Tech Track Papers

The never-ending growing need for information, the internet of things, affects the space business. This paper describes how the changing world affects our part of the space business, with a focus on ground station network architecture, from geographical location, ground station design, user interface, and service delivery, addressing the current and future needs of ground…

Access to space is becoming a reality to broader global community of students, scientists, and entrepreneurs.  The CubeSat industry is furthering this access to space by standardizing affordable components/subsystem boards.  Standards provide for clarity in design, repeatability, and risk reduction.  Space to ground communications remains open to many variables, all of which add cost and risk to the…

Today the Department of Defense has 13 purpose-built communication satellites in use providing warfighters with over 21 Gbps of capacity including three MUOS satellites with 120 Mbps of capacity, three AEHF satellites with 5.4 Gbps of capacity, and 7 WGS satellites with 14.7 Gbps of capacity. The Department also leases an additional 10 GHz of…

As the number of objects in space increase exponentially, the need for Space Situational Awareness (SSA) to protect assets from intentional and unintentional threats increases as well. SSA is becoming a “big data” problem due to the prevalence of low-cost small satellites, the proliferation of debris and increased presence of symmetric enemy space objects. Additionally,…

NOAA’s Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES) are a mainstay of weather forecasts and environmental monitoring in the United States. The next generation of GOES satellites, known as the GOES-R Series, with a planned launch in 2016, will usher in a new era of continuous imagery and atmospheric measurements of Earth’s Western Hemisphere and space weather…

The leading commercial Satellite Service Providers are supplying services, inclusive of improved warfighter terminals, that deliver order-of-magnitude improvements in end-user performance from a speed and equipment perspective, superior anti-jam and cyber protection over the Department of Defense’s purpose–built communication satellites, and order-of-magnitude improvements in cost of delivered capacity. The Department’s purpose-built WGS and leased commercial Ku-band…

When DoD has a satellite communication requirement, they frequently seek commercial solutions.  To varying degrees, these needs are met effectively today. Yet, with an integrated SATCOM architecture – both government and commercial – the future solutions will be delivered more efficiently. It is important that government partner with commercial satellite providers who build systems from the…

The next generation space race prize is the integration of space-dependent technology reliably in modern society.  This paper is offered as an examination of an expanding diverse space launch industry as well as the necessity for increased capacity of resources in the underwriting space.  Consumers are already space application dependent. There are 1 billion GPS…