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A major IFC win for Mission Microwave — million$ in orders

Mission Microwave has confirmed the company’s success in securing contracts for Ku-band, High Power Transceivers (HPTs) and Block Upconverters (BUCs) for In-Flight Connectivity (IFC) with more than eight million dollars of recent orders.

Photo of Mission Microwave’s High Power Transceiver, courtesy of the company.

Mission Microwave’s engineers and product managers have worked closely with customers in designing, certifying and manufacturing products that are DO-160 compliant and can be used for commercial aviation applications. Recent industry announcements by major airlines and global service providers are based on the Mission Microwave products and represent a strong initial showing for Mission in this market.

Mission Microwave is providing Ku-band HPTs to replace lower power HPTs that are approaching end of life or being installed in new installations. Mission Microwave’s industry leading competency in designing compact and highly efficient amplifiers has enabled their customers to offer an upgrade path that will extend the life and improve the utility of their IFC offerings.

Mission Microwave President and CEO, Francis Auricchio, said, “Our technology and operations team have worked for several years to earn the certifications required to manufacture products for commercial aviation. Our aviation industry customers were able to take advantage of Mission Microwave’s highly efficient and reliable designs to improve their product and service offers to their customers. We expect the aviation sector of our business to continue to grow substantially now that our customer base includes the largest global IFC providers”.

Mission Microwave Technologies continues to be at the forefront of the satellite terminal industry in shipping high power X-, Ku- and Ka-band BUCs from 8 to 800 watts for critical applications in ground, maritime and aerospace applications. Mission’s customers support government and commercial industry sectors that require high efficiency, reliability and performance. Mission brings revolutionary design for RF (Radio Frequency) and microwave electronics, using the latest in semiconductor technology. Mission’s focus is to minimize the size, weight, and power (SWaP) for these critical applications while providing its customers with the best possible reliability.

Space Norway’s radar satellite system for real-time maritime surveillance

Space Norway AS signed contracts with vendors and will immediately start building a radar satellite system optimized for maritime surveillance in Norwegian areas of interest.

The payloads will be developed and built by Norwegian suppliers, while the satellite bus and the radar antenna will be built in the UK. The first satellite will be launched early 2025. In the following years, the plan is to launch a number of radar satellites to establish a constellation. 

The satellite system named MicroSAR is unique in the way it can detect relatively small vessels in a very large area simultaneously. As of today we don’t know about any radar satellite systems with the same mix of capabilities.

Jostein Rønneberg, Group CEO
Photo: Nina Holtan

Norway’s sea areas are seven times larger than the Norwegian land area. The Arctic and the High North is Norway’s most important strategic area of interest. This puts strong requirements on situational awareness in these areas. AIS (Automatic Identification System) has for many years been used for maritime surveillance. The challenge is that AIS is a system that requires the vessels themselves to send the required and correct AIS Information. Hence, AIS is a system based on cooperation. Today we estimate that 5 % of the vessels either does not send out AIS Information or are transmitting false information. Satellites with a radar, such as MicroSAR, will be able to detect these vessels independent of the use of AIS. MicroSAR satellites will bring an AIS Receiver to correlate radar detections with AIS Information.

The MicroSAR System is optimized for covering Norwegian needs. However, it will also offer and deliver maritime surveillance services in a global market in the same way as other radar satellites in space today, including surveillance of ship traffic, combating illegal fishing, search and rescue and oil spill detection.

Space Norway works closely with the Norwegian Armed Forces who will be the main customer and buy services and products from MicroSAR when in operation.

Space Norway also work in close cooperation with Kongsberg Satellite Services (KSAT). KSAT establishes, operates, and owns the MicroSAR Ground System, using their existing global network. On behalf of Space Norway, they will provide services related to satellite operations and downlink of MicroSAR data. KSAT will also be responsible for marketing and sales of MicroSAR services and products as part of their portfolio, both in a national and an international market.

Companies in the group
The group comprises the holding company Space Norway AS including the 100% owned subsidiaries Statsat AS and Space Norway HEOSAT AS (HEOSAT), as well as a 50% ownership in Kongsberg Satellite Services AS (KSAT).

The Satellite System will be owned and controlled by Space Norway. This gives Norway an important strategic independent capability under national control to cover their needs for maritime surveillance.

Space Norway has signed contracts with the following vendors to build the first MicroSAR Satellite:

Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd (SSTL) is a UK company with long experience in building satellites. SSTL will deliver the satellite platform and be responsible for integration of the payloads on board. SSTL will also be responsible for building the radar antenna through their sub-contractor Oxford Space Systems (OSS).

For SSTL this builds on its experience in designing and operating small radar missions which was gained from the NovaSAR-1 spacecraft, a mission strongly supported by the UK Space Agency, which was put into operations in 2018 and continues to serve five major customers around the world. SSTL and OSS have also been working on small radar mission products, and OSS recently announced its wrapped rib SAR antenna also developed with UK government support.

The payloads will be developed and produced by the Norwegian companies WideNorth, Eidsvoll Electronics (EIDEL), Kongsberg Seatex and Norwegian Defence research Establishment (FFI). Hence, the project will also contribute significantly to business development of Norwegian companies.

Space Norway’s current plans are to launch the first satellite on a SpaceX Falcon 9 as a Rideshare. When establishing a constellation, the satellites will be launched on dedicated launchers. The establishment of Andøya Spaceport may result in future MicroSAR satellites being launched from Norway.

The MicroSAR satellites will follow polar orbits in various orbital planes at an altitude of about 600 km and will weigh about 300 kg.

SpaceX’s Starlinks sent soaring on Falcon 9’s second flight and its heaviest payload ever launched

On Saturday, August 27 at 11:41 p.m. ET, SpaceX launched 54 Starlink satellites from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.

This was the second flight for the Falcon 9 first stage booster supporting this mission and setting a record for the heaviest payload ever launched by a Falcon 9 rocket that previously launched CRS-24. Each Starlink craft weighs more than a quarter-ton

Space Force controls all military satellites

For the first time in the agency’s history, one military branch is in control of all of the Defense Department’s military satellite communication functions. The Army transferred control of their satellite communications mission to the Space Force during a ceremony on August 15. 

With the new role, the Space Force got additional help to oversee the satellite communications. The ceremony transferred around 200 civilians and 300 military personnel from serving in the Army to the Space Force. 

The satellite communications constellations provide information to everyone from the president to interagency and international partners conducting global operations.

The 53rd Space Operations Squadron is now the only DoD organization that will conduct payload and transmission controls for the Defense satellite communications system and wideband global SATCOM satellite constellations.

In June, the Navy transferred more than a dozen satellites and additional personnel to the Space Force. In total, the transition realigned 15 Army and Navy units to the Space Force to continue working on the satellite communications. 

The Defense Department wasn’t the only agency shifting control of its satellites this month. On August 11, the U.S. Geological Survey, a part of the Interior Department, assumed operational control of the Landsat 9 satellite from NASA.

The Landsat 9 is the latest remote-sensing satellite to provide global coverage of the changes to Earth’s landscape since 1972.

“For more than 50 years now, Landsat satellites have helped us learn more about how Earth systems work, how human activities affect those systems, and how we can make better decisions for the future,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson at the ceremony.

Tanya Trujillo, assistant secretary for water and science at USGS, said the 50 year archive provides scientists with a constant baseline to track climate change and see changes to the land that may otherwise go unnoticed. 

From Federal Reserve Network

by Abigail Russ

The war in Ukraine shows how important private satellite companies have become—especially in times of conflict

Maxar satellite imagery of burning buildings in Irpin, Ukraine on March 21, 2022. [Photo: Satellite image (c) 2022 Maxar Technologies]

Satellites owned by private companies have played an unexpectedly important role in the war in Ukraine. For example, in early August 2022, images from the private satellite company Planet Labs showed that a recent attack on a Russian military base in Crimea caused more damage than Russia had suggested in public reports. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy highlighted the losses as evidence of Ukraine’s progress in the war.

Soon after the war began, Ukraine requested data from private satellite companies around the world. By the end of April, Ukraine was getting imagery from U.S. companies mere minutes after the data was collected.

My research focuses on international cooperation in satellite Earth observations, including the role of the private sector. While experts have long known that satellite imagery is useful during a conflict, the war in Ukraine has shown that commercial satellite data can make a decisive difference—informing both military planning as well as the public view of a war. Based on the strategic value commercial satellite imagery has held during this war, I believe it is likely that more nations will be investing in private satellite companies.

Growth of the commercial satellite sector

Remote-sensing satellites circle the Earth collecting imagery, radio signals and many other types of data. The technology was originally developed by governments for military reconnaissance, weather forecasting and environmental monitoring. But over the past two decades, commercial activity in this area has grown rapidly—particularly in the U.S. The number of commercial Earth observation satellites has increased from 11 in 2006 to more than 500 in 2022, about 350 of which belong to U.S. companies.

The earliest commercial satellite remote-sensing companies worked closely with the military from the beginning, but many of the newer entrants were not developed with national security applications in mind. Planet Labs, the U.S.-based company that has played a big role in the Ukrainian conflict, describes its customers as those in “agriculture, government, and commercial mapping,” and it hopes to expand to “insurance, commodities, and finance.” Spire, another U.S. company, was originally focused on monitoring weather and tracking commercial maritime activity. However, when the U.S. government set up pilot programs in 2016 to evaluate the value of data from these companies, many of the companies welcomed this new source of revenue.

Value of commercial data for national security

The U.S. government has its own highly capable network of spy satellites, so partnerships with private companies may come as a surprise, but there are clear reasons the U.S. government benefits from these arrangements.

First is the simple fact that purchasing commercial data allows the government to see more locations on the Earth more frequently. In some cases, data is now available quickly enough to enable real-time decision-making on the battlefield.

The second reason has to do with data sharing practices. Sharing data from spy satellites requires officials to go through a complex declassification process. It also risks revealing information about classified satellite capabilities. Neither of these is a concern with data from private companies. This aspect makes it easier for the military to share satellite information within the U.S. government as well as with U.S. allies. This advantage has proved to be a key factor for the war in Ukraine.

The remainder of this article can be found here Fast Company

By Mariel Borowitz is an associate professor of international affairs at the Georgia Institute of Technology.