Surrey Satellite Technology (SSTL) and global satellite communications company Viasat have commenced operations of a new Viasat antenna system installed last November at SSTL’s headquarters in Guildford, UK.

This antenna system is part of the hybrid ground and space network, Viasat Real-Time Earth (RTE) network, which is intended to offer low-latency satellite data to users on-demand without using a dedicated antenna system.

SSTL will now be able to provide satellites with a complete range of ground services, thereby enabling quick data delivery to customers’ processing centres based on subscription.

A 5.4m full-motion antenna system can operate in both S and X-bands and be controlled from the Viasat Network Operation Centre in Colorado.

“SSTL’s satellites will now be able to utilise any of the ground stations within Viasat’s RTE network seamlessly with no hardware changes needed.”

The Guildford location is the latest to join Viasat’s rollout of the RTE network in the US, Argentina, Australia and Sweden.

Since its installation, this new antenna system has been used to command and control SSTL satellites, thereby completely testing out the network architecture.

Seamless routing from the Guildford operations centre through the RTE network to the satellites has been achieved and now final testing is underway with completion expected by the end of this month.

Viasat antenna systems general manager Kent Leka said: “Viasat and SSTL have worked closely together on the integration of SSTL specific uplink and downlink protocols into the RTE ground station equipment to achieve ‘plug-n-play’ compatibility between the satellites and SSTL’s satellite operations centre (SOC). SSTL’s satellites will now be able to utilise any of the ground stations within Viasat’s RTE network seamlessly with no hardware changes needed.”

The payload data share customers of SSTL, including of those that have signed up for the NovaSAR mission, will benefit from the convenient access to payload data through the option of a bundled payload and network access contract.

SSTL satellite operations, ground segments and mission services head James Northam, said: “The ability to use the Viasat RTE network with plug-n-play compatibility to SSTL’s protocols opens a new range of options for our customers who now have the option to use the RTE network to download data from their satellites without the need to invest in a ground station infrastructure of their own.”

Customers can also invest in their own ground segment infrastructure, use the RTE network, or opt for both.

Northam added: “The addition of RTE will bring a substantial flexibility to our mission offerings and we look forward to introducing these new concepts into our mission portfolio over the coming months.”