Satellite Technology of the Year Nominees for 2023

The Via Satellite Technology of the Year award recognizes breakthrough technology achievements and how they impact the industry. This award is now in its sixth year, and has recognized technology achievements like Apple’s emergency messaging via satellite, Astroscale’s ELSA-d mission, and Northrop Grumman’s Mission Extension Vehicle-1. This year, we present five nominees including network orchestration software, signal interference removal, and a rapid launch demonstration. These technologies are evaluated on their ability to meet significant market demand; create considerable cost-savings or technical efficiencies; make a profit; improve quality of life; disrupt the market; and/or demonstrate a scientific breakthrough.

The winner of the award will be determined by a public vote combined with the votes of the Via Satellite editorial board. The winner will be announced during the Via Satellite awards luncheon on Wednesday, March 20, at the SATELLITE 2024 conference in Washington, D.C. Voting is open online from Feb. 20 to 12 p.m. on March 19 and can be accessed at satellitetoday.com/vote. Here are the 2023 Technology of the Year nominees.

Spacetime — Aalyria

In the multi-orbit future of satellite communications, connectivity comes from multiple altitudes — Geostationary Orbit (GEO), Medium-Earth Orbit (MEO), Low-Earth Orbit (LEO), and High Altitude Platform Stations (HAPS) — to fixed and mobile platforms in the air, on land, and in the sea. This hyper-connected future requires complex network orchestration technology, and Aalyria is answering the call with its Spacetime software.

Aalyria is a Google spinoff that emerged from stealth mode in fall of 2022. Spacetime was born from the Minkowski routing system for Google Loon. The software uses an innovation called Temporospatial SDN that the company says understands not only wireless links and signal propagation behaviors, but time and spatial information, motion of platforms, topology characteristics, and changing weather conditions and atmospheric phenomena that impact signal connectivity and network performance. Spacetime is able to see all the connection opportunities between satellites, ground stations, and user terminals and work out the best route for connectivity with the real world conditions. The software is a Technology Readiness Level 9 product validated with more than 2 million hours of lights-out orchestration of aerospace nodes.

After introducing Spacetime to the industry at SATELLITE 2023, Aalyria has logged impressive business for the software. Aalyria is working with Intelsat, Rivada Space Networks, and Telesat. Notably, Spacetime will organize the flow of data traffic in Telesat’s broadband constellation for more than 10 years. The software also works to secure government networks with Anduril, Leidos, Second Front Systems, and the U.S. Navy. Aalyria is also actively contributing to the Defense Innovation Unit's Hybrid Space Architecture (HSA), which is designed to integrate commercial and government satellites with global, high-speed, secure data connections. Spacetime’s work to seamlessly and efficiently connect different elements of the satellite ecosystem aims to shape the future of the industry and earns it this nomination.

Spectra Tasking and Analytics Platform — BlackSky

Space-based intelligence is critical to supporting humanitarian, economic, and national security interests. Every day, BlackSky delivers thousands of images and analytic products with its Spectra tasking and analytics platform. Spectra combines the company’s satellite imagery with third party data and AI analysis to provide imagery, monitoring, and analytics to customers. BlackSky has reduced the timeline from tasking to imagery delivery down to 90 minutes and is on track to reduce that timeframe to minutes. In 2023, BlackSky commissioned two satellites that began commercial operations within 18 hours of launch. Its constellation has 14 spacecraft.

BlackSky also recently incorporated learnings from its work on a contract for the U.S. Intelligence Community — the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA) Space-based Machine Automated Recognition Technique (SMART) program, to improve Spectra. The company used AI to reshape broad area search technologies. It built a machine learning operations architecture for the SMART program that was designed to manage the analysis of 1 million square kilometers of land, but it is now able to analyze more than 30 million square kilometers of the Earth’s surface every month. In another 2023 achievement, BlackSky received a contract for both its hardware and software to be integrated into sovereign capabilities for the Indonesian Ministry of Defence, which CEO Brian O’Toole said could be the beginning of a new phase of acquisition and adoption models in the industry.

O’Toole has always emphasized that BlackSky is a software company that uses space as a competitive advantage. That investment in its software capabilities is paying off as BlackSky continues to report increased demand from customers around the world. At the end of the third quarter in 2023, BlackSky had increased revenue year-over-year by 28 percent. The company’s efforts to make satellite imagery and insights accessible to customers via the Spectra platform earns it this nomination.

3GPP NTN Standards – GSOA, ESA, EchoStar, Thales, Inmarsat, Intelsat, and Individual Contributors

Over the past several years, the satellite industry has engaged proactively with the mobile industry and vertical stakeholders at 3GPP and other forums to ensure that satellite technologies can be fully integrated into the 5G ecosystem. These efforts have resulted in a major breakthrough: the successful expansion and adaptation of the 3GPP standards to incorporate non-terrestrial networks (NTN) starting with Release 17. Critical enhancements include adaptation for satellite latency and doppler effects, carefully defined to support a wide range of network deployment scenarios and orbits, terminal types (handheld, IoT, vehicle mounted), frequency bands, and beam types (Earth fixed/Earth moving), and sizes.

We are at an exciting time in the development of satellite direct-to-device connectivity to smartphones and Internet of Things (IoT) devices. The substantial added value of satellite to the technology mix for 5G is becoming increasingly clear, especially for unserved/underserved areas and mission critical communications and other applications where ubiquitous coverage and resiliency are crucial. The standards enable full interoperability between satellite and terrestrial including mobility procedures across both network components, allowing mass-market smartphones and IoT devices to connect seamlessly with both terrestrial mobile networks and NTN-based satellite networks when out of range of terrestrial connectivity. Leveraging the mobile industry economies of scale that come with being part of the 3GPP ecosystem, the new NTN standards will ensure that connectivity can be available to anyone, anywhere in the world.

The Global Satellite Operators Association (GSOA) played a central role as a partner of 3GPP in providing critical insights on business requirements and market needs for the standard. This nomination also recognizes the satellite organizations and satellite industry individuals that contributed to this effort: EchoStar, Thales, Inmarsat, and Intelsat; the European Space Agency (ESA); Munira Jaffar (EchoStar); Nicolas Chuberre (Thales), Stefano Cioni (ESA), Dorin Panaitopol (Thales), and Gilles Charbit (MediaTek).

Looking ahead, 3GPP NTN enhancements for Release 18 will be completed in the next few months, optimizing satellite access performance, and supporting new capabilities and services. The continuing evolution of the NTN 3GPP standard promises to further broaden and deepen the menu of options for satellite to play an increasingly central role in global communications in 5G and beyond.

VICTUS NOX Responsive Launch Demonstration — Firefly Aerospace

In September 2023, Firefly Aerospace set a new record for responsive space launch, successfully launching its Alpha rocket and deploying the VICTUS NOX spacecraft within a 24-hour notice period. The VICTUS NOX mission was a special mission in partnership with Space Systems Command (SSC) to demonstrate rapid launch capabilities to the U.S. Space Force. Upon receiving the notice to launch and orbit requirements from the Space Force, the Firefly team completed all final launch preparations, including trajectory software updates, payload encapsulation, transport to the launch pad, mating to Alpha, and fueling, within 24 hours. Operations that often require weeks to months during a typical launch, were completed in just 24 hours. The Alpha rocket launched at the first available window, 27 hours after launch orders were received. What makes this feat even more notable is that it was only the third launch of the Alpha vehicle, and Alpha’s first fully successful launch.

How did Firefly achieve this? Part of its success was the team realized the schedule limitation and bottleneck of a single payload processing facility operated by a third party, and invested in its own facility. Firefly took one of its buildings near the pad and renovated it into a certified payload processing clean room in just four months. The company also conducted several rehearsals of the 24-hour operation.

What does this mean going forward? The Space Force can now call for an on-demand launch to have a satellite delivered to space when and where it needs it to investigate adversaries’ spacecraft, conduct rapid intelligence gathering, provide targeted Earth imagery, and support urgent missile communications. SSC Commander Lt. Gen. Michael Guetlein said the mission “marks a culture shift in our nation’s ability to deter adversary aggression.” Satellite operators could also have their assets launched into space with just a day’s notice to support national disasters, internet and communications blackouts, conflict eruptions, and more. Following the launch, Firefly closed a Series C financing round, raising another $300 million in a round that valued the company at $1.5 billion dollars. The VICTUS NOX mission could usher in a new era of what speed means for launch providers, earning Firefly the Technology of the Year nomination.

Communication Signal Interference Removal (CSIR) — iDirect Government

iDirectGov, a wholly-owned subsidiary of ST Engineering iDirect, has long been a key player in the ground segment technology part of the market. Radio frequency (RF) interference and jamming in satellite communications is a growing concern for military and government satcom users, and jamming incidents have become commonplace. The company’s Communication Signal Interference Removal (CSIR) technology aims to mitigate this interference and meet the specialized needs of the U.S. Department of Defense, protecting mission-critical satcom by countering, terminating and avoiding jamming and cyber threats.

While CSIR is not a new technology, iDirect reached new breakthroughs in 2023 as the technology looks to address more sophisticated cyberthreats. In 2023, the company integrated CSIR with an anti-jam, Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum (DSSS) waveform. The company was working on the theory that CSIR signal excision coupled with DSSS could yield good results. iDirect reported it was surprised at exactly how resilient and efficient the AJ-DSSS waveform was once it began testing in the lab. In 2023 it also began integrating CSIR with LPx waveforms. CSIR holds the potential to dramatically improve the data throughput of an LPx waveform, which is exceedingly important as LPx waveforms have inherently low transmission rates.

Also in 2023, iDirect integrated CSIR for use on ultra-high frequency (UHF) and high frequency (HF) radios. The successful integration into the receive chain of its 9-Series and 4-Series satellite modems and its defense line cards is bringing more options to satcom users whenever they need CSIR. With these new capabilities, CSIR aims to ensure satellite connectivity and communications are safeguarded from interference and bad actors, earning it the nomination for Satellite Technology of the Year. VS