Kratos, Telesat, and Cobham Demonstrate Virtualized Satcom Ground System for US Army

Via Satellite archive illustration

Kratos Defense & Security Solutions, Telesat Government Solutions, and Cobham Satcom recently demonstrated a fully virtualized ground system for Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) communications to the U.S. Army. 

The demonstration, announced Thursday, used the Kratos OpenSpace virtualized ground system platform for the U.S. Army’s Program Executive Office Command, Control, Communications-Tactical (PEO C3T). The project was funded by the Network Cross-Functional Team (N-CFT) established by the Army Future Command. Kratos received the contract in July of 2022. 

The companies reported the test demonstrated a flexible network architecture that allowed soldiers to connect to the Telesat LEO 3 demonstration satellite through Cobham antennas. Kratos’ OpenEdgeTM 2500 digitizer was integrated with Cobham’s Tracker 1300TT antenna, enabling standardized traffic to pass directly from Cobham’s antenna through virtualized modems at the network’s edge to the LEO satellite.

Kratos said virtualized ground systems provide greater resiliency for military operations, including multi-orbit, multi-mission support. 

“Every mission has different requirements for space connectivity requiring maximum flexibility to leverage multiple satellites, networks and network elements. Only a software-defined platform can provide the levels of adaptability at mission speed along with the openness to maximize available network resources,” said Chris Badgett, vice president of Technology for Kratos Space.