The extraordinary diversity of the smallsat sector makes standards unlikely to solve ground system challenges, but many of the same objectives can be achieved through virtualization, ground tech experts said at SATELLITE 2022.
Brad Bode, CTO of Atlas Space, argued software must solve the problem at a higher layer: “While standards are a laudable goal, I’ve seen it discussed over the last 25 years, ad nauseam, and it never seems to work.” Tom Pirrone, CEO of Infostellar US, agreed: “What we’re doing here most of the time is cutting-edge work. The best work hasn’t been done yet.”
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Bode said Atlas customers range from well-funded enterprises to universities trying to prove a business model. The key is making onboarding simple: “They don’t have to do machine to machine integration, they can use our user interface.” He describes a cloud layer that makes 12 different hardware pieces look identical to the customer: “They don’t have to do anything. I think you’re going to see more of that in the smallsat world so that customers can get integrated faster and easier.”
Jai Delani of Leaf Space noted each spacecraft’s mission creates unique ground demands: “Earth observation would require a very high rate data dump. But the same ground station has to handle communications with an amateur smallsat over UHF. That makes it really, really challenging.” On-orbit servicing missions add further complexity: “We need to handle all those different applications pass after pass.”
Bill Milroy of ThinKom Solutions highlighted the LEO trade-off: “There’s this classic trade between expense and complexity on the ground side versus complexity on the satellite side. Our goal is to try to cater to all.” Bode concluded: “Things are going to be driven towards software as we’ve seen in networks and in practically everything in our daily lives.” VS
