Jamie Bennet
General Atomics‘ aeronautical systems business, SES and Hughes Network Systems combined their technologies to conduct a higher data rate transmission of a multi-orbit satellite communications system.
A demonstration event was held on Oct. 20 to show the resilience and capability of unmanned aerial vehicles to maintain high workload and mission-critical connectivity in congested and contested environments, General Atomics said Thursday.
The demo featured SES’ multi-orbit SATCOM service, GA-ASI’s MQ-9B SkyGuardian remotely piloted aircraft, and Hughes’ HM400 software-defined modem and Resource Management System. The HM modem was installed on the MQ-9B UAS to power SES’ medium earth orbit and geostationary SATCOM.
During the demo, the Hughes RMS and HM400 switched and optimized satellite signals within seconds, enabling uninterrupted connectivity roaming between the SES O3b MEO and AMC-15 GEO satellites.
Rick Lober, vice president and general manager of Hughes Defense, noted the technology’s potential benefit to the military’s primary alternative contingency emergency planning.
“Combined with the Hughes Resource Management System, the frequency-agnostic, open architecture HM System helps GA-ASI meet their military customer’s requirements for uninterrupted, high data rate, multi-orbit SATCOM, ensuring secure information accessibility for the right people at the right time,” he remarked
SES is following through with a second-generation MEO system, O3b mPOWER, to be launched before the year ends, General Atomics said.
