SSC launches ground operation services for small satellites

15th April 2016

Enaie Azambuja

0 0

The Swedish Space Corporation (SSC), a company providing advanced space services, announced its newest project dedicated to lowering the operational costs of small satellites. The product, called SSC Infinity, is a set of new ground operations services that will utilise full-motion antennas in the five-meter or smaller class. The company hopes that its newest offer will reduce risks associated with satellite launch, insertion, system and constellation checkout.

The system was presented at the 32nd Space Symposium in Colorado Springs, Colorado. It consists of a range of highly automated services that use full-motion antennas.

These antennas are optimised for communication with small satellites and constellations. If needed, they could be also augmented with larger ones to support the most demanding small spacecraft or even constellations of satellites.

According to the company official, SSC, due to its vast experience in building technologically advanced space services, has mastered the development of ground operations systems. Thus, creating Infinity wasn't really a big challenge for the company.

Infinity will make use of normal configurations and standardised ground system hardware to support miniaturised satellites known as CubeSats. The system will reduce costs related to pre-mission configuration by limiting the number of mission configurations and using pre-qualified radios.

The system builds upon a broad hardware network developed by SSC. The company has already begun installing new small aperture antennas as part of its Universal Space Network expansion.