Area Drive explores ‘small GEO’ choices for resilient communications

In seek for agile, cost-effective methods to enhanced navy communications, the U.S. Area Drive is zooming in on a brand new class of ‘small GEO’ satellites which have entered the market.

Usually weighing between 300 and 500 kilograms, these satellites promise geostationary capabilities at diminished prices and sooner improvement cycles than conventional multi-ton geostationary Earth orbit (GEO) satellites.

The Area Drive is getting ready to unveil particulars of a satellite tv for pc companies procurement aimed on the low however rising variety of corporations constructing and working small GEO satellites.

Area Drive technique

Cordell DeLaPena, program govt officer for navy communications on the Area Drive’s Area Programs Command, stated the U.S. navy’s curiosity in these extra compact GEO satellites stems from the necessity for extra agile and resilient communication programs.

He stated on the latest Milsatcom USA convention that “There’s going to be a enterprise case” for small GEO satellites in navy area structure. Whereas low Earth orbit (LEO) programs dominate the small satellite tv for pc market, GEO variants are carving out their very own area of interest, providing potential benefits that enchantment to navy prospects, equivalent to maneuverability.

Small GEO platforms are an instance of options the industrial satellite tv for pc trade is pioneering to make satellite tv for pc communication programs extra resilient and less expensive, DeLaPena added. “Not each surroundings wants beautiful functionality.”

“Maneuverable GEO” program

Clare Hopper, head of the U.S. Area Drive’s Business Satellite tv for pc Communications Workplace, lately introduced plans to start out a brand new program this 12 months known as “maneuverable GEO.”

She stated this initiative goals to seize improvements within the small GEO sector and is predicted to embody a variety of companies, together with satellite tv for pc communications and the leasing of satellites for navy operations. Hopper stated a draft request for trade proposals ought to be launched within the coming weeks.

“We’re seeking to reap the benefits of smaller satellites designed for geostationary orbit,” Hopper stated. “These capabilities, I feel, are promising for the DoD.”

Hopper stated small GEO satellites that weigh a couple of hundred kilograms, in comparison with a number of tons for standard GEO satellites, would give the Area Drive choices to purchase or lease a constellation at comparatively low value.

A geostationary orbit, situated roughly 36,000 kilometers above the equator, has historically been the popular location for communications satellites. Satellites on this orbit seem to stay in a set place relative to the Earth’s floor, permitting ground-based antennas to level at them constantly with out the necessity for rotation to trace their motion.

Hopper stated the thought of maneuverable GEO communications is about bringing agility to historically static GEO operations.

The Area Drive issued a request for info in October to evaluate the capabilities of the small GEO satellite tv for pc sector and is incorporating the trade’s suggestions in a draft solicitation for bids.

The maneuverable GEO program is predicted to make the most of Indefinite Supply/Indefinite Amount (IDIQ) contracts, which can present a framework for the Area Drive to position activity orders for satellite tv for pc communications companies and {hardware} as wanted.

The procurement technique for small GEO companies attracts from earlier fashions used for proliferated LEO satellite tv for pc communications. “We envision this contract having a few of the similar form of key tenets because the PLEO procurement, enabling trade to supply any out there functionality, service plan packages, customized choices or customized blends,” she defined.

Business alternatives

Small satellites scale back the chance of making “massive juicy targets” within the GEO belt, famous Col. Eric Felt, director of structure and integration on the Workplace of the Assistant Secretary of the Air Drive for Area Acquisition and Integration.

The Area Drive expects to leverage industrial small GEO satellites for its Protected Tactical Satcom World (PTS-G) program, meant to offer worldwide assured-access communications for tactical warfighters throughout navy Ka-band and X-band frequencies. Felt stated this strategy would cut back the vulnerabilities of bigger, extra conventional satellites.

The Area Drive’s 2025 price range proposes $248 million in funding for the PTS-G constellation. Initially, PTS-G would offer companies in choose areas, with the objective of ultimately providing worldwide protection. The primary deployment will probably be 4 small GEO satellites — two for the X band and two for the Ka-band.

The navy is eyeing small GEO satellites as industrial exercise within the sector is selecting up. The startup Astranis, which manufactures small telecommunications GEO satellites, has adopted the time period “proliferated GEO” in its advertising and marketing marketing campaign. This branding is a nod to the “proliferated LEO” idea that has been gaining traction within the nationwide safety satellite tv for pc market.

Moderately than viewing GEO because the area of enormous, solitary satellites, Astranis is selling a imaginative and prescient of a extra dynamic, populous geostationary surroundings.

“We’re massive followers of proliferated LEO,” stated John Gedmark, CEO of Astranis. “However on the finish of the day, it is advisable to have ‘proliferated all the pieces.’”

The San Francisco firm launched its first satellite tv for pc in 2023 for Alaskan telecom operator Pacific Dataport and plans to place extra satellites in orbit within the coming years, with the objective of offering devoted broadband capability to underserved markets and areas.

Gedmark informed SpaceNews that Astranis has offered satellites to varied industrial and authorities prospects worldwide, together with in the US, Mexico, Argentina, the Philippines and Thailand.

He stated the corporate can also be actively pursuing navy contracts. “We’ve demonstrated our satellites can help the Protected Tactical Waveform,” he stated. PTW is a government-developed waveform utilized in navy satellites to safeguard communications from jamming, cyber-attacks or different disruptions.

Gedmark stated Astranis is growing a brand new dual-use satellite tv for pc with all-electric propulsion that may function on industrial and navy Ka-band frequencies in addition to military-only X-band.

This positions Astranis to compete within the Area Drive’s maneuverable GEO program and the Protected Tactical Satcom World (PTS-G) procurement, stated Gedmark. “They’d get the resilience of getting smaller satellites that may additionally function the protected tactical waveforms.”

Gedmark defined that satellites with all-electric propulsion align with the DoD’s curiosity in maneuverability as a result of they use much less gasoline than chemically propelled satellites, permitting for extra frequent changes with out worrying about working out of gasoline.

“We’ve got demonstrated you may put up a small GEO satellite tv for pc that gives concentrated bandwidth over a focused space and do this on brief discover,” Gedmark stated. “And if that capability is required someplace else, then you may transfer it from one a part of the GEO belt to a different.”

The corporate’s new satellite tv for pc platform, known as Omega, is being designed for constellations of small GEOs flying in formation. “We discovered that you would function 4 to 12 of those satellites in a single orbital slot,” stated Gedmark. “That’s only a resilience that you wouldn’t get if all that functionality was within the type of a single massive satellite tv for pc.”

Terran Orbital, a LEO satellite tv for pc specialist primarily based in Boca Raton, Florida, lately introduced a brand new line of small satellite tv for pc buses designed for geostationary orbit. This new product line, named SmallSat GEO, is meant to compete within the rising small GEO satellite tv for pc market.

“The geosynchronous market is transferring extra in the direction of small satellites with an increasing number of GEO spacecraft ordered within the ‘small’ measurement class,” stated Terran Orbital CEO Marc Bell.

Bell stated Terran Orbital is seeing rising worldwide curiosity of their expertise, noting that the corporate is in early discussions with an unnamed nation to produce geostationary satellites outfitted with Ku- and Ka-band communications hyperlinks.

Matthew Gann, Terran Orbital’s senior vice chairman of technique and enterprise progress, stated the objective is to convey a small GEO satellite tv for pc to market in 18 to 24 months. “The worth factors are one-tenth of the worth of what you pay for the massive GEO comms,” he informed SpaceNews.

Terran Orbital is monitoring the Area Drive’s maneuverable GEO program as a possible alternative. “We’re attempting to place our footprint down” on this sector, Gann stated.

Regardless of specializing in LEO satellites, Terran Orbital has gained GEO expertise by way of its position in NASA’s CAPSTONE mission. The corporate designed and built-in a cubesat for the Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Know-how Operations and Navigation Experiment, which was launched in 2022 for associate Superior Area. Initially designed for an 18-month mission, CAPSTONE is at present working in its prolonged mission section, testing near-lunar communication and navigation applied sciences in addition to new software program instruments for autonomous spacecraft operations.

One other rising participant within the small GEO sector is SWISSto12, a Swiss producer that developed a line of smallsats for telecommunications companies in partnership with the European Area Company. The Renens, Switzerland-based firm has secured contracts with satellite tv for pc operators Intelsat and Viasat. The primary “HummingSats” are slated for launch in 2026.

In the meantime, York Area Programs, a longtime smallsat builder primarily based in Denver, can also be eyeing alternatives within the geostationary realm. Dirk Wallinger, CEO of York Area Programs, informed an buyers convention in June that the corporate “sees the small GEO market as a pure extension of our capabilities.” Nevertheless, York has not but introduced particular small GEO merchandise.

Driving innovation

Hopper, the pinnacle of the Area Drive’s industrial satcom workplace, stated the navy’s curiosity in small GEO satellites exemplifies the U.S. authorities’s technique of leveraging industrial improvements to boost protection capabilities.

By driving demand for these smaller, extra versatile satellites, she famous, the navy can stimulate additional innovation and funding within the sector. This, in flip, might result in the event of recent applied sciences and capabilities that profit each navy and industrial functions.

DeLaPena, this system govt officer at Area Programs Command, emphasised this technique: “I feel the way forward for DoD area is that we’re going to leverage each industrial funding on the market.”

This text first appeared within the August 2024 difficulty of SpaceNews Journal.

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