicated WAN faster, seamless pole-to-pole coverage from a global hybrid connections over VSAT at each site to establish a corporate virtual satellite, fiber, cellular, microwave, MPLS, and IP transport private network (VPN). network with direct access to public cloud platforms. The company integrates differentiated technology offerings The contract is the second extension received by Speedcast since that provide smarter ways to communicate and distribute its original start of service in 2020. content, manage network and remote operations, protect and secure investments, and improve the crew and guest Recently, Speedcast doubled bandwidth speeds available at the experience. With a passionate customer focus and a strong Udinsk mine. safety culture, Speedcast serves more than 3,200 customers in over 140 countries.

Mining images are courtesy of Kinross Gold.

SatMagazine Page 43 July / August 2021 The Way Ahead When Commercializing Space Optics

Author: Paul Townley-Smith, Director of Design & Prototyping, ZYGO Electro Optics

When considering space optics, what often comes to mind are one-off, eye-wateringly expensive high-performance projects such as the Hubble Space Telescope or the NRO Geospatial Intelligence constellation.

Failure of the space optics used in such applications would be a mortal blow to national security and science objectives. There is only one shot at success, and such optics are engineered with redundancy in mind. They require extensive engineering analysis to validate the extreme edges of operating conditions and also require extensive subsystem and prototype qualification.

SatMagazine Page 44 July / August 2021 Commercial space optics systems, on the other hand, are targeted Risk is managed through small incremental changes made over at higher quantity and lower-cost applications and are, therefore, multiple launches of short-lived satellites, for example, and systems where the cost of failure is not so extreme. instrumentation and self-diagnostic data are used extensively to understand what works and what doesn’t work. While not ideal, the failure of a satellite is not the death knell for a particular project, and so the commercial space industry can The Commercial Approach To Space Optics afford to be a little more pragmatic and can tolerate more risk than conventional one-off programs. Today, there are three main areas of the NewSpace optics business, namely laser communication, star tracking and Earth imaging. For commercial space applications, best practices plus “learning and discovery” replace the extensive analysis and qualification testing needed for super critical applications.

SatMagazine Page 45 July / August 2021 In some circumstances, a satellite may possess all three of these Fabricating mirrors in the 300 to 800 mm range and assembling and payloads. In each of these areas, typically the satellite maker testing large telescopes is such an extremely specialized capability needs to choose between contracting out a custom-optics that this work is typically contracted out by the satellite maker to payload and integrating it into their own satellite designs or one of the few companies that possess these competencies. making it themselves. When looking at commercial space optics, it is important that the A typical satellite in a large communications constellation will optics manufacturer works closely with the customer’s engineering have four laser communication transceivers, two in-plane and two team to develop specifications that maximize payload performance cross-plane. value with a cost-effective commercial optics supply chain.

Each transceiver is composed of a large beam expander optic on This requires a focus on minimizing the use of exotic materials and the front end with smaller beam management and fiber-coupling using aspherical surfaces sparingly. optics in the back end. Wherever possible, known design, fabrication, and assembly For spatial orientation, each satellite typically has two-star trackers, techniques should be employed to limit the risk of failure in orbit. a component of which is a high stability imaging lens that an optics New designs that produce small improvements — or rebalancing supplier designs and develops. of trade-offs — are implemented incrementally through frequent launches, to discover what works on-orbit versus investing in In Earth imaging, custom telescopes need to be designed for expensive ground-based simulations and qualification testing. panchromatic, multi-spectral and hyperspectral imaging, with apertures ranging from 100 to 800 mm.

SatMagazine Page 46 July / August 2021 In a conventional satellite system, the key goal is to maximize To deal with the high vacuum and ionizing radiation environment, performance. In commercial space systems, the business goal is the company has the depth of expertise to select the correct glass, to deliver performance value that significantly exceeds the cost. structural materials and design approach to meet the lifetime goals of the satellite. Space is a challenging environment and requires low out-gassing, radiation resistance, a wide thermal range, magnetic interference All of this can be achieved on a commercial cost basis and a limits, and the ability to resist high launch loads. schedule that is measured in months, not years.

All of this restricts the designer’s options for material selection. The Future For large constellations, material selection is limited even more, as the optical components must often be 100 percent demisable, As constellations get larger, the commercial space industry is meaning they must burn up during re-entry. headed toward increasing scale and increasing performance all the while lowering costs. Because of this, it is vital that A further design challenge is the cost sensitivity to size and commercial space optics manufacturers work closely with their weight, which limits the trade space for the designer. Compact customers, both parties continuing to evolve designs for a lower designs often give up performance in other dimensions and/or cost at higher performance levels including design attention to require more sophisticated and expensive components, and high survivability and demisability. specific stiffness materials that might be used to save weight are typically more expensive. This creates a narrow design window Today, the interest in hyperspectral Earth imaging telescope which requires out-of-the-box thinking and innovation to find the systems is high, and ZYGO is looking at designs to make these best balance of trade-offs. systems more compact and of higher performance, including the use of free form components. ZYGO Answers Industry Calls To meet the demands of large constellations, the company ZYGO’s fundamental approach when addressing such issues is to is investing in technology to increase capacity and improve apply novel twists to classic designs. For example, when looking throughput in its industry leading aspheric and freeform large at an optical design, ZYGO’s team looks for ways to maximize the mirror production facilities. effectiveness of aberration correction of each element. www.zygo.com They also look to reduce the lens count (particularly aspheric lenses), and employ spherical and aspherical components that are compatible with commercial fabrication techniques suitable for volume production. Paul Townley Smith is currently the Director of Design and From the perspective of opto-mechanical design, simplifying Prototyping for ZYGO’s Electro Optics Group, which designs the supporting structures is the main goal, with careful attention and develops custom optical assemblies. He has been paid to how components will interact under thermal expansion to developing optical products for over 30 years covering a minimize the thermal sensitivity. broad range of applications including space, lithography, AR/VR, telecommunications, medical imaging, laser surgery, The company minimizes the use of exotic materials but makes machine vision, life sciences, and material processing. exceptions when high-leverage use cases are discovered, such as using carbon fiber composites to tune thermal expansion. ZYGO has a highly experienced team, with decades long history of success in designing and building optical devices Fewer (and simpler) lenses and simplified structures naturally lead in an incredibly broad range of applications. ZYGO has to a reduction in size, weight, and cost and ZYGO has had success worked with a broad range of optical devices including in meeting customer requirements while pursuing this approach. those that contain zoom groups, gratings, displays, MEMS, Commercial space optics must be able to survive launch, and cameras, micro-lens arrays, cylinder lenses, aspheres, free- then must, of course, perform well in the exacting environment forms, diamond turned plastic and aluminum, spatial light of space. modulators, fiber optics, polarizers, and birefringent crystals. The company is expert in a broad range applications With the benefit of decades of practical experience, ZYGO has including AR/VR; medical imaging; laser eye surgery; proven it can produce robust and highly stable optics that are able fluorescence microscopy/gene sequencing; flat panel to withstand launch loads and maintain high performance on-orbit. lithography; high laser power material processing; high performance Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance (ISR) To overcome the challenge of the dynamic thermal environment imaging systems; NewSpace (including LEO multi-spectral typical of Low Earth Orbit (LEO), ZYGO has designed telescopes Earth imaging telescopes, star tracker navigation optics, that are athermal over a broad temperature range and are tolerant lasercom terminal optics); microscope objectives for semi of thermal gradients. inspection, including solid immersion (SIL) NA3.3 microscope objectives; and fiber coupled micro-optics devices.

SatMagazine Page 47 July / August 2021 Better Satellite World: Is There A Satellite Within?

Author: Space & Satellite Professionals International (SSPI)

Every day, nearly everyone on Earth does something What’s Your Sat IQ? that involves a satellite. A recent video in the Better Satellite World series, “Is There a Most of these users never know they have accessed a satellite. In Satellite Inside?,” is aimed at young people in middle school a way, that’s kind of cool — but also kind of frightening. If people and high school. who benefit from your satellite products and services don’t even know they exist, our commercial prospects are pretty dim. This video asks them to guess whether or not satellite technology is part of everyday applications in their lives. Let’s take a moment Especially at a time like this, when satellite communications and to test your own satellite IQ. For each of these common objects or Earth Observation (EO) are poised — for the first time — to break activities, is there a satellite inside? For answers, watch the video. out into immense global markets that range from IT, mobile and IoT to finance, insurance and logistics. 1. Your mobile phone? It was this consideration that drove Intel, in the 1990s, to launch its “Intel Inside” campaign. Intel’s leadership realized that being an 2. A program you watch on TV? invisible part of a PC was a recipe for commoditization and shrinking margins. The company ultimately invested $5 billion (about $10 billion 3. Video games? today) in an international marketing campaign that was instrumental in keeping them at the leading edge of the chip industry. 4. Sneakers?

The same consideration led SSPI to launch the Better Satellite 5. A loaf of bread? World campaign in 2016. We’re a few dollars short of the $10 billion we would like to be investing in industry activities. 6. Weather forecasts?

However, with the help of companies, media partners and other 7. Hanging out with your friends (back in organizations, the SSPI campaign is making a difference in how the day when you could) the industry communicates their values to investors, to present and future customers as well as to the young talent that is needed so badly to fuel growth.

SatMagazine Page 48 July / August 2021 CONNECTING PEOPLE TO THEIR MISSIONS

Cellular IIoT, ATM, SCADA, HTS Broadband SATCOM On Government & Managed Backhaul Oil & Gas Consumer & The Move Military Services Enterprise

For over 30 years, SpaceBridge has striven to performance GEO and NGSO Extreme Broadband eliminate the digital divide by being an innovator, Gateways, VSAT Terminals, Modems and Services leader and trusted provider of bold solutions that for mission critical applications. keep people connected to their missions, everywhere. As we venture even further, we invite you to join us as we aspire to make all things connected. Visit our We live on the cutting edge of what’s possible, website at spacebridge.com to learn how you can challenging ourselves, adapting to an ever-changing achieve greater connectivity. landscape while delivering ultra-reliable, high-

spacebridge.com | [email protected] | +1.514.420.0045 USA | CANADA | LATIN AMERICA | BRAZIL | EMEA | ASIA PACIFIC Why Now Is The Time To Transform SATCOM Service Delivery

Author: Ken Grelck, Industry Vice President of Communications, Americas & APAC, Capgemini Engineering

Machine to Machine (M2M) and sensor communications The swarm of devices will challenge wireless network operator traffic represents a game-changing opportunity for satellite capacity. As a result, wireless operators will differentiate their communications (SATCOM) companies to drive new services, service offering to highlight their unique ability to deliver the revenue growth, and increased profitability. lowest latency.

During the next three to five years, thousands of latency-tolerant Applications related to healthcare, autonomous driving, and business applications could benefit from satellite connectivity. industrial automation require almost immediate response and will However to be able to deliver services, satellite operators need pay higher wireless fees to gain the lowest latency possible. to move beyond wholesale and backhaul services and develop a portfolio of offerings differentiated from the wireless operators. Recent initiatives from wireless operators demonstrate the focus Plus, they need to start their service transformation now as it will has already start... take time to surmount the many challenges ahead. • China Mobile Market research firm Omdia estimates there will be more than launched a 10 million M2M devices connected to satellites in 2025 and that dedicated “5G number could swell to billions by 2030. The sheer volume of Medical Edge” devices that will be connected is a great opportunity, as well as a platform for healthcare, which focused challenge, for all communications operators. on the shortest routes, minimal delay and deterministic networking, ultimately enabling Consider order management queues multiplied by ten, or think remote surgery and telemedicine. about a network operations center (NOC) when there’s a fiber cut and 50 million devices lose service. The current methods of operation simply will not scale nor provide the required service levels for the next generation of Intelligent Industry business applications.

SatMagazine Page 50 July / August 2021 • Vodafone, in partnership with The convergence of technology advancements and the Horiba Mira, has rolled out a private “swarm of devices” supporting business applications that are 5G network that delivers ultra- latency tolerant have created a massive market opportunity for fast speeds and low latency for SATCOM companies. autonomous vehicles Billions of devices will seek connectivity aligned with the service • AT&T has successfully characteristics deliverable by satellite. Furthermore, only satellite leveraged 5G with communications can enable true connectivity spread across the manufacturers to increase globe, opening up a wealth of applications such as environmental efficiencies and reduce monitoring, smart logistics, agricultural improvements, public greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. infrastructure management and a range of other remote-sensing use cases. • Orange has leveraged 5G for smart factories and industrial automation To prepare for the anticipated surge in demand, as many as 46,000 with Schneider Electric and Lacroix satellites could be launched over the next few years. That could be Group, featuring robotics and more than five times the number of satellites launched worldwide autonomous vehicles during the last 60 years.

• Verizon has transformed the However, to be successful in the business applications market, fan experience by leveraging SATCOM companies must adapt their portfolio. Today’s offerings wideband and edge are predominately backhaul or wholesale services. The M2M/ computing while also increasing the ability to Sensor/IoT market will require providers to enable a service secure the stadium portfolio focused on business applications. This will require a transformation of the portfolio, provisioning and billing systems, Virtualization, software-defined satellites, and LEO/MEO are key service management and service assurance systems. technology advancements that can enable a new service portfolio and market opportunity. Capgemini Launches New Brand

Capgemini has brought their result, an end-to-end partnership and accelerate development. engineering and R&D expertise with clients is needed for Capgemini Engineering’s into a new brand: developing, launching, services have been devised to ‘Capgemini Engineering’ managing and modernizing address exactly that need, to breakthrough products. harness the power of data to Capgemini has unveiled this new The launch of Capgemini foster innovation, create new brand that consolidates a unique Engineering builds on customer experiences and set of market leading capabilities the integration of Altran’s deliver new sources of value. in engineering and R&D. Along capabilities that perfectly The global business with the Group’s deep industry complements the Group’s line’s services cover three expertise and cutting-edge already well-established key domains: product and technologies in digital and portfolio of business systems engineering, digital software, the brand will support offerings and supports the and software engineering, organizations as the digital and firm’s leadership position in and industrial operations. physical worlds converge. The intelligent industry. global business line1, with its Capgemini Engineering 1 This Global Business Line has 52,000 engineers and scientists helps the largest innovators been in place since January 1, and a presence in all major in the world engineer the 2021. Capgemini’s Global Business engineering hubs across the products and services of Lines (GBLs) manage key offerings; world, builds on the integration tomorrow and cope with taking care of pre-sales, solutions of Altran, one year on from its disruption by embedding into development, client focused delivery, acquisition by Capgemini. products the company’s digital and expanding talents and expertise in Today’s leading and software technologies. key domains for the Group, including organizations understand that R&D is the new battlefield. high-growth and emerging markets Engineering and R&D is fast- It must be connected and data- moving and ever evolving. As a driven to optimize innovation

SatMagazine Page 51 July / August 2021 Every element of the customer engagement process will change. What’s more, automation gives operators scale, improves efficiency The client base will no longer be large partners but instead and, importantly, eliminates human error. With advanced Artificial thousands of clients. The transformation will be challenging, but Intelligence (AI), operators can build intelligent operations the resulting revenue growth will drive outsized profit. that enable service delivery in an assured manner at the lowest possible cost The Ceiling Is Not The Roof Service enablement and assurance for IoT and M2M requires new In 2017, Michael Jordan famously said, “The ceiling is the roof” engineering, operations and business processes. BSS/OSS system for UNC football. The roof is not applicable for SATCOM as even evolution will be key to the transformation, which will enable the the sky is not a limitation. Taking a closer look at this market business applications to run at scale over the network. opportunity, SATCOM operators are ideally positioned to deliver ubiquitous IoT connectivity for M2M communications. To seize the emerging SATCOM opportunity, service providers need to consider a strategy of rapid service transformation rather Developing a portfolio of offerings that are differentiated from the than gradual long-term evolution. The fundamental satellite wireless operators is key. Business applications that are latency operator communications business model needs to change tolerant and require low-cost multinational integration are key to enable a move from a wholesale to a business-to-business areas where SATCOM can differentiate. engagement model.

There are thousands of business applications requiring remote Satellite communications operators will need to architect and M2M IoT connectivity, ranging from tracking tagged livestock implement the benefits of a full-scale virtualization of their service and cargo containers at sea, to monitoring soil characteristics or infrastructure and processes with an emphasis on building scale keeping vending machines stocked with popular items. While through artificial intelligence and automation throughout the some applications (autonomous vehicles, for example) cannot entire process and client engagement. tolerate latencies, satellite connectivity is well-suited for many M2M/sensor/IoT connections. Finally, they will need to consider how they can advance their overall value proposition from simply providing connectivity to enabling The challenge for satellite operators is to be able to support billions business applications in support of Intelligent Industry. Satellite of IoT devices and sensors with always-on availability. Traditional operators who that are able to enact these transformations will satellite communications architecture was strictly defined with have a much larger market opportunity than available to operators specially engineered forward and return wavelengths for backhaul over the past decades. and wholesale telecoms. That approach worked fine for a network with a limited number of customers. The confluence of satellite technology change, IoT deployments, automation, artificial intelligence, and service management must Satellite operators will need to move beyond wholesale and be effectively coordinated to yield market success. backhaul services to take full advantage of service management, enablement and service delivery capabilities. There has never been a more pressing time to make that change.

Built To Serve Ken leads the Communications sector for Capgemini’s Engineering and R&D business Service agility and cost are critical factors in the IoT business line in the Americas and Asia-Pacific. Ken has case equation. How can satellite networks deliver connectivity deep expertise leading a large sales team with competitively? Every element of the client engagement will need a focus on launching new products to accelerate to be refocused. Enabling these new services at scale automation market adoption, expansion and revenue will be the key to business success. Self-service portals, automated growth. He earned an MBA with honors from provisioning, cognitive networking, and proactive Service Level Campbell University in Buies Creek, N.C. (south Ken Grelck Agreements (SLA) assurance are some of the capabilities which of Raleigh) and his BS in Business Administration must be enabled. and Management from the State University of New York at Albany. Operators can harness automation and intelligence to achieve greater agility, reduced costs and seamless performance. capgemini-engineering.com Automation can deliver savings of up to 25 percent and enhance the quality of service.

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