Focus: Ground Systems

Viasat is partnering with Australian telecommunications company Telstra to build and manage the ground infrastructure and fiber network for the ViaSat-3 satellite system targeting the Asia-Pacific region. Under the 16.5-year contract announced Tuesday, Telstra will co-locate Viasat’s Earth stations, or satellite access nodes, at hundreds of its sites across Australia and will build and manage...

Isotropic Systems has demonstrated its satellite terminal to the U.S. Army, showing that separate satellites in different orbits simultaneously linked to a single multi-link antenna. The test was with the Army, at the Army proving grounds in Aberdeen, Maryland. It was part of the U.S. Air Force‘s Defense Experimentation Using Commercial Space Internet (DEUCSI) program, which...

Telesat has tapped Cobham Satcom to supply the landing terminals for the Lightspeed Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) network. The companies announced Tuesday that Cobham will manufacture, integrate, and install its Ka-band Tracker 4000 terminals at landing stations around the world.  Aneesh Dalvi, Telesat’s director of LEO Landing Stations and User Terminals, told Via Satellite that Telesat...

Comtech Telecommunications has released a new very small aperture terminal (VSAT) platform designed to support networks across any satellite orbit. The solution, Elevate, is the next step in Comtech’s long-term plan for business in the satellite ground station market.  Elevate is designed to work across Geostationary Orbit (GEO), Medium-Earth Orbit (MEO), or Low-Earth Orbit (LEO)....

Comtech Telecommunications has established two new business lines focused on satellite ground technologies. Comtech said these two businesses will serve growing opportunities in satellite ground station technology, and the company’s ability to serve U.S. and allied governments as a defense contractor. The two businesses are based in the United States and Canada.  Comtech Satellite Network...

Viasat has released a new large-aperture antenna class for space-to-ground communication. The company said this is its most advanced class of large-aperture antennas and capable of supporting missions including Earth observation, crewed and uncrewed missions to the Moon and Mars, and defense initiatives.  The new class of full-motion multi-band antennas ranges from 19.7 to 24.0...

The Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA) awarded Parsons Corporation a contract to develop a prototype ground operations center for the Blackjack. DARPA awarded the $11 million sole-source contract in December 2021.  Blackjack is a program to leverage commercial Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite technology to demonstrate a global high-speed network for the U.S. Department of...

Gilat Satellite Networks will help a mobile network operator in Japan expand its 4G cellular network with cellular backhaul system.  The MNO placed orders for Gilat’s SkyEdge II-c cellular backhaul system, Gilat announced Thursday. These will be used to expand cellular backhaul over satellite, bringing the 4G/LTE network into rural zones that lack fiber access....

SpaceBridge has connected 39 airports for Colombia’s civil aviation authority Aerocivil Colombia under a partnership that began in 2015. Many Colombian airports are located in regions that are outside the range of cellular towers, and the partnership’s goal was to provide continuous connectivity between aircrafts and ground air traffic control, to allow aircrafts and airports...

The U.S. Air Force Research Lab (AFRL) has chosen ViaLite to supply an L-band Radio Frequency (RF) over fiber solution, ViaLite announced Jan. 4. ViaLite will deliver a solution for a satellite communications downlink, transferring the L-band signals through the ground station complex. ViaLite’s L-band HTS links, in the standalone Blue OEM module format, were...