With its “always-on” and “schedule-free” connectivity, IDRS™ has demonstrated multi-year in-space reliability providing LEO satellite operators the ability to securely manage and task their LEO satellites in real time.
Addvalue is a Singapore-based company, with experience in providing communications solutions for terrestrial and aerospace applications, including the state-of-the-art Inter-satellite Data Relay (IDRS™) service for LEO satellites based on Inmarsat’s ELERA network. With its “always-on” and “schedule-free” connectivity, IDRS™ has demonstrated multi-year in-space reliability providing LEO satellite operators the ability to securely manage and task their LEO satellites in real time.
IQ Technologies for Earth and Space GmbH is a Berlin, Germany based company with long-term experience as a provider of end-to-end solutions for satellite communications. Their product branch IQ spacecom offers, among other products, high-performance radios and antennas using commercial off the shelf (COTS) components. For more than 15 years IQ spacecom has provided satellite communications solutions and built strong partnerships among Cubesat manufacturers. IQ spacecom’s XLink SDR platform with its high receiver sensitivity has been flight proven at S/X-band while connecting to ground stations. It has a notable small size and low weight that was designed to fit 1U CubeSats as well as larger satellites.
The InCommand solution has been developed by Inmarsat and is enabled via dynamic on-demand L-band capacity allocation over Inmarsat’s highly reliable ELERA geostationary (GEO) satellites. The solution aims to provide dynamic and affordable L-Band capacity on-demand anywhere in low Earth orbit and will be well suited for time-sensitive space applications such as Earth Observations or Disaster Management that require occasional on-demand contact with the LEO satellite without having to wait for a ground station pass. The InCommand space terminal on board the LEO satellite has been implemented by IQ spacecom with its fully featured and transparent bidirectional XLink-L transceiver, based on the XLink SDR platform.
In combination with Addvalue’s operational experience with its well-established IDRS™ service, and IQ spacecom’s XLink-L transceiver technology, both companies anticipate benefits from their cooperation to provide this innovative variant of data connectivity to the LEO satellite industry. Working together IQ spacecom and Addvalue plan to jointly explore and develop business opportunities in providing communications solutions for LEO satellites, starting with InCommand. IQ spacecom and Addvalue are aiming to collaborate on solutions for any LEO satellite communication challenge on a long-term basis.
IQ spacecom Chief Executive Officer, Dr. Kurt Winter, said, “Our expertise in building state of the art space transceivers is a perfect match with Addvalue’s experience in offering data relay services to LEO satellite operators. We are delighted to be partnering with Addvalue in developing and delivering the InCommand service.”
Tan Khai Pang, CEO of Addvalue, commented, “Based on our knowhow and experience with IDRS™, we’re happy to partner with IQ spacecom to further develop InCommand into an exciting space data connectivity option. Due to its small form-factor the InCommand solution should be a good fit for nanosatellites that require occasional scheduled data sessions on-demand for TT&C and tasking. We look forward to working with IQ spacecom to extend real time end-to-end data connectivity service to nanosatellites.”
