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Climate change and global warmingAmy Saunders

Editor

“The goal of GRACE-FOis to address globaltransformation bymonitoring changes inthe distribution of the....”

Here in the UK, we’ve had a blisteringly hot (by UK standards) early summer – according to reports, we’re close to the hottest ever June onrecord. Of course, every time there’s unseasonable weather (who would expect it to be in the mid 20 degrees Celsius in midsummer in theUK?!), people come crawling out of the woodwork to bemoan climate change and global warming.

Climate change is, of course, a very real concern. Average global temperatures have risen by around 1 degree Celsius since 1880,which many attribute to human influence, namely the massive increase in greenhouse gas emis-sions such as carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide. During the 21st Century, global tem-peratures are expected to rise by a further 0.3 to 4.8 degree Celsius, depending on your climatemodel of choice.

When we talk about climate change or global warming, many people automatically think ofwarmer summers, or, on the UK, less wet summers. But global warming is actually expected toincrease rainfall, and temperatures will not rise uniformly. In addition, we’ll be faced with increas-ing incidences of freak weather events such as violent storms, hurricanes, and more drasticmonsoon seasons, as well as rising sea levels, desertification, ocean acidification, and droughts.

One of the most effective ways of monitoring and modelling climate change is via Earthobservation satellites. Indeed, statistical modelling can provide some great answers as to whatwe can expect in the future given different variables. That’s why the NASA/German ResearchCentre for geosciences Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment Follow-On Mission (GRACE-FO), which recently entered orbit to con-tinue the work of the legacy GRACE spacecraft duo, is so critical.

The goal of GRACE-FO is to address global transformation by monitoring changes in the distribution of the Earth’s mass, particularlywater. The two new GRACE-FO satellites feature one JPL Microwave Ranging Instrument each with transceiver assembly components builtby SSL, which measure micron level changes in the distance between the satellites, which are caused by small variations in the gravita-tional field resulting from mass variations on Earth. The satellites will also demonstrate an experimental Laser Ranging Interferometer thatshould cut down the noise and more accurately assess the separation changes between the two spacecraft. Impressive stuff!

By measuring variations in gravity over Earth’s surface and producing a new map of Earth’s gravity field every 30 days, GRACE-FO willbring clarity to how the planet’s mass distribution changes from month to month, which is primarily due to water moving from one place onEarth to another. With these precise measurements of water migration, the mission provides a global perspective on transformations ingroundwater storage and loss for use in water management, especially in the largest ground water reservoirs that are relied upon by muchof the world’s population for reliable and predictable water resources.

As climate change continues, water management will become increasingly key to survival. Let’s hope that projects like GRACE-FOcontinue to gain the support and funding they deserve.

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Contents - volume 16 - issue 4

Regulars4 Satellite News Review

6 Integrating the cloud into teleport services

14 Targeting high end applications

18 Targeting Southeast Asia and beyond

22 Small Data – The next Big Data

26 Delving deeper into in-orbit satellite servicing

32 Resilience and redundancy in mobile satellitecommunications

Front cover: Photo courtesy ofCobham SATCOM

COVER STORY - 10

Performance and reliability

Cobham SATCOM was created in2012 under Cobham plc following theacquisition of Thrane & Thrane, andtoday provides dependable commu-nications and Internet access any-where in the world, with terminalsoperating on land, at sea, or in theair. Its SAILOR and Sea Tel brandproducts are well-known throughoutthe industry for their reliance andoutstanding performance. Here, AmySaunders speaks with StephanJorgensen, Regional Director APACat Cobham SATCOM, to find outmore about the company’s latestdevelopments.

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....News & Analysis

ConnecTechAsia successful in bridging the digitaldivide for governments, cities and enterprises withshowcase of latest tech and trendsConnecTechAsia, the inaugural mega technology eventcomprising BroadcastAsia, CommunicAsia and the newNXTAsia wrapped up at the end of June after an excitingthree days of exhibitions and a summit covering the latestinnovations in cloud, blockchain, AI, VR/AR, IoT, robotics,5G, IP broadcasting, OTT and smart cities, among others.

Under the new brand, ConnecTechAsia this year drewclose to 40,000 attendees from 96 countries/regions, and1,800 exhibitors from 52 countries/regions. Emergingtechnologies and digital disruption were hot topics, amidthe convergence of the Telecoms, Media and Technology(TMT) industries in an evolving business landscape.

“We are pleased to hold the first edition ofConnecTechAsia, which has a renewed format for a moreimmersive experience with insightful sessions anddisplays for our attendees that reflect the latest industrytrends and technologies that are impacting governments,cities and businesses. We hope that the manypartnerships and friendships forged will serve as afoundation for an even more diverse ecosystem andempower Asia as it evolves digitally,” said Victor Wong,Event Director for ConnecTechAsia, UBM.

Gateway to Asia – a fast growing, digital powerhouse The Asia-Pacific region today accounts for 44 percentof global GDP1 and its shift towards digital is poweringthe region towards a new era of economic growth andredefining the region’s social landscape.

Echoing this, Paul Marriott, Senior Vice President ofDigital Core Solutions, SAP and ConnecTechAsiaSummit speaker said, “Asia is an exciting region with itsrapid digitalisation and growth. Enabling enterprises intheir journey towards digital evolution to be at the frontierof their respective industries is a core focus for us atSAP. ConnecTechAsia has been a great platform for usto build key relationships with governments and globalbusinesses to foster greater collaboration andinnovation.”

Using ConnecTechAsia as a gateway to the region,the exhibition saw several Asian launches. PepperStackGlobal, with the support of the Victorian Government ofAustralia, launched their new NeatStreets Around Meand Micro-compensation feature-sets into the SoutheastAsian markets, which allow the public to serve as “humansensors” and report on safety-related matters using theirmobile devices, enhancing the uptime and efficiency ofpublic utilities.

Forsway, a Swedish technology provider, announcedthe launch of the new Odin F-50 hybrid satellite router tothe Asian market, which combines mobile networks withsatellites to enable operators to provide highly affordablebroadband internet to consumers in regions lackingreliable internet access.

AsiaSat, a leading satellite operator in Asia, alsoannounced its collaboration with KBZ to provide OTTsatellite video service in Myanmar, enabling audiencesacross the country to enjoy video content and TVprogrammes wherever they are, be it in rural areas orwhile on-the-go on trains or planes.

The inaugural Thailand Connect seminar, co-organised with Thailand’s Digital Economy PromotionAgency (depa), saw the announcement of five corethemes that are a focal point for the Thai governmentnamely big data, digital manpower, cybersecurity,income inequality gap, and digital transformation 4.0,which will enable businesses for digital transformationin its next stage of economic growth.

“There is a pressing need for businesses and theworkforce to transform themselves digitally, in order tokeep our competitive edge here in a fast evolving region.Thailand presents huge opportunities for investors withour rapidly expanding economy and skilled workforce,”said Mr. Teeranun Srihong, Chairman of the Board ofCommissioners, Digital Economy Promotion Agency(depa). “Over the next five years we are embarking onnew initiatives such as the development of 500,000skilled digital professionals and the Digital Park Thailand,a new economic zone to drive digital business innovationand investment with global digital players.”

The need to cater to a growing, digital audience arealso pushing the boundaries of “live” production forbroadcasters. Charles Sevior, Chief Technology Officer,Unstructured Data Solutions, Dell EMC, exhibitor andSummit speaker, highlighted the need for traditionalbroadcasters to evolve in a transforming medialandscape and be agile, shifting beyond traditional singleuse solutions towards virtualised, flexible IP-basedsolutions.

LiveU showcased its LiveU Matrix for the first timein Asia, its next generation platform for live contributionover IP, enabling broadcasters to view, manage anddistribute live content quickly and efficiently.

London-based Kino-mo showcased its newHYPERVSN solution, a hi-tech retail display thatgenerates holographic 3D visuals of products that aretrue to life and appear to float in the air. Kino-mo alsosigned four agreements that were witnessed by traderepresentatives from the British Embassy, including onewith Profoto Digital Services to provide HYPERVSNsolutions for events in Singapore.

“In an era where mobile devices are drawingattention from outdoor advertising, brands need toinnovate further to engage the digital consumer in animpactful way. We look forward to working with ourpartners to maximise their brand exposure in Asia,whose fast growing economies are driving growingdemand for consumer goods,” said Vadzim Tsitou, Kino-mo Partner in Asia.

Showcasing Singapore’s innovation – from smartcities to smart apparelST Engineering and SP Group announced Singapore’sfirst pay-per-use IoT as-a-service platform trial, whichwill enable organisations to move into the IoT space andbring their services faster and closer to their customerswithout costly investment on infrastructure, connectivityand data analytics.

Potential applications include building smart, greenbuildings to public safety systems, transport, and publicamenities such as street lighting, energy and waterresource management.

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Returning for the third year, OTSAW Digital unveiledthe production version of its outdoor OR-3 autonomousrobot, which leverages on AI, 3D mapping and self-drivingtechnologies to patrol the streets and augment securitypatrols. OR-3 is set to undergo trials with governmentagencies in the coming months in Singapore.

KaHa, an end-to-end smart wearable technologycompany, unveiled its range of smart body and wellness-monitoring apparel that leverages on smart sensors andIoT to monitor one’s heart rate, VO2 Max and ECG via asmart phone application, offering possibilities forapplications such as athlete training and sectors suchas construction and the military.

“IoT is revolutionising our world and today it is at thefavourable intersection of affordability and availability, thusdriving innovation. KaHa’s smart apparel range is the firstto seamlessly integrate such sensors invisibly within acomfortable, washable fabric and allow people to realisetheir fitness and health goals through real-time monitoringof their vital stats,” said Pawan Gandhi, Founder & CEOof KaHa and Summit speaker. ConnecTechAsia will returnfor its 2019 edition from 18-20 June at Marina Bay Sandsand Suntec Singapore.

mu Space makes history for Asia with successfulBlue Origin flightAerospace company Blue Origin has successfullylaunched the New Shepard space vehicle, with its firstAsian payload on-board. The six-kilogram payload, sentby satellite and space company mu Space Corp, containsexperiments from several universities and space agenciesin Thailand.

“We’re happy to launch our first payload on NewShepard,” said CEO and founder James Yenbamroong,adding that “it marks the first flight of a payload from Asiaon a reusable space flight.”

In an earlier announcement by mu Space, thecompany revealed they included in its payload a bleedingprevention device, a carbon nanotube and a vacuum-sealed food product. These experiments and items camefrom their project partners Queen Sirikit National Instituteof Child Health, Chulalongkorn University, Geo-Informatics and Space Technology Development Agency(GISTDA), King Mongkut’s Institute of TechnologyLadkrabang, and National Astronomical ResearchInstitute of Thailand (NARIT).

mu Space, for their part, had sent textile materialsthat they plan to use on the space suit and apparels theywill soon develop. The company also sent a jersey of thenational football team to symbolize the affinity of Thaiswith World Cup and the successful rescue of the 13-member football team trapped in a cave in Thailand.

James congratulated the entire mu Space team andproject partners in Thailand who collectively gatheredexperiments and items for the microgravity flight, saying:“We’re going beyond gravity. We have this big ambitionto achieve the space dreams of the Thai people.”

The payload flew on-board Blue Origin’s New Shepardspace vehicle. The New Shepard vertical take-off andvertical landing vehicle is capable of carrying hundredsof pounds of payloads per flight and will ultimately carrysix astronauts to altitudes beyond 100 kilometres, the

internationally-recognized boundary of space.“Congratulations to mu Space on becoming the first

payload from Asia to fly on New Shepard. We arehonored by the trust you place in Blue Origin to carryyour visions to space,” said Blue Origin Vice President,Clay Mowry.

Intelsat joins the Seamless Air AllianceIntelsat has joined the Seamless Air Alliance, aconsortium dedicated to the development and promotionof standards to facilitate a better, more seamless, inflightconnectivity experience for passengers.

The standards would eliminate the immense costsand hurdles commonly associated with acquisition,installation, and operation of data access infrastructureby streamlining system integration and certification,providing open specifications for interoperability. Moreimportantly, it would empower mobile operators to extendtheir services into airline cabins and airline passengersto board any flight on any airline anywhere in the worldand use their own devices to automatically connect tothe Internet, with no complicated login process and nopaywall to scramble over.

“When boarding a plane for business or leisure,passengers want fast and easy access to high-quality,reliable broadband connectivity,” said Mark Rasmussen,Vice President and General Manager, Mobility. “That iswhy Intelsat continues to build a strong ecosystem ofpartners that will leverage 3GPP standards to create aseamless, global broadband infrastructure that offersairlines and passengers a consistent, uninterruptedexperience. By joining the Seamless Air Alliance, Intelsatcontinues to take a leading role in shaping a globalnetwork that leverages different technologies andconstellations. As the exclusive channel partner forOneWeb’s mobility applications, Intelsat looks forwardto collaborating with OneWeb, existing partners such asGogo and other network operators, to develop thestandards needed to provide a seamless operational andpassenger experience in the skies.”

With satellite serving as the primary means toconnecting aircraft, Intelsat will contribute in theintegration of geostationary and low-Earth orbit satellitesolutions into the hybrid network and help definestandards, test equipment and develop service packagesfocused on the aeronautical market.

“We are very pleased to have Intelsat join andcontribute its breadth of experience to creating a betterpassenger experience for airline customers everywhere,"said Jack Mandala, Chief Executive Officer of theSeamless Air Alliance. "Over the next 90 days our WorkingGroups will develop and draft deliverables that will shapethe future of in-flight connectivity, and having Intelsatparticipate in that process is incredibly valuable."

To submit news or articles for consideration by theSatellite Evolution Group, please contact Dr AmySaunders:

amy.saunders@dsairpublications.com

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....Teleport Services

Integrating the cloud into teleportservicesAs the worlds of teleport operations and cloud services collide, Keith Frost, Media and DataNetworks Director for Satellite & Media at Arqiva, discusses the forces driving increased demandfor cloud capabilities, the requirements for cloud provision and the competitive advantages togain within the satellite sector.

Image courtesy of Arqiva (iStock)

Teleports have always been in the business of creatingand managing capacity – of networks, of transmissionsystems, of analogue and digital processing – for shared useby their customers. At the same time, the global cloud servicesmarket of shared storage, processing and applications isexpected to reach US$555 billion by 2020, growing at anannual rate of 17.6 percent.

As these two worlds collide, cloud services are on theverge of becoming a staple in modern teleport operations –whether for providing owned cloud infrastructure orincorporating third party offerings into existing stacks.

But what’s driving demand for cloud capabilities withinthe teleport sector, what are the provisional requirements,and what are broadcasters set to gain from integrating suchservices into their businesses?

Driving demandWithin today’s teleport industry, there is a clear and pressingdemand to solve a host of existing customer challenges andsimplify an increasingly complex broadcast environment.

Audiences are watching (and demanding) contentanytime, anywhere and on any device. Meanwhile, advancedanalytics are shedding more light than ever before onconsumer interests and viewing habits, revealing a multitude

of preferences that broadcasters must pander to in order togain and retain eyeballs.

Add to this the increasing pressure to monetise content– be it across regions, audiences or platforms – as well asthe new age battle between legacy broadcasters and

Keith Frost, Media andData Networks Directorfor Satellite & Media atArqiva

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Teleport Services....

emerging market disrupters, and the long line of hurdlesfacing the industry becomes starkly apparent.

As they seek solutions to these challenges, broadcastersare calling for increasing agility and flexibility – bothcommercially and operationally – in order to clear their pathto success. Virtualised capabilities, such as public and privatecloud services, offer one solve – presenting cost-effectivesolutions to help broadcasters monetise content and reducethe cost of delivery.

Cloud considerationsWhether hosted privately or provisioned publicly via a thirdparty (i.e. Amazon Web Services), there are a variety oftechnical, financial and operational requirements andconsiderations that broadcasters must take into account

before they can realise the benefits of virtualised services.

Technical talkTechnically speaking, one of the biggest (and arguably mosttopical) considerations is around security. Processing videoin the cloud opens both the platform and the content toincreased vulnerability. Without adequate security measures,third parties could use your distribution chain to interrupt yourcontent, inject their own into your feed, or pirate your content– all of which are costly scenarios given your investment andthe impact any would have on your ability to monetise thatcontent.

Effective service orchestration is another importanttechnical consideration. Establishing an orchestration thatenables you to create (and replicate) workflows quickly and

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accurately will set your service up for repeated success.Additionally, service quality and reliability must be a

priority. The traditional broadcast industry has grown up witha set of incredibly reliable standards. Audiences have (rightly)come to expect zero downtime and a consistently high-qualityviewing experience. As the industry moves traditional services(currently delivered via bespoke hardware) to the cloud, thisbrings a number of challenges associated with operating inan environment alongside a host of non-broadcast services.

Network capacity is no longer solely dedicated to yourworkflow, and the risk of losing sight of information (i.e. picturebits) or having your stream deprioritised increases – in turnaffecting the feed quality and viewer experience. To avoidsuch eventualities and maintain service excellence, standardssuch as Forward Error Correction (FEC) – that ensure missinginformation can be identified and auto-completed – are a mustfor any broadcaster moving its teleport services to the cloud.

Operational impactFrom an operational perspective, the most cr it icalconsiderations pertain to the skills required for success. Inorder to work effectively streams must bring togethertraditional ‘hard’ broadcast engineering skills with the newer‘soft’ IT and application skills required to manage cloudenvironments. This typically necessitates either obtaining newstaff or up-skilling existing employees.

Ensuring you have the right processes in place to managethe integration of cloud services into your existing stack (oras standalone) and handle bandwidth requirements areadditional factors to consider.

Financial flexibilityFinancially, the most important cloud considerations revolvearound changing business models. To date, the traditionalbroadcast model has run on fixed contracts of 3-5 years,typically involving costly reengineering and up-front outlays,and with a distinct lack of flexibility to change workflowsthroughout the course of the deal.

The shift to common compute power in the cloud meansbroadcasters now have the flexibility to amend workflows,manipulate content in different ways, and drive real value viaeffectively monetised content. Without steep initial outlays,broadcasters can afford to buy and change their approachas they go – and new business models are emerging as aresult, offering greater agility and flexibility via short-termcontracts, or even pay-as-you-go (PAYG) options.

That said, it’s important to be aware of the costimplications of the cloud environments on offer. When workingwithin a public cloud domain, for example, you only pay forwhat you use, whereas in a private environment (i.e. using athird-party data centre) the costs are continuous. The thirdoption is developing your own in-house cloud environment(i.e. building and running an on-site data centre) offeringgreater control – but the return on investment (ROI) is onlyjustifiable if you have continually high capacity and demandfor process, storage and compute power.

Competitive advantageRegardless of whether cloud and virtualised services areprovided publicly, privately or in-house, there are significantbenefits to gain for teleport operators who do so successfully:

1. Faster communication – Moving infrastructure to all IPinterconnectivity means you establish a common

communication standard across your entire workflow,making it easier to link processes together. By usingsoftware to create workflows rather than having toreconfigure hardware, you’re able to communicate muchfaster and automate key functions for continual gain.

2. Automated workflows – Delivery automation andorchestration across appliance and cloud platform meansyou don’t need a large team of engineers to build newservices (as is required in the traditional hardware-basedbroadcast domain). Once you’ve created one workflow,you can quickly, easily and automatically amend or createa new via a template approach – the whole chain worksmuch better together.

3. Flex and scale – Moving beyond co-locationinfrastructure to IT services takes away the challengesassociated with the traditional, bespoke broadcast kit (i.e.hardware costs/configuration and rigidity). Instead,transitioning your supply chain to become applications-based using common IT infrastructure allows for a muchmore flexible approach and delivers all the cost benefitsand economies of scale that you’d expect.

4. Adaptability – Re-programmability of workflows ensuresthe continued service flexibility and agility thatbroadcasters are seeking in order to keep up with theever-changing market needs outlined at the beginning ofthis article. In the software domain, it’s much easier to re-programme in code new functionalities, test and applyinto live workflows than ever before.

ConclusionWhile considerations seem numerous, there is notablecompetitive advantage to be gained by those to get it right.Being both a teleport and an ‘Internet-ready’ cloud provideris set to bring the best of both worlds together for the futureof teleport services – blending the targeted benefits of cloud,and one-to-many capabilities of satellite into a unifiedproposition for the market.

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....Q&A Cobham SATCOM

Performance and reliabilityCobham SATCOM was created in 2012 under Cobham plc following the acquisition of Thrane &Thrane, and today provides dependable communications and Internet access anywhere in theworld, with terminals operating on land, at sea, or in the air. Its SAILOR and Sea Tel brandproducts are well-known throughout the industry for their reliance and outstanding performance.Here, Amy Saunders speaks with Stephan Jorgensen, Regional Director APAC at CobhamSATCOM, to find out more about the company’s latest developments.

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Question: Cobham SATCOM hascome a long way in the last few years;what can you tell us about its marketpresence and capabilities today?Stephan Jorgensen: CobhamSATCOM has continually set thebenchmark for terminal performanceand reliability in the maritime satcomsspace that other manufacturers follow.Today, we offer a diverse portfolio ofantenna systems engineeredspecifically for use at sea that providethe connectivity mariners increasinglyrely upon across a variety of satellitenetworks and different frequencies.

Our long background in maritimehas furnished our team of 300 R&Dengineers with an appreciation of whatshipboard terminals have to endure anda deeper understanding of how theindustry and our customers operate. In

recent times, this has led to solutionsthat not only blaze a trail in radiofrequency (RF) performance, but arealso easier to deploy and maintain.

Question: The mobility market isexpected to be one of the biggestgrowth engines in the next few years.What are your expectations for themaritime sector, and how willCobham SATCOM capitalise on thatgrowth?Stephan Jorgensen: The industry isgoing through a period of profoundchange as a sector-wide digitaltransformation takes hold. There istremendous pressure within thecommercial fleet to find new ways ofshaving costs and improving efficiency.Attached to this, there is a strong beliefthat data analysis will form part of the

answer to achieving those targets andremaining nimble in a highly competitivemarketplace.

Demand for access connectivityamong crew continues to grow, but sohas provision. As this year’sFuturenautics’ Crew Connectivity reportpoints out, in absolute terms the numberof seafarers who can now use theInternet at sea has increased by overhalf a million since the last survey, andthose who can access it for free hasincreased by over 200,000. Three ofevery five seafarers now have accessto crew communications servicesalways or most of the time. More thannine out of ten reported that the level ofonboard connectivity had a strong orvery strong influence on who theyworked for.

This trend is evidenced in some of

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Stephan Jorgensen, Regional Director APAC at Cobham SATCOM

our recent contracts. For instance,Singaporean-Chinese shipowner andoperator Winning International Groupdeployed SAILOR 900 VSAT antennasystems across its fleet of 30 bulkcarriers, which transport bauxite andother raw materials from Indonesia toChina. The decision to provide high-speed always-on Ku-band connectivitywas driven by a desire to improve crewwelfare and with a view to exploring newopportunities for optimising vesseloperation. Since bulk operators areoften painted as technology ‘last-adopters,’ this project reallydemonstrates how far the industry hasadvanced.

The situation in the offshore oil andgas sector is more complicated.Projects are driven by the prevailing oilprice. Below a certain threshold, theeconomics of investing in deep-seaexploration do not work. That said,barrel prices have remained steady inrecent months and there appears to beincreased activity in the sector.

The concept of the Digital Oil Fieldcer tainly dr ives interest from thesegment. In times of high oil prices, thefocus was getting oil to market faster.Now, the focus is on getting the focusshifts to getting there cheaper. Thisrequirement incentivizes the energysector to view the entire supply chainfrom a holistic perspective, where costoptimization at every possible stage isessential to maintaining a competitiveedge. There can be no doubt in thecentral role played by connectivity inthat regard.

One part of the maritime industrywhich keeps on giving is the passengerand cruise sector. Whether checking inon social media to pass the time on

short-haul ferry crossings or postingphotos and updating friends during atropical cruise, people want Internetaccess. After a shaky start, the bigcruise lines have cottoned on to this andreally upped the quality of connectivityoffered to passengers. It is a majordifferentiator and especially importantone for attracting a youngerdemographic to holiday on the ocean.

Question: The satellite sector is in amajor state of change right now asnew space and ground technologieschange the entire arena. Which arethe biggest trends you’re observingright now, and how will CobhamSATCOM respond?Stephan Jorgensen: I think futurehistorians will look back at the 2010sand describe it as the decade that sawhigh throughput take-off, literally andfiguratively. We’ve seen anunprecedented level of investment andrenewal of constellations by the majorsatellite operators. Service-providersand resellers have revamped theirofferings and made the – sometimespainful – transition from selling data bythe megabyte to providing a utility styleservice based on agreed uptime andperformance metrics.

This story has been repeated – andis still unfolding – in the maritime sector.Inmarsat has launched Fleet Xpress,the maritime offering in Global Xpress,which it no doubt hopes will repeat thesuccess of FleetBroadband. Elsewhere,Intelsat has reinvented traditionalmaritime Ku-band services with theintroduction of its EpicNG network.Cobham SATCOM worked closely withboth satellite operators in developinghigh performance terminals to extract

the best from both systems.While not in HTS territory, Iridium’s

constellation renewal program is almostcomplete. In the maritime context,Iridium NEXT can act as a standaloneservice for ships with minimal datarequirements, and remains a good fitfor industrial M2M or IoT services. It isalso interesting as a back-up channelto improve resilience on vessels wheredata has become mission-critical.Notably, Iridium approached us to buildantenna terminals for the new servicein an effort to scrub the slate clean infixing the reliability issues that plaguedthe terminals in the past.

There are, of course, proposed newconstellations from SpaceX, OneWeband other big names from aroundSilicon Valley, although these are notaimed directly at the maritimecommunity as most will lack inter-satellite links, leaving them of no useoutside the reach of land infrastructure.It remains to be seen whether any ofthese go beyond the drawing board or,if they do reach orbit, are commerciallysustainable. As any industry veteran willtell you, the history of satellite is litteredwith the remnants of skyward dreamsthat never left the Earth. In most cases,the hurdle was related to user terminaltechnology, which has come a long wayin the past five years. We are activelyengaged with numerous partners onthis topic right now.

Question: In March 2018, CobhamSATCOM launched its Sea Tel 9711Triband maritime antenna system,enabled by ViaSat. What can you tellus about the system and the benefitsit brings to maritime vessels?

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Stephan Jorgensen: Firstly, it is theworld’s first and only 2.4m maritimestabilized antenna capable of deliveringfull 2.4m gain performance across anyC, Ku, or Ka-band network to maximizehigh-speed, high-quality broadbandconnectivity for high-demandcustomers. RF technology from ourcollaboration partner Viasat enables thesystem to potentially operate on any Ka-band satellite network in any orbit. Ofcourse, there is a lot of certification workto be done with each network operatoras well as the issue that some requireproprietary RF components, but thissolution does offer the ability to stopthinking about Ku vs. Ka and just simplysay Kx. Going forward with so many newsatellites, that becomes a strategiccapability for any business.

The cruise industry leads the wayin harnessing IP connectivity forbusiness gains. They’ve shown thatmaritime Internet doesn’t have to differfrom land-based services. Some shipstoday are achieving speeds well over1Gbps for operational, crew and guestuse. Others have increased theiraverage bandwidth by as much as 2,000percent.

Connectivity on cruise ships has

moved beyond enabling passengers toemail, post photos and make phonecalls. These operators are investingheavily in digitalisation, IoT andanalytics to glean new insights oncustomer behaviour and preferences inorder to deliver a personalisedexperience. This is a common trendacross the hospitality industry, but theSea Tel 9711 Triband system enables itto happen in the middle of the oceantoo.

Question: What other recentinnovations has Cobham SATCOMlaunched in the past year and howhas the market responded to these?Stephan Jorgensen: We launched theSAILOR 600 VSAT Ku to meet thegrowing demand for high-speedmaritime broadband on a wider rangeof vessel types and size, as the sectorshifts into the digital age. As one of thelightest, most compact Ku-bandantennas ever developed, it wasdesigned to open up a level of Ku-bandconnectivity typically associated with1m class antennas to smaller vesselsand thus a larger proportion of the worldfleet.

It is compatible with and can easily

roam between traditional wide beamsatell ites and HTS constellationsutilising spot beams, such as Intelsat’sEpicNG. Constructed from lightweightcarbon fibre composites and aluminium,the SAILOR 600 VSAT Ku can beinstalled without the need for a crane inport. It can be configured for dualantenna installations out-of-the-box andfeatures a range of advanceddiagnostics and automatic eventreporting to help plan maintenance andensure service reliability.

As hinted above, we unveiled ourfirst terminal, the SAILOR 4300, tofunction with Ir idium NEXT. Wedesigned it to get the most fromIr idium’s second generationconstellation, which is now nearingcompletion. The Cer tus servicesprovided over the LEO satellites willguarantee high bandwidth connectivityas a primary channel or as back-upchannel as par t of multi-bandcommunication networks.

On the subject of L-band, we havealso delivered our 50,000th SAILORFleetBroadband terminal. Launched inparallel with Inmarsat’s then game-changing L-band maritime satcomservice in 2007, SAILOR Fleet

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Q&A Cobham SATCOM....

Broadband has played a major role inenabling safety and efficiencyimprovements on board merchant shipand fishing vessels, and we expectfurther acceleration in the latter giventhe increased demands for traceabilityand documentation required in thefisheries industry.

Question: In terms of product testing,Cobham SATCOM has some uniquefacilities. What are these and whatbenefits do they ensure forshipowners/operators?Stephan Jorgensen: We take a veryempirical, hands-on approach toproduct development, backed up byrigorous testing in the field. Indeveloping the SAILOR 900 VSAT, forexample, we fitted sensors on vesselsoperating in the rough North Sea andother areas and gathered data on theconditions our antennas have totolerate. The resulting data on vesselmotion was crucial for developing a highperformance, robust antenna systemcapable of withstanding whatever thenatural elements could throw at it.People underestimate the stress placedon electronic and mechanical systemsat sea, which are expected to run at 100percent peak performance, day in dayout.

The data was eventually fed intoCobham’s Advanced DynamicsSimulator (ADS) testing anddevelopment facil ity in Lyngby,Denmark. Similar to a flight simulator forpilots, the ADS is a computer-controlledplatform that can be moved in any axesthanks to six electro-hydraulic pistons.It gives us the ability to run tests forextended periods, which wouldn’t bepossible on a ship. It is not unusual tosubject a new antenna design to severalthousand hours of physical testing. Inaddition to the motion tests, antennasare assessed for their resilience tovibration, extreme temperatures, saltcorrosion, and dampness.

It might seem excessive, but thisattention to detail is what allows us todeliver the high levels of reliability thatend-users have not only come to expect,but increasingly depend on. It alsoboosts performance, which is a functionof pointing accuracy. The time we spendtesting our products in the lab and inmanufacturing quality control reducesthe time spent on antenna installation.Moreover, it means our end-usersspend less time troubleshooting orfinding workarounds to unnecessaryfailures.

Question: What are your expect-ations for the next 12 months, andhow will Cobham SATCOM strive toadvance?Stephan Jorgensen: Shippingoperators don’t install CobhamSATCOM solutions on board their shipsout of excitement for the hardware or afascination with satellite constellations.It’s there to perform a function –typically, to send operational data to andfrom shore – and the quieter it gets onwith that job, the better. However,installations have historically demandedconsiderable attention to ensure theywork as they should. So, our R&Deffor ts in recent years have beenchannelled into simplifying theinstallation process, reducing themaintenance burden and, generally,ensuring ease of use.

This has paid off in a number ofinnovations and improvements in the

design, quality and performance of ourterminals. Going forward, we willcontinue in this direction by closelystudying feedback from end-users andapplying this insight to drive furtherstreamlining and enhancements, whilstworking closely with satellite operatorsto ensure we continue to deliver onreliability and performance. Vesseloperators and even satellite networkoperators looking to expand marketshare in the maritime space must beable to shift their focus and resourceallocation from hardware managementto application development and valuecreation.

We intend to enable that shift bysimply eliminating the complexity ofhardware installation and management.The goal is to transform the maritimesatcoms experience into the invisible,hands-free utility we all take for grantedeach day.

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....Q&A Comtech EF Data

Targeting high end applicationsComtech EF Data Corporation, a subsidiary company of Comtech TelecommunicationsCorporation, is a world-leading supplier of satellite bandwidth efficiency and link optimisation. Itssatellite communications infrastructure includes the Heights Networking Platform, AdvancedVSAT solutions, modems, RAN and WAN optimisation, network and bandwidth management, andRF products. Amy Saunders met with Louis Dubin, Senior Vice President, Product Managementand Marketing for Comtech EF Data, to discuss the ins and outs of the satcom sector.

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Question: Can you provide a briefoverview of Comtech EF Data’sposition in the satellite communi-cations market?Louis Dubin: Comtech EF Data isspecifically focused on ground-basedtechnologies and solutions for thewireless community. We also deliverservices to support that equipment.While we do talk quite a bit about ourservices, they are not competitive withour customers who provide services tothe end user; our services keep ourequipment up and running, helpcustomers configure our products, andlet them reconfigure equipment if theyadd new sites, services or customers.We’re not going to provide Internetconnectivity to the end user!

All the products we bring to the tableenhance the user experience for

wireless over satellite or wireless overmicrowave. We work with both providersand satell ite operators, althoughsometimes they are one and the same.

Question: In January 2018 it wasannounced that Comtech EF Datawas awarded a massive equipmentorder from Telesat to support itsconnectivity solutions in Canada’sFar North. What can you tell us aboutthe order, and how will it improveservices delivered over the Telstar 19VANTAGE satellite?Louis Dubin: Telesat, a leading globalsatellite operator, will utilize our CDM-760 Advanced High-Speed Trunkingand Broadcast Modem and the FXSeries WAN Optimization by oursubsidiary, Memotec, to support itsmulti-Gigabit enhanced connectivity

solutions for remote communities inCanada’s Far North. The CDM-760Advanced High-Speed Trunking andBroadcast Modem was designed to bethe most efficient, highest throughput,point-to-point trunking and broadcastmodem available. It offers users themost advanced combination of spacesegment saving capabilities whileminimizing overhead. Building onMemotec’s long experience of voice anddata optimization in mobile networks,the FX Series delivers superior IPpacket optimization and traffic shapingcapabilities.

Telesat will combine theperformance of powerful Ka-band, highthroughput satellite (HTS) spot beamsaboard its new Telstar 19 VANTAGEsatellite, scheduled to launch mid-2018,with our CDM-760 Advanced High-

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Louis Dubin, Senior Vice President,Product Management and Marketing forComtech EF Data

Speed Trunking and Broadcast Modemand FX Series. Through thiscombination of the latest space andground technologies, Telesat will delivercarrier services for government, mobileand Internet trunking with unrivalledspeeds and efficiencies to communitiesin the Nunavut territory of NorthernCanada. These remote communities willbenefit from satellite-based connectivitywith an initial service launch of over 14Gbps. One satellite link will approach 4Gbps aggregate speed using CDM-760Advanced High-Speed Trunking andBroadcast Modems.

Regarding the deal with Telesat,we’ve launched three new products thatwill really benefit Canada’s Far North.

We’ve released a brand new high-speed version of our CDM-760 modem.This new release essentially doublesthe throughput with 720Mb each way –that’s 1.4Gb of capacity on a singlemodem. That’s especially useful in theNorthern territories of Canada, wherethere are pockets of 1,000-2,000 peopleliving in villages on maybe 2-10Mbpsof data for the entire community. Now,these peoples’ lives are changing in avery positive way. They’ll have higherspeeds than some people in well-populated cities!

In some Canadian territories thereis a requirement for even morethroughput than what a single 1.4Gbpsmodem can provide, so Comtechdeveloped an automatic load balancer,our HX product. The solution allows usto set-up multiple circuits on differenttransponders that can be stitchedtogether and act like a very large supercircuit. To the user, it looks like they’regetting a 5Gb link, even though it’sactually many smaller links aggregatedtogether. The HX product enables acompany like Telesat to aggregatemultiple transponders or what may havebeen considered useless fragments ofnearly full transponders to get the totalcapacity that is required to meet thecustomer’s demand.

Another product we are deliveringfor this service is the FX WANoptimisation device, which ensures thatif there is congestion, the importantcontent can be sent over the satellite,and the less important data can bedropped. Someone browsing the web,for example, could be bumped by aschool that’s trying to present an onlineclassroom. The difference betweenother WAN optimization products andours is that our FX communicates withthe modem in a dynamic and intelligentway. If the modem is changing capacitybecause of bad weather, the WANoptimization device can minimize lowvalue traffic traversing the link toperfectly match the capacity of themodem. When conditions improve, theFX WAN optimizer will open up andpush higher levels of traffic accordingto the customer’s desired rules foradditional capacity.

The modem, the FX and the HX areall in sync to provide the users with thebest overall experience.

Question: We understand you’ve gotsome other fantastic new productsavailable too?Louis Dubin: We’ve launched quite afew new products recently in additionto those I’ve already mentioned,including two new Heights RemoteGateway products that are targeting

specific customers in the VSATcommunity.

We now offer outdoor versions ofour Heights Remote Gateways, whichgive clients the ability to install andcommission VSAT terminals without theneed for outdoor shelters, airconditioning, etc. – they can simplymount the outdoor rated units whereverthey want, eliminating a significantamount of power consumption, as wellas cost reduction and simplification ofinstallation. Many of our customers tellus that the number one cost for VSATsystems isn’t the satellite capacity, it’sthe fuel needed to run the groundstation generators. If we can make anoutdoor unit that doesn’t require ashelter, air conditioning, etc. then wecan enable more sites and more userson our platform.

The second product I want to talkabout is the H-Plus Heights RemoteGateway, which is a new lower cost-point VSAT system; it has lowerthroughput figures than our H-Pro does,so the H-Plus is a mid-tier product. Ofparticular note is that clients can utilisethe H-Plus in a point-to-pointenvironment. Historically, clients had todecide if they wanted to start with asimple SCPC network and then replacethe equipment if they wanted to growinto a networked platform. With the H-Plus, we’re giving users the ability to buya single product that will act like anSCPC modem until they grow largeenough to transition to our Heightsnetworking platform. They canmaximize their CapEx spend by usingthe same hardware and simplyswitching software to make thetransition rather than replacing product!Another benefit of the H-Plus is theability to offer or add a plug-in singleboard computer (SBC). This allows fora significant amount of user expansionin processing power. As an example, ifthe customer needed to add processingintensive software that would optimizeLTE traffic, they can simply install therequired software on the SBC. Theoptional SBC will allow organic softwaresolutions and 3rd par ty software

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solutions to be easily implemented ontothe H-Plus platform.

Question: The Comtech EF DataHeights Networking Platform iscertainly proving popular, withIntelsat and SES Networks bothjumping on board. Can you tell us abit more about the benefits deliveredby the platform and how theycompare with alternative products?Louis Dubin: There are a lot ofplatforms out there. The reason whypeople are using our platform is thatwe’re targeting the mid to high-endclients and applications. We’re nottargeting the 20,000 site ATM networksor gas station networks.

To target the clients we serve, suchas the high capacity maritime, mobilityand large-scale enterprise, we arepushing 10, 20, 200+ Mbps from a VSATterminal. Processing power andefficiency become very important. Theway we handle packets, packet load,optimization, hitless switching etc. isimportant. We have a significant numberof high-end features our customersdemand that probably are not neededfor a SCADA or ATM network. AtComtech EF Data, we’re targeting high-end users who are pushing the limits ofwhat a VSAT can do; that’s where wewant to play.

Question: In recent years we’ve seena huge level of technologicaladvancement, with high throughputsatellites (HTS) making a majorimpact across the sector. What’s yourassessment of today’s satellitemarket, and Comtech EF Data’sfuture within it?Louis Dubin: HTS is an opportunity, acomplex environment, and, in somecases, exhibits signs of cannibalism.That’s how I’d define it!

HTS manufacturers and serviceproviders are bringing more capacityonline than ever before; we’re going tobe able to compete with fibre,microwave, terrestrial infrastructure,

that’s the opportunity.However, HTS can be an

extraordinarily complex environmentand this requires collaboration. In initialHTS launches, we saw litt lecoordination with the ground segment,and when the satellites went up, wefound ourselves and the HTS providersscrambling to piece together complexhardware solutions; the rules for thenetwork topology had greatly changedand I don’t think the impact on theground was fully appreciated. Theground segment companies and HTSproviders recognize the need for bettercoordination today. HTS providers areapproaching us with long-term satelliteroadmaps and topologies. We areworking closer than ever before and thisis really a requirement. Long gone arethe days of build it and the groundsegment will follow.

Advanced planning and discovery isthe new norm. HTS comes in all shapesand sizes - it’s very complex, and thiscomplexity is bringing us together inways not needed before.

What do I mean by cannibalism?There’s so much capacity, combinedwith video services moving into OTTover land lines or 4G/LTE. FSS fill rates

and video renewals are showing signsof slowing and there are strugglesbackfilling that capacity; things could gettough. It’s not just one operator eatinganother’s market share, in some casesthey’re eroding their own services.

HTS brings huge opportunities, butthere are also some concerns.

Question: It’s been a pretty good yearso far for Comtech EF Data – Howare things looking for the rest of theyear?Louis Dubin: Comtech has seensignificant opportunity and growth in ournetworking platform portfolios in themobility sector, as well as in our mobilenetwork operators sector. Our high-speed trunking solutions are changingthe way operators and end users thinkabout what is possible over satellite. Weare successfully landing new businessand more importantly, we are retainingthe business as seen by strong follow-on orders.

Fur thermore, our GovernmentSolutions have seen strong demand,which has been followed by strategicallyimpor tant orders for military anddefence solutions. We are in a goodplace with much to come.

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....Q&A mu Space Corp

Targeting Southeast Asia andbeyondmu Space Corp was established in August 2017 to deliver reliable satellite-based broadband,mobile and broadcasting solutions for telcos and businesses in Thailand. The company plans toexpand its reach throughout the Asia-Pacific in the coming years with the launch of a low latency,high throughput satellite (HTS) in GEO. Amy Saunders spoke with James Yenbamroong, CEOand founder at mu Space Corp to find out more about this ambitious fledgling company.

mu Space founder James Yenbaroong (center) with Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos (2nd from left)

Question: Can you provide a briefoverview of mu Space Corp’scapabilities and market presence?James Yenbamroong: mu Space Corpwas formed in June 2017. We plan tooffer three different services to people- satellite communications, digital park,and space tourism.

The company currently deliversreliable satellite-based broadband fortelcos and businesses in Thailand. Wealso support the Thai government in itsnationwide digital transformation effortsby bringing connectivity to rural areasand making Smar t cities moresustainable.

In the coming years, we plan toexpand our business across Asia-Pacific and Africa. In 2020, the company

will launch into space a high throughputand low latency geostationary orbit(GEO) satellite aboard Blue Origin’sspace vehicle New Glenn. Moreover, weplan to lead the provision of commercialspace travel in Asia-Pacific.

Question: Let’s talk a little moreabout your plans for this GEOsatellites. Can you tell us how youdecided to fly with Blue Origin?James Yenbamroong: In June 2018,we officially released the Request forProposal (RFP) to satell itemanufacturers, so we can’t reveal yetthe name of the successful bidder.We’re building a low latency, highthroughput satellite on a geostationaryorbit (GEO) location at 50.5-degree

East orbital slot. It is expected to providesatellite communication services acrossAsia-Pacific and will have a lifespan ofat least 15 years.

We chose Blue Origin because webelieve in their vision. Also, the spacetechnology they’re developing is topnotch, and will help improve the qualityof life of people. We also like BlueOrigin’s concept of a reusable rocket. Itis a major breakthrough in spacetechnology. We expect that with thissystem, launching a satellite would becheaper in the future.

Question: The NewSpace sector isbooming right now; investment isheavy, and the possibilities arealmost endless. What’s your

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James Yenbamroong, CEO and founder at mu Space Corp

assessment of the NewSpacerevolution?James Yenbamroong: NewSpace isgoing to be a big industry. It waspredicted that the global space industrywill be worth US$2.7 trillion in the next30 years. From our perspective, we willtap into this opportunity by launching

our own satellite. Aside from that, spacetourism is another business we’replanning to provide within the 2020s.

Currently, Blue Origin, Space X andVirgin Galactic are leading spacetourism. However, none of them isbased in Asia. That’s why we decidedto go with this business; I want mu

Space to be the first in Asia. And havingour head office in Thailand is just perfectfor this business because the countryis a famous tourism destinationworldwide.

Question: Earlier this year, it wasannounced that in cooperation withSES Networks and Hughes, muSpace Corp would provide broadband access to rural Thailand. Whatcan you tell us about the agreement,and how will it help bridge the digitaldivide?James Yenbamroong: In Thailand, thelocal government has a project toconnect remote villages to broadband.The project is worth US$449 million andwill connect nearly 4,000 remotevillages to broadband. Many of thesevillages are so remote that they’re justbeyond the reach of digitalinfrastructures. So, a communicationsatellite is an ideal solution to providethese villages and the people withbroadband, which is essential to ruraland social development.

Our communication satellite will belaunched in 2020. Since the satellite

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....Q&A mu Space Corp

launch is happening two years fromnow, we’re temporarily leasingbandwidth capacity using SES’ satelliteto deliver broadband. With Hughes, weinstall their user terminals at the locationof end users.

Question: You’ve also announced apartnership with True Digital Park forthe operation of a satellite and space

technology lab. What can you tell usabout the lab, and what do you hopeto achieve with it?James Yenbamroong: True Digital Parkwill start operations in 2018. We will setup a laboratory there to develop and testproducts that we will use in our futurespace projects.

It will also serve as a venue toshowcase our work to the public to help

them understand satellite and spacetechnology, and its relevance to dailylife.

Space technology, for many people,is a hard-to-understand topic. We wantto change that; we want to changepeople’s perception and show space isa fun topic. To promote better publicunderstanding about space, we’llshowcase our work and the productswe’ll develop to the public on our lab atTrue Digital Park. These products couldinclude space suits and other advancedgadgets.

Question: What’s on the horizon formu Space Corp for the rest of 2018and beyond?James Yenbamroong: This year, we’relooking at expanding to five otherSoutheast Asian countries, namelyCambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmarand Vietnam. We’re also planning to setup an office in the US. Theseexpansions could increase our headcount to 50 by year-end.

We target to join the space race withthe launch of our own satellite in 2020.Aside from that, we will focus not onlywith satellite communications, but alsoextending our business to other space-related activities, like space tourism,within the next decade.

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....Data...Data...Data...

Small Data – The next Big DataData data data. We just can’t seem to get enough. We live in a world where there are literallybillions of sensors spread across the globe and throughout LEO, MEO and GEO, watching andmonitoring as far as possible. Ominous as it sounds, some of that data is used everyday toimprove lives; to better understand atmospheric conditions, predict weather, analyse trafficpatterns, or forecast healthcare concerns. In today’s increasingly-digital world, data is impossibleto ignore.

Photo courtesy of Pexels

Data is a funny thing. We use it every day, whether weknow it or not. We might observe that, for example, walkingdown a particular high street, the number of visible homelesspeople has risen enormously over the last five years; we mightobserve that the local bakery has always run out of ourpreferred loaf of bread before noon on a weekday; or wemight deduce that road traffic is always quieter on a particularroute on Fridays. All these examples of data can deliver us tocertain actionable or non-actionable conclusions.

In today’s digital era, data is constantly being measured,collected, reported and (hopefully) analysed. That dataincludes everything from scientific research, crime rates,unemployment rates, banking transactions, climate change,water levels, social media interactions, online shoppingpurchases, phone calls, text messages; some have even goneso far as to speculate whether something actually exists if itcannot be measured.

With data and the right analysis, businesses can makehuge profits from streamlining their products and marketing,governments can (in theory) increase efficiency and takesteps to increase their effectiveness, and healthcare providerscan anticipate changes in demand ahead of time.

Data has become big business in and of itself; sales ofdata analytics tools are expected to hit US$187 billion in 2019.Facebook recently found itself in hot water over data privacyconcerns, while the General Data Protection Regulation(GDPR) came into full effect on 25 May, much to the dismayof marketing outlets and email inboxes everywhere.

Big Data – Is bigger better?We’ve been hearing about Big Data for many years now. Itseemed to enter the collective consciousness around the startof this decade. While most of us in technical fields will befamiliar with the term, to many, it carries no more meaningthan other business jargon like Blue Sky Thinking.

According to a 2016 definition: ‘Big Data represents theinformation assets characterized by such a high volume,velocity and variety to require specific technology andanalytical methods for its transformation into value.’Essentially, Big Data is data too big for most commonly-usedsoftware tools to capture, manage and process within areasonable time period. So, just how big is Big Data? Thatseems to be a moving goalpost, having grown from a fewdozen terabytes in 2012 to many exabytes today.

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Where does Big Data come from? This colossal amountof both structured and unstructured data stems from businesstransactions, machine-to-machine (M2M) and Internet ofThings (IoT) interactions, social media functions, satelliteEarth observations, etc. The analysis and actionableapplications of this Big Data are as diverse as predictivemanufacturing in the automotive industry, deliveringpersonalised medicine and prescriptive analytics,streamlining the collection and distribution of InformationTechnology (IT), or increasing productivity and innovation incommercial organisations and governmental entities.

Big Data is, to many, imperative to making businessdecisions. However, Big Data is not universally well-utilisedor even supported or trusted. Big isn’t always better, after all,and we’re now often hearing that Big Data has become toobig; there’s too much of it, and it’s simply not possibly tousefully process all the data we’re now collecting. Instead,that data which was mean to help, is actually hindering.Indeed, it takes more than just the right tool to analyse thequantities of data we’re seeing now – many businesses lackthe knowledge base to conduct a meaningful analysis andare becoming bogged down.

The Small Data revolutionWhere Big Data is all about machines finding correlations,Small Data is about humans, and for identifying causation.Small Data is simply data small enough for humancomprehension; in both volume and format, it is accessible,informative and actionable.

Allen Bonde, former Vice President of Innovation atActuate (now part of OpenText), uses the following definition:“Small data connects people with timely, meaningful insights(derived from Big Data and/or local sources), organised andpackaged – often visually – to be accessible, understandable,and actionable for everyday tasks.”

The simplicity of Small Data compared with Big Datameans that businesses can utilise more tangible data setsfaster by pinpointing exactly what they’re looking for, makinganalysis more facile, without the need of state-of-the-artequipment. Small Data helps business and individuals make

sense of the digital world, in a meaningful way. Hong Kong’sCathay Pacific airline, for example, reportedly uses SmallData to anticipate the type of alcohol First Class passengersare likely to order.

In many ways, Small Data is what data used to be. Butit’s also more than that. In 2018, we’re in the very heart of thedigital era; data has changed as much as we have. Examplesof modern consumer-application-based Small Data includetracking energy usage in the home, monitoring sleep cyclesvia an app, analysing eating habits with a Smartphone, etc.In a learning setting, Small Data allows instructors to monitorhow a class of students reacts to certain material, whichparticular topics students are engaged with, or which topicsstudents choose to skip. In a store setting, a proprietor couldanalyse which items sell well and which don’t, which itemssee most store returns, and where problems may lie in thebusiness. Notably, while Small Data can be collected directlythrough sensors or transaction monitoring, it can also beproduced through the correct processing of Big Data, usingcompartmentalisation analytical tools.

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Martin Lindstrom, author of ‘Small Data: The Tiny Cluesthat Uncover Huge Trends,’ believes that Small Data explainsthe ‘why’ behind what Big Data reveals. In a conversationwith Knowledge@Wharton (University of Pennsylvania),Lindstrom states that: “…if you take the top 100 biggestinnovations of our time, perhaps around 60 to 65 percent arereally based on Small Data. It’s everything from Snapchat,which was basically discovered by coincidence, to even thePost-It note.” He makes the point that Big Data is all aboutanalysing the past, “but it has nothing to do with the future.Small Data, which I define as seemingly insignificantobservations you identify in consumers’ homes, is everythingfrom how you place your shoes to how you hang yourpaintings.”

But what does this all have to do with space?A good question. Small Data is set to revolutionize everythingfrom the consumer experience, learning and shopping,through to wild animal migratory patterns and long-term seabed erosion. But, of course, Small Data and Big Data comehand-in-hand – some might believe that they’re in competition,but it could also be argued that they’re entirely complementary.

The space sector is intrinsically linked with both Big Dataand Small Data. Communications satellites enabling globalhigh-speed connectivity are absolutely critical for transmittinga significant amount of Big Data between locations acrossthe globe. Low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite constellations,designed to support IoT and M2M applications, meanwhile,will also support Big Data transfers.

Further, Earth observation satellites are already provinginvaluable in tracking everything from weather patterns,climate change, natural phenomenon such as volcanoes,earthquakes, wildfire, etc. We’ve even reported on satellitesbeing utilised to track certain types of endangered sealsacross oceans; with this data, researchers have started topiece together not only the hows and whats, but also thewhys – Small Data in a nutshell.

It’s clear that data and the connectivity supporting thatdata is one of the biggest global growth engines for theaerospace sector. Indeed, according to NSR’s ‘Big Data ViaSatellite’ report, satellite Big Data will play a transformationalrole in adding value to the entire ecosystem of satelliteservices. Satellite, in any orbit, be it GEO, MEO or LEO, playsan undeniably fundamental role in today’s data revolution.

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....In-Orbit Satellite Servicing

Delving deeper into in-orbit satelliteservicingOrbital ATK, a pioneering NewSpace company in many ways, has made heavy investments todeliver in-orbit satellite servicing capabilities in the next couple of years. Its subsidiary company,SpaceLogistics LLC, is developing the Mission Extension Vehicle (MEV) as we speak, in order todeliver life extension services that are flexible, scalable, capital-efficient and low-risk. AmySaunders visited the state-of-the-art Rendezvous, Proximity Operations and Docking (RPOD)facility at Orbital ATK’s headquarters just outside of Washington D.C to learn more about theprogram.

MRV MEP. Photo courtesy of Orbital ATK

The satellite business is an expensive game to be in; fromdesign, manufacturing, insurance, launch and operations,bringing a satellite to orbit can easily cost hundreds of millionsof dollars. And yet, they only last around 15 years until theonboard fuel is depleted; the satellite can no longer maintainits orbital position, even though the critical components couldoperate for another 10-15 years. Orbital ATK and itsSpaceLogistics subsidiary have found the right solution, atthe right time.

A mission extension vehicleWe’ve all heard that SpaceLogistics plans to providecooperative in-orbit satellite life extension and manoeuvringservices to GEO satellite operators using its MissionExtension Vehicle (MEV).

It will enable satellite operators to significantly extend

satellite mission life, activate new markets, drive asset valueand protect their franchises. According to SpaceLogistics,its life extension services are flexible, scalable, capital-efficient and low-risk.

SpaceLogistics isn’t the only entity investing in satellitelife extension services, but it is unique in its approach. “OurMEV is doing what I call ‘docked life extension.’ It does boththe orbit control, the propulsion, as well as attitude control,and stays docked for the entire duration,” said Joe Anderson,Vice President of Business Development and Operations forSpace Logistics, LLC. “One of our competitors is taking therefuelling approach; they’ll be docked for a short time, they’lldo surgery on the spacecraft to refuel, and then they’ll leave.That’s the difference.”

The two approaches have very different risk profiles. “Ourrisk profile is very low, but we’re there for a long period of

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time, while their’s is very high risk, I would say, but for a shorterduration,” explained Anderson.

SpaceLogistics’ MEV docks with customers’ existingsatellites to provide the propulsion and attitude control neededto extend their lifetimes. Based on a modified GEOStar 3 bus,the MEV will safely dock with about 80 percent of geo-synchronous satellites in orbit today using two key featureson the client spacecraft: “We can service any GEO satellitewhich has a liquid apogee engine and a launch adaptor ring.About 80 percent of all GEO satellites in orbit today havethose features,” confirmed Anderson. Most of the 20 percentof satellites that aren’t compatible with the MEV were placeddirectly into GEO, so while they have launch adaptor rings,they don’t have a liquid apogee engine.

The MEV has three different types of sensors that it usesfor the rendezvous and docking with the client satellite: Visible,infrared, and LIDAR. “The MEV will use these sensors to guideitself as it approaches the client satellite, the MEV willcircumnavigate it a few times as it spirals in closer. The imagesfrom these sensors will also be transmitted to the groundwhere operators will monitor and control the rendezvoussequence.” explained Anderson.

The MEV utilises a simple mechanical docking systemthat attaches to existing features on the client satellite,creating a firm connection between the MEV and the clientsatellite. During the final stage of rendezvous, it approachesthe client satellite in stages, pausing at 80m, 20m and 1maway from the client satellite for further instructions from thecontrol centre. “At the 1m waypoint, when everything is ready,and we’re coordinated with the client, we begin the docking.The client will first send a command to their satellite to disabletheir attitude control, and, moments later, we send the dockingcommand and our capture mechanism enters the liquidapogee engine, fingers deploy inside the nozzle creating asoft capture, and then the mechanism is retracted pulling thetwo vehicles together causing three stanchions on the MEV,which are like large feet, to press up against the launchadaptor ring. The push-pull tension between the stanchionsand the capture mechanism creates the firm connectionbetween the two vehicles. That’s our docking mechanism,”explained Anderson.

How automated is the process? “The operation of the MEVis very similar to the operation of any GEO satellite. Therendezvous and docking operations will last around a week,and the real heavy activity, when we’re nearby and about todo the docking, that takes a matter of hours,” said Anderson.“During that process, there will be a few more people in thecontrol centre to manage it, but the satellite is semi-autonomous; the ground will send commands to go to acertain location, and the satellite will manoeuvre itself to thatlocation using the sensors. Once it’s there, it’ll wait for theground to tell it where to go next, or to move onto the nextstep. The ground always has the ability to intervene, to tell itto move to a safe location or do some other type of activity,but otherwise, it’ll proceed on its own,” he commented.

Once docked, the MEV will take over the attitude and orbitmaintenance of the combined vehicle stack to meet thepointing and station keeping needs of the customer. Whenthe customer no longer requires the service, the MEV willundock and move away to begin service for the next customer.

Capital defermentIn-orbit satellite servicing has been on the cards for manyyears, but it’s only now that it’s becoming a reality. The

potential applications span all GEO satellite operators: “We’rea commercial business, targeting the operators or anyonewho needs our service, including government satellites,” saidAnderson.

SpaceLogistics’ MEVs have a 15-year design life andsufficient fuel to enable well in excess of 15 years of stationkept life while docked with a typical 2000kg geosynchronoussatellite. The rendezvous, proximity and docking systems ofthe MEV allow for numerous dockings and undockings duringthe life of the MEV.

Commenting on his expectations of typical contractdurations, Anderson said: “I think shorter-term contracts aremore likely; our business expects five-year or so life extensioncontracts.” He continued: “The typical concept is that a satelliteis designed for 15 years, and usually it has fuel for 16 years,but a lot of the satellites being de-orbited today are healthy;they’re just out of fuel. Those that have lasted longer withenough fuel have operated satellites for much longer, some20-25 years. The electronics and other components cansurvive and work just fine. Our estimate is that the averageoperator would want to extend the satellite from its 16th yearto its 21st year, but we’re open to doing it as long as the satelliteis healthy.”

The business case is all about capital deferment. “To buya replacement satellite, depending on the size and complexityof the communications payload, that replacement satellitecould cost anywhere from US$150 to US$400 million,” saidAnderson. “Now, the operator can lease a service from us toextend their life for a reasonable cost and shift that hugeUS$150 to US$400 million cost to five years in the future;there’s a lot of value in that. If you consider the interestpayments alone they would make on that cost over five years,that’s quite a big value.”

So far, Intelsat has placed two orders for satellite lifeextension services from Orbital ATK. MEV-1 will be launchedlater in 2018 to service the Intelsat-901 satellite in GEO for

Joe Anderson, Vice President of Business Development andOperations for Space Logistics, LLC.

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five years: “After we launch our vehicle, it’ll take us severalmonths to get out to GEO, and as we’re doing that orbitalraise, Intelsat will raise the orbit of its satellite to rendezvoustogether out at the graveyard orbit,” explained Anderson.“Their communications payload will be off during the process.We’ll then move the satellite into its next orbital position, backdown in GEO.”

After the five-year contract is complete, MEV-1 will movethe Intelsat satellite back to the graveyard orbit and detachbefore moving on to its next client satellite. MEV-2, meanwhile,will perform the same service for another Intelsat satellite,with services kicking off in the first quarter of 2020. Andersonconfirmed that SpaceLogistics is not yet marketing the yearsfollowing the initial five for either MEV-1 or MEV-2.

There’s more to the MEV’s capabilit ies thanstraightforward life extension services as well: “Approximatelyevery year and a half, there’s a launch that doesn’t meet itsobjectives, and a satellite is delivered into a non-optimal orbit,”said Anderson. “Normally, they can get out to GEO usingtheir own fuel, but then they have no fuel left for operations.Our recommendation is that those satellites use their ownfuel to get to GEO, and then they use our life extensionservices to get the full lifetime out of their satellite.” WhileSpaceLogistics could launch and rescue those satellites fromwhere they’re dropped into orbit, that would be an inefficientapproach.

The MEV can do life extension in GEO, but it can alsoretrieve a satellite that’s in an inclined orbit, and bring it backto geostationary orbit. “That requires extra fuel, and that’swhy we have additional fuel beyond the 15 years,” explainedAnderson. “There are actually two propulsion systems onboard the MEV; the primary electric propulsion system runson Xenon for station keeping; there’s also a hydrazinechemical propulsion system, which is used for the rendezvousand docking, when six degrees of freedom is needed to stay

in full control and avoid collisions. Hydrazine pro- pulsionsystems provide a more robust control authority.”

Moving beyond MEVIn March 2018, Orbital ATK announced the next step in its in-orbit satellite servicing plans: A new robotic servicing systemthat provides additional options for customers to enhancethe value of their satellites.

The new system consists of two products, Mission RoboticVehicles (MRVs) and Mission Extension Pods (MEPs), whichwill provide customers with more flexibility to extend the lifeand effect repairs to satellites in-orbit. The MEP is an externalpropulsion module that attaches to and provides up to fiveyears of orbital life extension for aging satellites which arerunning low on fuel but are otherwise healthy. ”It’s anotherway to do the life extension for the client, although the MEPdoes not do attitude control,” added Anderson.

While the primary application of the MRV is to transportand install MEPs or other payloads on customer satellites, itwill also offer space robotic capabilities for in-orbit repairsand similar functions. “We think each MRV will probably have10-12 MEPs, although we’re still working on that. Each MEPwill be almost identical, and they’ll be launched with either aC-band or Ku-band telemetry and command system,” saidAnderson. “Once all the MEPs are deployed, we’re left withan MRV with all the capabilities of an MEV. In the absence offurther clients, I could either park the MRV over the Pacificwhere there are no satellites, or we could let the MRV driftuntil we do get another customer.”

One of the new features of the MRV is the ability it bringsto capture those remaining 20 percent of satellites forservicing that can’t be targeted by the MEV, utilizing therobotic arms. That will give SpaceLogistics a truly all-encompassing in-orbit servicing capability. “The MRV isessentially an MEV with a robotic payload added to the front.

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It can do everything the MEV can do and more,” saidAnderson.

So why has this new MRV/MEP service been launchednow? “Now is always a good time to introduce good productsthat customers will buy,” stated Anderson. “One of the reasonswe called this company ‘SpaceLogistics’ instead of ‘GEO LifeExtension’ is because we intend to do more than just GEOlife extension. We have a technology roadmap for introducingnew capabilities over time, so we’re starting with this ‘keep itsimple approach’ of docked life extension. We really felt thatto do the initial satellite servicing, we needed to demonstratethe fundamentals first. We intend to incrementally addcapabilities beyond that,” he said. “It’s too risky and expensivefor us as an industry to take big leaps in those technologies.Our customers are very risk-averse, they have a lot of revenuerelying on those satell ites. In-orbit experience anddemonstrations are very important to them.”

“Our objective for the MRV is to launch at the end of 2021,”stated Anderson.

A world of opportunitiesThere have been multiple reports about the future of in-orbitsatellite servicing, and SpaceLogistics’ ultimate plan for afleet of vehicles that can service almost any in-orbit need.

“As time goes on, I believe we will end up with a fleet of avariety of servicing vehicles. Our business model is to growa complete fleet of servicing vehicles. Of course, it all dependson how the market develops,” said Anderson. “Right now, we’rebuilding MEV-2, and our next vehicle will be the MRV withthe MEPs, that’ll be our third vehicle in orbit. We also haveopportunities we’re pursuing for additional MEVs.”

In the future, SpaceLogistics has considered the

possibility of creating customized MEVs for specific clients.“We’re looking at developing systems to augment GEOcommunication satellites, so the propulsion module is thefirst step in augmenting satellites in orbit. We are also lookingat ways to design our new satellites to include interfaces thatwould allow easy augmentation: So, instead of trying to dorefuelling surgery on a spacecraft, or remove a componentand put a new component in, such as a momentum wheel, anew communications system, or a new battery, we can simplyreplace any of those functionalities through this one interface.

“Through this one interface, you could replace any faileditem in orbit. That’s our idea for making satellites moreserviceable in the future.” He added: “There are always goingto be some elements that we can’t fix through this interface;a transponder within the communications payload, forexample, that may be more difficult to fix.”

SpaceLogistics is also working on a significant contractwith NASA, namely Commercial Infrastructure for RoboticAssembly and Services (CIRAS), “for in-orbit assembly oflarge space structures.

The contract we have right now is for the grounddemonstration of those technologies, which is going tohappen this year,” said Anderson. “NASA is expected to issuea proposal very shortly for phase 2 of that, which would try totake it to an in-orbit demonstration, nominally in the early2020s.”

Outlining SpaceLogistics’ long-term plan, Andersonconcluded: “Ultimately, our goal is to have another satellitein orbit, a Mission Assembly and Repair Vehicle (MARV), thatcould build these large space structures.”

We look forward to hearing more about MARV in duecourse...

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Resilience and redundancy inmobile satellite communicationsRowan Gilmore, CEO EM Solutions, explores the concept of resilience in the satellitecommunications environment, and how terminals are evolving to meet this and the otherrequirements of mobility, tracking, and high throughput at the same time.

Figure 1. A dual-Ka Cobra terminal operable on both WGS and Inmarsat GX deployed on an Australian Border Force patrol ship

Mobile communications is a mission critical requirementfor all military forces, and satellite communications is anessential part of the mix, whether at sea, in the air, or inremote land areas. Defence forces everywhere are re-examining their traditional satcom operating models as theyare not immune to the demand for high data rates observedin civilian markets, and satellite operators are responding tothis by launching new high throughput satellites (HTS). LowEarth orbit (LEO) satellites and small satellites will definitelybe a part of the future mix, and since they migrate across thesky, cost effective terminals with tracking capability, similarto today’s on-the-move terminals, will be required tocommunicate. Resilience and redundancy are becomingcalled for with almost as much urgency as higher data rates.

Achieving communications resilienceAssured communications are like an onion with numerousprotective layers in its skin. Those layers include maximisinglink availability through good design, use of redundancy,frequency stealth, coding, limiting radio emissions inunwanted directions, and protecting against interferers. These

are par ticular ly diff icult to achieve with satell itecommunications while on the move, but often it is while onthe ‘run’ that communications are most critical.

Consider each layer in turn from the perspective of groundequipment. Firstly, improving link availability by maximisingthe link budget is a good place to start. The link budgetdetermines the allowable fade margin, which can bemaximised by using the highest power transmitters possible,most sensitive receivers, steered antennas to maintainmaximum antenna gain, and best pointing accuracy tominimise pointing loss. Time on satellite is probably thebiggest contributor to the availability equation: Minimising thetime for an on-the-move terminal to acquire or reacquire thesatellite is crucial, as is maintaining the link under violentmotion conditions.

Second, redundancy can be improved in satellitecommunications by the use of multiple transmitters sinceBlock Up Converters (BUCs) are usually the most failure-prone component in the ground segment; and using multiplesatellite systems. Frequency stealth might entail switchingor spreading either the modem output frequency or the RF

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frequency. Changing to a lower frequency band can alsoprotect against weather effects that can cause loss of thesatellite link at the higher Ka-band frequencies.

Third, coding and other security precautions such asencryption at the data layer can protect against theft of data,while fourth, ensuring the radio signal is highly directionalwith minimal RF spill over or sidelobes, and protecting againstinterfering signals through careful electromagnetic design andanalysis, will avoid ‘theft’ of signals or intrusion upon the radiolayer. Such signals can also be unintentional or non-hostilebut still cause link failure – for example, radar systems nearbythe satcom ground equipment often result in total loss ofcommunications capability.

Mitigating by terminal design against the effects ofweather, satellite congestion, frequency jamming, and motionitself all add towards the objective of resilient communications.

Maximising the data rate given the constraints of asatellite systemConsider first the ground terminal design. Shannon’s famousequation gives the maximum capacity C of a generalcommunications channel in bits per second as

C= B log2 (1 +SNR)

where B is the allocated transponder bandwidth in Hz, andSNR is the signal-to-noise (S/N) ratio at the receiver. Of

course, B also determines the receiver noise, so SNR variesinversely proportional to B, thus maximum capacity does notalways increase linearly with bandwidth. However, for thetypical values of SNR achieved at a satellite ground terminalwith a geostationary satellite (1 < SNR < 20), Shannon’sequations tell us that if the signal power drops by half, thebandwidth needs to double to maintain roughly the samecapacity C.

Any reduction in link gain impacts in a similar way. Thesimplest expression for the link equation for a one-waysatellite link (in dBW) is

PR (dBW) = EIRP + GR – Lo

where PR is the received power, GR is the receive endantenna gain, EIRP is the Equivalent Isotropically RadiatedPower (equal to GTPT ) of the transmitter in dBW, and Lothe one-way channel and spreading loss. For a geostationarysatellite, the spreading loss component of Lo is over 200dBat frequencies above X-band. Therefore, PR normally endsup quite close to the receiver noise floor so any increase inLo (for instance, through poor pointing or rain attenuation) orany reduction in terminal GR (or GT i.e. EIRP if transmitting)can cause the received signal power to drop below threshold,and the link will be lost or at best, severely degraded. GR isdetermined by the size of the antenna and, in the case of flatpanel antennas, the angle of incidence as well, losing 3dB at

Figure 2. An X/dual-Ka Cobra terminal (without radome) enjoying an outing outside Cairns in tropical Australia. This terminalprovides the most resilience of all compact mobile satellite terminals on the market.

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45o orientation from normal. As Shannon’s equationhighlights, such a drop of 3dB in PR (the ‘S’ in S/N) eithercauses the bit rate to halve (eventually forcing it to zero) orrequires the bandwidth (and cost) to double to maintain thesame capacity. That is a critical point to remember: If thesystem gain drops by half (for instance, with the flat antenna),or a cloud passes over, or the terminal is backed off by 3dBto prevent interference with an adjacent satellite (e.g. when aplane with the airborne terminal banks), then either the datarate halves or the bandwidth (cost) must double to restorethe system.

The added challenge of mobility or tracking a LEOsatelliteTherefore, both the gain and pointing performance of asatcom antenna system are important in preserving linkavailability. With a mobile terminal that must point to ageostationary satellite, or alternatively a fixed terminal thatmust track a moving satellite such as a LEO, the trackingerror measures the terminal’s ability to keep the antennaboresight pointed directly to the satellite during operation.However, performance requires more than that – it mustinclude the time taken to initially acquire the satellite.

For SOTM applications, these requirements are

challenging due to the complex engineering required to steerthe antenna’s transmit beam directly to the satellite with highavailability during platform motion. Only monopulsetechnology is able to maintain lock on the satellite withoutdeliberately introducing an intentional mis-pointing error offboresight to search for the exact beam maximum, even afterthe satellite has been ‘acquired.’ Monopulse technology is aclosed-loop system that measures the relative signal level ina higher order mode intentionally generated in the antennafeed, typically the TE21 mode. The system uses that mode’ssharp null along boresight to derive a very accurate correctivepointing vector to force the antenna back in line, without theneed to introduce any deliberate pointing loss to determinewhether the antenna is aligned for maximum receiver power,as happens with conical or step scan systems. Since amonopulse system directly measures the TE21 signal whichis proportional to the deviation off-axis, such a technologyalso has the benefit of being able to accurately monitor andreport the instantaneous pointing error to the user. Thisensures the BUC is only muted when the antenna is confirmedas being off-axis, rather than, for instance, if the receivedbeam is measured as temporarily weak, for instance due toa passing cloud.

RedundancyHowever, there is still more that can be done to assure satellitecommunications. Redundancy in hardware, frequency andsatellite selection are three other ways to introduce resilienceinto the link. The choice of satellites and use of multiple bandscan mitigate against weather effects, jammers, interferers,congestion, and even loss of a satellite.

The approach taken at EM Solutions is to engineer asatellite terminal that automatically switches between any ofthree satellite bands on different satellites, even while on-the-move. Although maritime terminals already exist witheither commercial or military Ka-band capability, or with dualX-band and military Ka-band capability, none offer universalon-the-move capability (on land or sea) in a convenient sizepackage, simultaneously operating in both X- and Ka-bands,or with fall back to commercial Ka-band (such as with InmarsatGX) on demand. This requires the use of separate BUCs forX-band and Ka-band, but this is beneficial since the pair thenadds increased hardware redundancy on top of the improvedlink redundancy. Such a combination brings the benefits ofassured communications whenever a satellite is visiblewithout manual changeover of hardware.

Assured communicationsIn developing its assured satellite communications on-the-move terminals, EM Solutions has worked closely with itsdefence customer, represented by the Australian DefenceScience and Technology Group (DSTG) to understand theirrequirements, and cooperate with several collaborationpartners.

In 2017, EM Solutions completed the installation of itsdual Ka-band Cobra terminals onto the Australian BorderForce Cape Class fleet (Figure 1). The company’spartnerships with Inmarsat and Intellian proved productive,enabling it to certify its terminals on the Inmarsat GX networkas a fall back to operation on the WGS system. EM Solutionssubsequently completed installation of its leading-edge tri-band Cobra terminal (Figure 2) —which simultaneouslyoperates in both X and Ka-bands - for the Royal AustralianNavy, and followed this with repeat orders for other naval

Figure 3. A dual Ka-band Taipan terminal can provide resilientmobile satellite communications over almost any terrain, and fallback to commercial Ka-band frequencies on demand.

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vessels. The greatest innovation in that latest Cobra X/Ka-multiband terminal is its antenna feed system. Optimised forits electromagnetics, the system generates antenna pointingvectors from both the X and Ka-band beacons of the WGSsatellite, and communicates in the traditional manner at Ka-band, all the time supporting simultaneous communicationson the satellite’s X-band transponder, whenever required toprotect against rain fade or to provide added capacity. Inaddition, the system can then fall back to tracking andoperating on the alternative Inmarsat GX satellite system inthe case of congestion or for operational reasons. This helpsto provide network survivability with assured communicationsin a contested environment, and rapid and automatic self-healing in the event of rain fade or other link outage byswitching satellites or frequency band.

Meanwhile, the company has continued to roll out its land-mobile terminal, the Taipan (Figure 3), to a major Europeanarmy (in X-band) and its new amphibious Salamander variant(Figure 4) for an army in Asia. By aspiring to the level ofassured communications, EM Solutions continues to cementits position as a company known for products unmatched inreliability and robustness. These two terminals can beconfigured for a range of platforms to suit either a small ormedium vehicle or vessel, with simplified field repair and costoptimisation, and provide universal stabilisation under the

most severe motion conditions, since the terminals can beused either on land or at sea.

Flattening the antennaOver the past three years, the design of flat panel satcomantennas has become one of the most attractive R&D topicsin industry and the research community. Although the conceptof generating a focused-beam through a planar-shapedantenna is not new, it is still extremely challenging to designa feasible flat antenna solution that meets the RF constraints,matches the market needs, and is commercially profitable. Anumber of revolutionary antenna concepts and prototypeshave been showcased by worldwide innovators (such asKymeta, Phasor, and Isotropic), but questions remainunanswered about what compromises have been made tomeet all the essential antenna pattern and RF parametersfor reasonable performance at Ka-band, while maintainingreasonable cost. After all, the physics embodied in Shannon’sequation and the link budget cannot be overcome by magicpress releases.

EM Solutions research collaboration with the Universityof Queensland has continued since 2016, and during thattime the company has patented an innovative approach for anovel reconfigurable flat panel antenna. While that terminalcannot improve the boundaries imposed by the physicsabove, the terminal that is being built around it will meetsatellite communications antenna pattern specifications, trackusing EM Solutions’ accurate monopulse technology, and below cost. EM Solutions hope to report on success with itsfirst demonstration terminal in 2019.

Ultimately, there is no ‘best’ answer for antenna choice.To use a racing analogy, it is ‘horses for courses!’ Parabolicantennas offer the advantages of constant and high gain,and certified compliant antenna patterns over broadbandwidths. Flat panel antennas compromise two or all threeof these advantages in favour of low profile. The optimumchoice depends on the application, link budget, and the valueplaced on size, weight, and power.

ConclusionAchieving resilience and redundancy in mobile satellitecommunications can only partially be achieved through goodterminal design. All links in the network chain can contribute,but ultimately there are trade-offs. For instance, the highsilhouette of parabolically steered terminals is universallydisliked by land forces – that is, until the alternatives thatoffer lower or variable gain, must be muted to avoidinterference, do not track, or do not meet antenna patterns,are tested. EM Solutions has taken a variety of approachesto offer robust terminals that offer redundancy in design,exceptional tracking and mobility in multiple frequency bands,fall back to commercial satellites, and soon, flat profile. All ofthese help to strengthen the resiliency and assuredness ofmilitary communications.

Figure 4. A Ku-band Salamander terminal capable of roll-on,roll-off operation on either land or sea.

“The approach taken at EM Solutions is toengineer a satellite terminal that automaticallyswitches between any of three satellite bandson different satellites, even while on-the-move.Although maritime terminals already exist with

either commercial or military Ka-bandcapability....”

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