Christine Thropp
Satellite equipment manufacturer Tesat has demonstrated the interoperability of its Optical Communication Terminals for use on the Tranche 1 Transport Layer satellites Lockheed Martin is developing for the Space Development Agency.
Tesat said Thursday that during a recent ground interoperability testing, the OCTs were able to create and maintain data communication link with a reference modem and then with a third-party optical terminal, demonstrating the equipment’s compliance with SDA’s technical specifications and standards.
The SDA standard v3-compliant OCT was developed for low Earth orbit broadband constellation use. At present, 180 terminals are in production, 46 are in orbit and 12 were handed over to customers.
Lockheed selected the Tesat terminals to be used on the 42 Tranche 1 Transport Layer satellites SDA plans to leverage to enable global communications regional encrypted connectivity.
