In a world-first, Kymeta, recently announced a major technological leap: simultaneously operating across both Ku and Ka satellite bands in a single, compact antenna—laying the technical groundwork to enable seamless connectivity across satellite networks.
This breakthrough marks a significant milestone for the SATCOM industry, ending a legacy of siloed SATCOM limitations. Kymeta has now advanced the ability to interoperate across satellite networks in different bands and different orbits, in a move to make satellite as seamless and ubiquitous as cellular.
The ability to connect to both Ku- and Ka-band beams offers immediate and significant benefits—unlocking higher bandwidth, faster data rates, and more bits per second (bps). This also enables continuous connectivity, a vital component toward making advanced AI at the edge a reality. The breakthrough will now allow manufacturers to build the advanced tech of the future where this is a requirement.
This achievement meets the demands of global militaries. The U.S. Space Force vision whitepaper in 2020 outlined the requirement to support multi-bands, orbits, waveforms and a “network of networks to support responsive and agile operations.”
Along with traditional C2 (Command and Control) functions, autonomous applications such as unmanned surface and aerial vehicles (USV, UAV and UGVs) require strong, reliable connectivity to operate and be competitive on the battlefield. This serves as a network hub and backhaul for downstream communication using MANET, mesh and cellular networks that will enable autonomous system operations at scale.
Relying on a single network connection is insufficient to meet the complex and evolving needs of modern global forces, making multi-band beam switching a strategic necessity. This capability allows for simultaneous and redundant communication links, which are critical for maintaining operational integrity in contested or jamming-prone environments while on the move.
The technology was successfully demonstrated and validated at Kymeta on April 22, 2025. This achievement was made possible by Kymeta’s unique metamaterials antenna surface.
Until this point, interoperability in the Ku and Ka bands has been possible only with Electronic Steered Antennas (ESA) using multiple physically separate antennas, which proves problematic due to the size and power usage required to operate. This technological disruption by Kymeta allows connectivity in both bands in one single antenna, giving space efficiency, low power consumption, and low cost (SWaP-C).
How it works
The physical area of Kymeta’s multi-band antenna aperture consisting of four, interleaved sub-arrays—Ku transmit, Ku receive, Ka transmit and Ka receive—allows for simultaneous and independently controlled Ku and Ka full duplex beams from its metamaterials surface. Structuring the antenna in this way, and pairing it with advanced AI algorithms for intelligent routing, enables frequency reuse and alleviates spectrum contention via Kymeta’s narrower receive and transmit beams. These beams are more focused and operate at higher directivity, promoting spectrum efficiency and interference mitigation, such as GEO / LEO beam straying, jamming and adverse weather like rain fade and atmospheric losses.
Further Innovation / Funding
With the success of this innovative advancement, fueled by the company’s VC support and Silicon Valley spirit, Kymeta looks towards its next phase of growth and will be working with strategic investment partners, as well as key government programs, who share the company’s vision to scale this universal transformation.
Bruno Fromont, Intelsat CTO, said, “Transformative technology milestones like this spark a catalytic shift across an entire landscape. Kymeta’s ability to unify Ku- and Ka- band connections through a single mobile antenna is a foundational leap toward combined satellite networks, making communication as seamless and automatic as the cellular networks we use every day. This success is changing the game.”
Ian Canning, president and CEO of Eutelsat America Corp + OneWeb Technologies (EACOWT), said, “The U.S. DoD and defense forces around the globe require increasingly sophisticated, flexible and secure communications, which includes the need for high-performance, multi-band, multi-orbit connectivity from a single antenna. Kymeta’s ESA platform, reflecting their continued investment in innovation, is truly disruptive, and brings multi-orbit and multi-band capabilities into the modern era. I look forward to collaborating with Kymeta to develop world class satellite communication products that will open the door to the resilient communications required in the modern battlefield.”
General (ret) Paul J Kern, former Commanding General, Army Materiel Command, currently Senior Counselor, The Cohen Group, said, “Kymeta’s breakthrough in seamless switching between Ku and Ka satellite bands delivers the kind of resilient, always-on communications that advanced military platforms and autonomous systems demand. This is a major step forward in preparing and equipping our forces for the modern battlefield. This capability would have made an enormous difference to my operations in the desert of Iraq.”
Kymeta Chief Scientist, Ryan Stevenson, said, “At Kymeta we’ve never followed convention. What began as novel metamaterials technology is now a proven engineering foundation – first brought to market in 2017, and now central to this groundbreaking achievement. We’ve turned breakthrough physics into a powerful, trusted toolkit. Using this toolkit we have now addressed the most challenging requirement in satellite communications. We have cracked the code on seamless multi-orbit, multi-band connectivity – and have set the standard for next-generation satellite communications.”
