Northrop Grumman Corporation has successfully conducted its first over-the-air demonstration of a hybrid satellite communications (SATCOM) solution, achieving seamless connectivity with Viasat and a commercial proliferated low Earth orbit (PLEO) communications provider. This demonstration validated resilient and uninterrupted connectivity while rapidly switching between different constellations and orbits.
As a prime systems integrator, Northrop Grumman’s hybrid SATCOM solution significantly enhances communication for pilots and operators across space, air, and ground. This capability increases mission effectiveness by making it exceedingly difficult for adversarial threats to disrupt U.S. communications across multiple orbits, providers, and frequency bands.
The demonstration was conducted for the Air Force Research Laboratory and is an integral part of the Defence Experimentation Using Commercial Space Internet program, known as Global Lightning.
Steven Conn, Director of Advanced Communications and Signals Intelligence at Northrop Grumman, noted, “Northrop Grumman is responding to the U.S. Air Force’s need for rapid deployment of resilient communications to develop and field the technologies required by our warfighters to meet today’s challenging missions. This successful test, leveraging a diverse team of commercial and defence SATCOM providers, is critical for the pace of maturity on the Global Lightning program and the ability to begin flight testing in the near future.”
The hybrid SATCOM terminal can host up to nine modems with integrated network routing, security, and encryption for mission networks. In the event of network failures, the terminal can alternate among the modems to maintain resilient connectivity for users.
