Satellite News

Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd (SSTL) and Viasat have marked the start of operations of the new Viasat antenna system installed at SSTL’s Guildford headquarters with a ribbon cutting ceremony.

Viasat Inc. was awarded a contract to upgrade the NATO UHF satellite communications (SATCOM) control stations to comply with the Integrated Waveform (IW) baseline. The upgrade gives NATO greater communications interoperability, scalability and flexibility across legacy and next-generation platforms to enhance situational awareness as the battlespace dynamically expands.

NASA’s Laser Communications Relay Demonstration (LCRD) mission has begun integration and testing at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. The mission will demonstrate how a transition from radio to laser communications will exponentially improve the way we connect with astronauts and spacecraft.

Airbus has been selected by the European Space Agency (ESA) to be one of four suppliers for DIAS, the Copernicus Data and Information Access Service. DIAS will make data and information easily available to users through a cloud computing architecture enabling enhanced coordination and cross-fertilisation at European Union (EU) level and amongst initiatives at Member State or regional level.

SES said it is expanding its efforts to support 5G developments as part of ESA’s ARTES project, SATis5, where it will be enabling demonstrations of satellite-terrestrial integration for 5G networks.

The first advanced GPS III satellite successfully established remote connectivity and communicated with the Next Generation Operational Control System (OCX), further validating the U.S. Air Force’s modernised Global Positioning System (GPS) is ready to launch its first satellite.

Iridium Communications Inc. announced that it has begun live testing of the Iridium Certus service on operational Iridium NEXT satellites. Iridium Certus will be Iridium’s new broadband service, offering L-band communications connectivity through the Iridium NEXT satellite constellation.

Telesat announced that Bell Canada has signed a 15-year contract for substantially all of the HTS spot beam capacity over northern Canada on Telesat’s new Telstar 19 VANTAGE satellite.