Kratos, SES Hold Virtual Satcom Ground System Demo for US Army

Kratos Defense & Security Solutions has demonstrated a fully virtualized satellite communications ground system for the U.S. Army’s Combat Capabilities Development Command in partnership with SES.

The event showcased Kratos’ software-defined OpenSpace vStar satellite ground system, which enabled connecting a terminal in Port St. Lucie in the United States and a gateway in Lima, Peru, to the SES O3b medium Earth orbit satellite network.

During the demonstration, the hub system and the O3b network showed how the combined technology can enable a make-or-break mode – the ability to simultaneously transfer communication sessions and transverse the areas covered by different satellites, Kratos said.

According to the company, the solution will enable military satellite communications networks to support multiple missions and multiorbit satellite systems faster than existing hardware-based ground systems.  

The OpenSpace container-based hub is hosted on SES’s public cloud resources for enhanced efficiency.

Saba Wehbe, senior vice president of service engineering and delivery at SES, said the company uses a software reconfigurable approach to build interoperability among multiorbit, multiplatform satellite services and enable standards-based integration with terrestrial networks.