Integral Systems… Doubling Up (SatCom)

[SatNews] With a new remote site manager to a new agreement to upgrade terminals at an Earth station, this was a busy day for the Company…

Integral Systems, Inc., (NASDAQ: ISYS) announced at the CommunicAsia 2011 exhibition and conference in Singapore, that its wholly-owned subsidiary, Newpoint Technologies, has introduced Mercury G3 Remote Site Manager. This next generation remote site manager is a cost-effective solution for managing manned and unmanned remote sites to provide complete visibility into site status by interfacing with all site equipment. Providing complete visibility into remote sites reduces or eliminates costly unscheduled visits caused by equipment failures or communications problems. For unmanned remote sites, or sites requiring high availability, Mercury G3 is equipped with high speed, solid state hard drives in a RAID configuration, has redundant power supplies (both AC and DC) and can be equipped with its own UPS system to shut down the unit and facility in an orderly manner during a power failure. It supports both in-band and out-of-band (dial-up, GSM, Cellular or satellite modems) communications between the Operations Center and remote site, and allows for both primary and multiple backup communications to the site. Mercury G3’s modular design provides flexibility to configure the unit based upon unique interface requirements at each remote site (serial, DI/DO, Ethernet, SNMP, etc.).

The backbone of Mercury G3 is Newpoint Technologies’ COMPASS™ Network Management System (NMS) software, which is used to manage remote site equipment and take full advantage of COMPASS’ award winning features in a compact element management solution. COMPASS provides a local web-based GUI for technicians while on site and a graphical scripting engine that enables network operators to automate recovery tasks and other commonly performed routines, such as uplink power control and redundancy switching. For current Mercury customers, Mercury G3 is compatible with existing cabling infrastructure and uses the same pinouts used with previous generation Mercury products, making it easy to upgrade to Mercury G3 without costly cabling changes. Mercury G3 was designed in partnership with Lumistar, Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Integral Systems. Lumistar’s expertise in designing commercial-based, board-level telemetry products that are included in Mercury G3 was instrumental in providing much of the additional power and flexibility that customers can now access.

Integral Systems also announced that its wholly-owned subsidiary, Integral Systems Europe Ltd. (ISE UK), has been awarded a contract by AsiaSat to upgrade two satellite terminals at its Tai Po Earth Station. The new award extends the near 20-year relationship between AsiaSat and the team in ISE UK office, from the installation of the AsiaSat 2 TT&C at the Stanley Earth Station, Hong Kong, in 1994, through to the major earth terminal infrastructure installed at Tai Po for later-generation satellites. Under the terms of the contract, ISE UK will upgrade the Radio Frequency (RF) uplink systems for two antennas at Tai Po. When complete, the new system will expand AsiaSat’s transmission capacity and provide more flexible transponder access across its satellite fleet.

AsiaSat Tai Po Earth Station is located at Tai Po Industrial Estate in the New Territories, Hong Kong. This Earth station is currently equipped with 11 antennas, including six C-band and  five Ku-band. It functions to support the Telemetry, Tracking and Control (TT&C) activities for AsiaSat’s satellite fleet, and provides value added services including C-band and Ku-band traffic uplink, signal turnaround, MCPC platforms and backup services to customers. Construction work for the expansion of the earth station is under way and is expected to be completed in early 2012.