Sick of waiting for videos to download on your 100-Mbps-plus connection? Troops in the field also are hungry for high-bandwidth data—and SDA just oversaw a test promising exactly that.
A satellite and an aircraft connected by laser in a demonstration test for Tranche 0 of the Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture. Two SDA vendors participated: General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems (GA-EMS) furnished an optical system terminal, while Kepler Communications US (the subsidiary of a Canadian LEO satellite operator) provided one of two “Pathfinder” optical satellites designed for testing and validating SDA data relay needs.
Eye in the sky: The Kepler LEO satellite, which has done optical tests before, connected with a GA-EMS laser airborne communication terminal soaring above the ground on an aircraft.
GA-EMS stated this test shows that the optical communications between air and space work well in “challenging operational environments.” The airborne GA-EMS terminal is designed to help troops avoid interception or detection, and it is equipped with “an anti-jamming communication system with 300 times the data-carrying capacity of conventional RF satcom systems,” GA officials noted in a separate factsheet.
The successful test comes after GA-EMS missed the chance for an experiment with its own satellites in 2021, built for SDA. The twin cubesats, called Laser Interconnect and Networking Communications System (LINCS), never made contact with Earth after launching on a SpaceX rideshare mission.
HALO infinite: Both Kepler US and GA-EMS are looking well beyond Tranche 0 in the aftermath of the successful test.
Last October, Kepler received a prime position slot for SDA’s Hybrid Acquisition for proliferated Low-earth Orbit (HALO) contract. This places Kepler in a set of pre-approved candidates who can compete for flight demonstration opportunities with SDA’s Tranche 2 Demonstration and Experimentation System, as well as other projects.
There’s also another SDA opportunity coming up for GA-EMS. A separate contract with the agency will see an OCT system placed on two GA-75 spacecraft “to support future LEO airborne-to-space demonstrations for Tranche 1,” Gregg Burgess, GA-EMS vice president of the space systems division, said in the statement about the recent aircraft-satellite laser test. The new satellites are expected to launch in 2026.
