Worldwide Satellite Magazine SatMagazineSatMagazine July/August 2020 Cover image of the space debris field is courtesy of the Space Data Association. Can you feel what fast internet is? 500Mbps 750Mbps 100Mbps 1Gbps 50Mbps 1.46Gbps SBM-90X Modem No speed limit ! [email protected] Radeus Labs 8200 Legacy ACU The Only Tool You'll Need. Installation is that simple. The Radeus Labs 8200 Legacy ACU is the ideal drop-in replacement for ageing 7200 systems. § No hidden costs § Easy Installation § Quality without compromise Full systems are available for all makes of antennas. Visit us at Radeuslabs.com to find your state of the art antenna control solution today! Contact us today for a site visit! (858) 602-1255 | [email protected] | Radeuslabs.com Contact Us SALES radeuslabs, inc. (858) 391-1210 • 12720 Danielson Court • Poway, CA 92064 USA Publishing Operations Senior Columnists This Issue’s Authors Silvano Payne, Publisher + Executive Writer Chris Forrester, Broadgate Publications Sulaiman Al Ali Dr. Mark Lake Simon Payne, Chief Technical Officer Karl Fuchs, iDirect Government Services Natasha Allden Thomas Lovsin Hartley G. Lesser, Editorial Director Bob Gough, Goonhilly Earth Station Rob Andzik Dave Rehbehn Pattie Lesser, Executive Editor Rebecca M. Cowen-Hirsch, Inmarsat David Burr Dr. Tyler Reid Donald McGee, Production Manager Ken Peterman, Viasat Alex Donnison Pascal Wauthier Andy Bernard, Sales Director Giles Peeters, Track24 Defence Chris Forrester Greg Wolff Teresa Sanderson, Operations Director Koen Willems, ST Engineering Newtec Jon Harrison Sean Payne, Business Development Director Dan Makinster, Technical Advisor Features Advertiser Index The New Realities Of Increased Network Traffic . .6 Advantech Wireless Technologies, Inc. (A Baylin Company) . .35 by David Burr, Comtech EF Data Three Trends To Driving The Evolution Of Next-Gen Satellite Ground Systems 12 Arabsat Satellite . .7 by Dave Rehbehn, Hughes Network Systems Where’s My Stuff??, by SSPI . .14 AvL Technologies . .5 Teleports: A Need For Speed . .16 by Thomas Lovsin, STN C-COM Satellite Systems . .43 Forrester Reports: Bonanza Time For U.S. Satellite Builders . .18 by Chris Forrester, Senior Contributor Comtech EF Data . .11 10 Years Of Space Situational Awareness . .22 by Pascal Wauthier, Space Data Association CPI Satcom Products . .15 Executive Spotlight: Mike Carey, ATLAS Space Operations . .26 Keeping Communities & Businesses Connected Throughout COVID-19 30 Isotropic Networks . .47 by Sulaiman Al Ali, Thuraya Executive Spotlight: David Hurst, Orbital Transports . .32 Radeus Labs, Inc. .3 A Frontier Architecture For New Space . .36 by Rob Andzik, AMERGINT Technologies RF-Design . .19 The Road To Robust Navigation . .40 by Dr. Tyler Reid, Xona Space Systems RUAG Space . .9 The Role Of Space Technology In A Post COVID-19 Era . .44 by Natasha Allden, MULTIPLY Global Ltd. Satnews Digital Editions . .53 A Case In Point: Datadragon™ Galvanizes Squire Tech’s Mission Critical Solutions 48 Old Space. New Tricks . .54 Singapore Exhibition Services — ConnecTechAsia . .49 by Dr. Mark Lake, Roccor LEO & The Impact On The Ground Segment . .56 Spacebridge (formerly Advantech Satellite Networks) . .2 by Alex Donnison, ETL Systems ID’ing Suspect Iranian Tankers Smuggling Crude . .58 Swedish Space Corporation (SSC) . .1 by HawkEye 360 Protecting The Network Infrastructure That Depends On Time Dissemination From GNSS Satellites . .62 by Greg Wolff How Does SATCOM Facilities The Maritime Supply Chain . .66 by Jon Harrison, Intellian Technologies SatMagazine is published 11 times a year by Satnews Publishers, 800 Siesta Way, Sonoma, CA, 95476 — USA. Phone: (707) 939-9306 / Fax: (707) 939-9235 © 2020 Satnews Publishers We reserve the right to edit all submitted materials to meet publication content guidelines, as well as for grammar and spelling errors, or to move articles to an alternative issue to accommodate publication space requirements, or remove content due to space restrictions or unacceptable content. Submission of articles does not constitute acceptance of said material by Satnews Publishers. Edited materials may, or may not, be returned to author and/or company for review prior to publication. The views expressed in Satnews Publishers’ various publications do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of Satnews Publishers. All rights reserved. All included imagery is courtesy of, and copyright to, the respective companies and/or named individuals. SatMagazine Page 4 July/August 2020 CONNECTING YOU TO THE FUTURE SMALL PACKAGE. 1.35M FIT BIG GAIN. FLEXIBLE INTEGRATED TERMINAL ARSTRAT KA-BAND CERTIFICATION COMPUTER ASSISTED SATCAP MANUAL POINTING OR AUTO-AQUISITION BUILT-IN TUNER & BEACON RECEIVER TRI-BAND X, KU AND WIDEBAND KA FEEDS WITH QUICK CHANGE RF KITS MODULAR & FLEXIBLE MODEM, BUC & LNB OPTIONS SCALABLE: 75CM, 98CM & 1.35M SET-UP BY ONE PERSON IN MINUTES LIGHTWEIGHT IATA-COMPLIANT avltech.com CHECKABLE CASES Visit AvL @ Virtual IBC, Sept. 11-14 The New Realities Of Increased Network Traffic By David Burr, Vice President, Business Development, Comtech EF Data Telecom providers are dealing with unprecedented internet traffic The industry consensus is that even once lockdowns are lifted that volume during the current COVID-19 crisis as more people are traffic volumes will remain higher than pre-crisis levels. According to working from home during lockdowns. The Organization for sources, such as the Technology Services Industry Association whose Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) released a members say that some form of working from home is here to stay. report on this subject in May of 2020 entitled “Keeping the While employees will return to offices, many will continue to work from Internet up and running in times of crisis,” which showed that a home at least part of the time. Facebook has said that half of its majority of countries reported more than 25 percent increase in employees will be allowed to work from home permanently. In-person traffic volume and some countries even experienced more than a events and conferences have been replaced by webinars, a trend that 50 percent increase in internet traffic. In the United Kingdom, the is expected to continue even after the current crisis subsides. daytime broadband usage increased by 35 to 60 percent when As companies move more of their work online, they have accelerated compared to pre-crisis levels. digital transformation projects which further increase the number of applications running on networks. So even after the current crisis has Communications application usage has skyrocketed, with WhatsApp passed, we expect network traffic to be significantly higher than it was reporting that voice call volume has doubled and videoconferencing before the crisis. This is on top of the “normal” Internet traffic growth applications such as ZOOM and Cisco’s WebEx reporting that their of around 25 percent per year. usage has increased a mind-blowing 24x to 30x. SatMagazine Page 6 July/August 2020 Off-the-shelf routers or switches are designed for constant speed terrestrial links and there is no established standard to provide feedback from variable speed links. Without this information, the links need to include headroom to accommodate lower link speeds during rain fades, which leaves capacity unused most of the time. Alternatively, if the link operates without headroom, there will be too much traffic when the link is impaired, leading to congestion at the satellite modem and resulting in poor user Quality of Experience (QoE) and degraded services. Worse, routing and signaling packets such as BGP could be discarded resulting in routers declaring the route unavailable, flapping or network instability. Interference can be different across multiple carriers leading to even more challenges Many telcos have been able to accommodate the additional demand when the links data rates don’t vary in concert with each other. within their deployed terrestrial infrastructure. In Korea, network loading Increasing the satellite link bandwidth introduces another issue, the is still only 45 to 60 percent of network capacity even with the additional ability to fill such a large pipe. Demand for higher bandwidth is not just traffic demand. Many telcos have a policy of increasing network about increased number of users, but also the increased amount of capacity when loading reaches 50 percent, so they are prepared to content per user. Access to internet content largely relies on one accommodate this kind of surge within their existing infrastructure. protocol: TCP. TCP has two drawbacks. It is sensitive to delay, and to Communities operating with satellite connections don’t have this packet errors or packet drops. luxury. With the high cost of satellite capacity, it is not practical to This is not a concern when the overall latency or delay between the provide the same level of headroom on satellite links. Satellite link data client (end user) and the server (content provider, cloud application) is rates are optimized for specific needs rather than adopting small, but can become a major issue that affects user experience — or standardized link rates which are common in fiber networks. New QoE — when delay reaches 100 ms or more. Example, with a typical solutions are required to address changes in traffic demands such as client to server delay of 350 to 250 ms GEO latency plus 50 ms network the COVID-19 crisis. delay —– access + internet, the maximum user session achievable Increasing the satellite modem data rate only goes so far before throughput will be 7 Mbps, but with packet errors of only 0.5 percent, transponder size becomes the limiting factor. Load balancing across the throughput will drop to 280 kbps. In today’s environment, simply multiple modems to support bonded data paths could be the next logical accessing content is not good enough. To be deemed as “usable,” step provided you deploy a properly designed solution. The load balancer internet access must be fast and smooth. needs to know the link rates of the parallel paths to allocate traffic Fortunately, there is a solution to these problems: adding a Protocol properly. Adaptive Coding and Modulation (ACM) has become widely Enhancement Proxy (PEP) function.