Constellations spoke with John Finney, CEO and founder of ALL.SPACE, about the continuing evolution of satellite terminal designs and what it means for multi-orbit satellite applications in defense.
Innovation on the Ground
One of the drawbacks of traditional terminals and antennas is that it creates a “one-way connection,” explains Finney. “Traditional systems are like old-school landlines. They were reliable in a fixed spot, but not really practical for on-the-move.”
Most of the time, multi-orbit solutions are just legacy platforms juggling multiple antennas, or a single antenna with single connections quickly switching between orbits, says Finney. But those systems produce faults and difficulties. “When they switch, it’s like dropping the ball,” Finney says. “Frames and packets, mission-critical data—they simply get lost. Connections break and sometimes the back-up satellite that they’re hoping to connect with isn’t even in the picture.”
An antenna that can handle simultaneous full-performance links, that can maintain multiple connections across different orbits, starts to address those issues, Finney claims. “It’s not just about talking to more satellites. It’s about smarter conversations. It’s ensuring every piece of data finds the best path.” And the demand for this type of connectivity is growing. “There’s basically this massive push for connectivity that can keep up with the pace of operations, especially operations that are going to face a highly contested environment, particularly in defense.”
Multi-Orbit Demand in the Defense Sector
Defense applications will be the primary use case for this type of consistent and dependable connectivity, Finney says, where a missed link or a broken connection can mean critical mission failure. “Imagine being in the thick of it in defense, and suddenly in those critical moments that matter, your encrypted link goes down because the antenna couldn’t handle the switch smoothly. That’s not just inconvenient, it’s a potential mission compromise.”
Finney cites situations like the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, where satellite communications systems have been a critical enabler—and a target. “Both Russia and Ukraine have been extremely effective in collapsing the time period between identifying a target in the battlefield, particularly command posts, weighting that potential target up against others, [and] going through the decision-making process.”
As adversaries become more efficient at targeting these systems, the U.S. and NATO have adapted to develop a meshed network architecture across orbits that provides resiliency and can handle constant interference attempts. “If a satellite is taken out, if a link is jammed, if there’s a blockage in the way, if you’re on the pause and you need to get on the move, you need to have simultaneous comms from platform-to-platform, platform-to-node without any restriction,” Finney says. “Once you have multiple paths, it means, obviously, if you are contested, or you are facing interference or you are under a cyber threat, you can simply move the traffic across to another connection without that connection breaking.”
Computing on the Edge
Antenna innovation on this scale would also depend on an increase in the capability of edge computing. As the sector evolves, there are going to be more options for “managing your compute resources, both in the cloud or in the core of the network and on the edge, [all] integrated into our terminal,” Finney says. Edge compute opens up a slew of capabilities, including hosing top-secret containerized software, creating unjammable multi-orbit position, navigation and timing (PNT), and real-time processing of intelligence gathered on the battlefield.
As the capabilities of edge computing develop, the antenna “becomes much more than an antenna … it starts to become a platform that sits at the edge of the network,” Finney says.
For more on sensory capabilities at the edge, managing the RF environment and the demand for multi-orbit, listen to the full episode here.
