Software-Defined Hosted Payloads Said To Offer Satellites Greater Flexibility

With small payloads, operators previously needed to buy a rocket and satellite vehicle, pay for the launch, have a ground system to control it and then get the data to their customers, said Alan Mast, mission solutions architect at Harris' Government Communications Systems Division. “That’s a lot of infrastructure,” he said. “With the advent of hosted payloads, the cost has really come down to get to space.” The Iridium NEXT constellation, which is expecting its first launch in 2015, is using hosted payloads, he said.

Software-defined hosted payloads offer a lot of flexibility, said Hector Fenech, Eutelsat’s director of future satellite systems. “Flexibility is there as an insurance policy,” he said. “If we knew exactly where the market was, we wouldn’t need flexibility.” Hosted payloads let satellites move in orbit and they can adapt to whatever ITU region they’re in, he said. “This is being done in orbit more or less on the fly.” Eutelsat is creating a modular design-hosted payload, the Eutelsat Quantum concept, operational in 2018, that will cut down on the build time, he said. “This is potentially a niche market, but also a way to bring down the cost for the transponder.” These satellites won’t be orbital position-specific, which means antennas don’t have to be designed for certain positions but instead can be standard and programmed in orbit, Fenech said.

Satellite will cover a gap created by the lack of 5G, including the Internet of Things and connected cars, said Ahmed Ali Al Shamsi, Thuraya chief technology officer. Software-defined payloads offer a fully digital design that the operator can evolve while it's in orbit, he said. Certain spectrum has limitations, but letting an operator use different frequencies while in orbit is useful, he said.

Smartphones are similar to hosted payloads, Mast said. The smartphone model can extend to space by using a reconfigurable platform that is easily adaptable to new applications, he said. “It’s an open environment, easy to program and they reuse hardware and software. There’s a strong floor of existing software blocks.” Once a reconfigurable payload is in space, it can be “adapted to new missions that aren’t thought about today,” he said. New software can easily be uploaded to fix software bugs, he said. Other technology can be added to a hosted payload in orbit, including different apps or changing the data rate, he said. The AppStar product line uses these “building blocks” to reduce the barrier of entry, he said. It has a library of apps and different antenna sizes, he said.