Replacing NASA's relay fleet: Viasat and SES test commercial data links in orbit
A Falcon 9 has launched two NASA demonstrations in which Viasat and SES are to show that commercial satellites can reliably relay data from spacecraft back to Earth.
Archive image · Photo: U.S. Space Force/Joshua Conti / Wikimedia Commons, Public domain (cropped and resized)
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carried two NASA communications demonstrations into space on Tuesday. They lifted off from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida as part of the Bandwagon-5 rideshare to low Earth orbit. The tests are run by Viasat and SES Space and Defense. Over the coming weeks, both are to show how spacecraft can send large volumes of data, such as science data and 4K imagery, as well as small volumes, such as tracking data and basic commands, via commercial satellites.
Viasat is using Maxwell, a demonstration spacecraft built by Rocket Lab. Autonomous technology is meant to route data between Maxwell, Viasat's satellites in geostationary orbit and its ground stations. SES is working on two levels: its O3b mPOWER fleet in medium Earth orbit handles high-rate data, while its geostationary satellites carry the low-rate traffic. The aim is to keep the demonstration spacecraft connected to ground stations without interruption.
The background is a shake-up of NASA's communications. In 2022, its Space Communications and Navigation (SCaN) division awarded a total of 278.5 million dollars to industry through the Communications Services Project. NASA plans to gradually retire its Tracking and Data Relay Satellite fleet and move future low Earth orbit missions to commercial services. The project is managed by the Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, and testing with industry continues through 2027.