Isotropic, SES take multi-orbit satellite services to the test

The future of satellite services is not fixed at any one orbit. Some services are tailored for low-latency delivery at low-Earth orbit (LEO), others are beamed from medium-Earth orbit (MEO), and still others are sent down from geosynchronous (GEO) satellites that might reside more than 20,000 miles above the Big Blue Marble.

Although some new satellite players, such as SpaceX’s Starlink and Amazon’s Kuiper project, are fixated on services delivered via a multitude LEO satellites, other companies, such as SES, are moving ahead with strategies that combine the capabilities and capacities of a fleet of MEO and GEO satellites, with the potential to add LEOs to the mix.

While work with Microsoft Azure will provide a way for SES to link its emerging global platform together in the cloud, meshing all of that together on a single customer-side terminal on the ground represents yet another challenge.

Isotropic Systems, a UK-based company that counts SES as a customer and a strategic investor, has been focused on the challenge. And, this week, Isotropic announced that its single optical beamforming antenna technology had crossed a critical milestone: successful field tests of a terminal that simultaneously supported satellite services delivered from multiple orbits.

That field test of Isotropic’s multi-link antenna was conducted at SES’s Manassas, Virginia, teleport on the night of October 22. It linked a Hughes “Jupiter” GEO satellite with an SES “O3b” satellite situated in medium-Earth orbit.

The field test simultaneously connected multiple satellites at multiple orbits “without any compromise on the performance” and “without breaking traffic,” using Isotropic’s solid-state platform, boasted Isotropic founder and CEO John Finney.

“The reality is that this technology means you can have as many connections as you want from the terminal to as many satellites you can see in the sky,” Finney said.

He said the field test shows that the technology overcomes “two major issues” faced by the satellite industry: an inability for satellite companies to link their respective satellite systems (he likened it to trying to interconnect the mobile networks of Verizon and T-Mobile) and interconnect satellites that live at different orbits. Until now, the ground terminals have been limited to connecting to one satellite at a time.

“You’re only as good as the network that you’re on,” Finney said.

Cellular, too

Isotropic’s terminal is not limited to satellite connectivity. It’s also been built to integrate multiple cellular networks, including 3G, 4G and 5G, he said

Isotropic, he adds, has effectively developed a phased array-like system that can activate multiple feeds on a single beam. “We’re able to bend the radio waves essentially in the direction of the satellite with very high pointing accuracy, phase those lenses together and … send multiple links in and out of those optical lenses without any restriction or without losing any of the bandwidth,” Finney explains.

That integration at the device level goes beyond the radio link layer, covering other elements such as power and routing. “We’re collapsing all of that infrastructure into one single, low-profile solid-state device,” Finney said.

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