Jerry Petersen
Planet Labs has conducted a ground demonstration that validated technologies enabling connectivity between low Earth orbit satellites and in-space communication satellites operated by the government solutions business of Telesat and the space and defense business of SES.
Planet said Friday the demonstration was part of a subcontract it had received in 2022 from Telesat Government Solutions and SES Space & Defense for NASA’s Communications Services Project, which seeks to evaluate the feasibility of using commercial satellite communications to support future NASA missions.
Planet conducted the tests in August in collaboration with SES, validating the latency, link margin, data rates and radio and antenna designs.
The demonstration involved the use of SES’ NSS-9 GEO satellite and a flight-like user terminal located in a facility in California.
Kiruthika Devaraj, Planet’s vice president of avionics and spacecraft, described the demo as “a major step forward in Planet’s plans to continue providing the most timely insights possible to our customers”.
