Christine Thropp
Planet Labs was tapped by SES Government Solutions and Telesat Government Solutions to support the contractors’ work under a NASA program aimed at enabling real-time space-to-space communications for future agency missions.
Under NASA’s Communication Services Project, Planet said Tuesday it will help SES and Telesat enable connections between low Earth orbit satellites and other communication spacecraft.
Planet will be responsible for the development and demonstration of a low-latency connectivity offering that builds on SES constellations in geostationary and medium Earth orbit. The subcontractor will also provide Telesat with RF terminals aboard two Earth observation spacecraft to help the latter showcase space relay connectivity between the terminals and company-operated satellites.
CSP looks into adopting commercial satellite communication capabilities to support NASA’s future near-Earth missions. It is aimed at advancing satcom services from the industry as the legacy Tracking and Data Relay Satellite system is expected to be decommissioned in the coming years.
“We are really proud to support NASA’s mission to shape and accelerate next generation near earth in-space communication capabilities being developed in partnership with the private sector,” said Robbie Schingler co-founder and chief strategy officer of Planet.
