Focus: Ground Systems

Satellite ground technology company SatixFy is in the process of going public through a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) deal with Endurance Acquisition Corp. The deal, announced Tuesday, will make SatixFy a publicly traded company with an $813 million valuation.  SatixFy, headquartered in Israel, is a vertically integrated fabless semiconductor chip company that offers products...

Telesat has awarded Intellian a contract to design and supply enterprise user terminals for the Lightspeed constellation. Intellian will provide dual-parabolic antenna antenna user terminals that it says can execute make-before-break handoffs from one satellite to the next in the Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) constellation.   Intellian has worked with Telesat for the past few years, doing...

Pulse Power and Measurement (PPM) is teaming up with a leading U.K. university as its looks to develop what it calls a new approach to technology used in the radio-over-fiber communications industry, particularly in the Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) arena. PPM announced details of this collaboration, Feb. 25. The project will look to transform the connection...

It’s well over 12 years since analog TV broadcasting was switched off in the United States and elsewhere, and those of a certain age will remember the noise and distortion users often had to endure. Investment in the United Kingdom’s digital audio broadcasting (DAB) radio network has also ramped up in recent years, as companies...

African telco Orange and subsidiary Sonatel are partnering with SES to deploy and manage the O3b mPOWER constellation’s first gateway in Africa, the companies announced Wednesday. The gateway will be located at the Sonatel teleport in the Senegalese territory of Gandoul and will deliver low-latency, and cloud-optimized connectivity services in Africa. This agreement follows after...

Gilat Satellite Networks has signed agreements with global satellite operators Intelsat and SES to provide its new SkyEdge IV very-high throughput satellite (VHTS) platform in support of new satellites. SES will use the SkyEdge IV platform to simultaneously operate with its SES-17 satellite and its upcoming second generation NGSO constellation, O3b mPOWER, both providing end-users...

Viasat is opening a Real-Time Earth (RTE) facility in Sweden in partnership with Arctic Space Technologies to bring polar capabilities to its ground-station-as-a-service (GSaaS) network. Arctic Space Technologies, which offers secure satellite data handling services, has agreed to establish and host Viasat’s RTE facility in Öjebyn, Sweden. The facility is expected to be operational by...

Five organizations joined the standards group working to promote interoperability between ground communications in the satellite industry. The Digital IF Interoperability Consortium (DIFI) announced Monday that ViaLite Communications, Swedish Microwave AB, Cobham Satcom, Science Applications International Corporation, and Taiwan’s National Space Organization have joined the group.  DIFI, formed  is bringing together companies from across the...

Kymeta and Kratos Defense & Security Solutions have formed a strategic partnership to develop products that integrate mobile satellite antennas and virtualized ground systems. According to the Feb. 1 announcement, the partnership will first focus on jointly developing a software-defined remote terminal for multi-orbit use cases, connecting to multiple orbits through the same antenna.  The...

Gilat Satellite Networks debuted its next-generation very small aperture terminal (VSAT) on Wednesday, the SkyEdge IV. The VSAT was designed for the evolving satellite connectivity ecosystem, to work across multiple orbits, with software-defined satellites, with use cases like fixed and mobile connections, 5G, and IoT.   The company said it has already secured “significant” orders for...