Phasor, the developer of enterprise-grade electronically-steerable antenna systems, and Kepler, a low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellite operator and telecommunication services provider have successfully conducted tests between Kepler’s first in-orbit LEO nanosatellite and Phasor’s wideband electronically-steered antenna.
Kepler’s satellite, KIPP, launched in January, represents the first example of a wideband LEO satellite to have been auto-acquired, auto-tracked, and communicated with, by a commercial flat panel, electronically-steerable antenna.
Phasor’s new antenna successfully acquired, tracked and received transmissions from KIPP as it passed over Phasor’s test range facility in the UK. Further tests will be performed in the coming days and weeks.
“This is a big moment in satellite communications history. We are combining the capabilities of our ultra-low-cost nanosatellites together with Phasor’s high-performance, electronically-steerable antenna technology to unleash the potential of high-speed LEO Ku-band mobile connectivity,” said Kepler CEO Mina Mitry.
“We have a number of customer applications for which we are deploying services today, which would benefit from Phasor’s technology,” Mitry added. “Our customers, for instance, would benefit from the ability to dynamically and seamlessly switch between satellite networks to optimise traffic management. We also have customer use cases where mechanically actuated antennas are impractical because of their need to operate in extreme environments, so high-gain antennas without moving parts is a huge value-add for our customers.”
“The Kepler-Phasor collaboration promises to bring to market real capabilities for a broad range of markets, including maritime, transportation, natural resources, defence, IoT and a wide variety of other on-the-move applications” explained Dave Helfgott, Phasor CEO. “This is an exciting beginning, and we look forward to many more milestones to come.”
For the test, Phasor’s antenna was able to track KIPP for its entire pass down to 20o elevation angle, demonstrating the viability of the 70o scan angle available from the Phasor electronically-steerable antenna.
The LEO to electronically steered antenna transmission received a signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) in excess of 9 dB, as was intended in the testbed design. Kepler CTO, Wen Cheng Chong said “Early results show us we have the capacity for around 20 Mbps to Phasor’s flat panel antenna with our 3U spacecraft. We are excited to further validate that capability in future testing.”
