Person holding a nanosatellite. Credit: tacophish05/ Flickr.

SCISYS has secured a contract from Sky and Space Global (UK) (SAS) to provide the network management simulator for the latter’s Pearls nanosatellite constellation.

Known as Pearls Constellation Simulator (PearlSim), it is expected to be delivered over a 12-month period.

PearlSim will be designed as a high-fidelity, high-performance, configurable, scalable and portable solution to represent the Pearls constellation, its communication infrastructure, customer activity and mission operations.

It will also be able to integrate the network-management and fuel-consumption optimisation algorithms to help SAS analyse the assessment of its algorithms’ performance and operational concepts’ validity.

“This is an important step bringing us closer to building the operations of a full constellation of nanosatellites.”

The analysis is expected to help SAS to fine-tune operations quickly and effectively, as well as maximise service provision and minimise operational costs and time to service.

SAS managing director and CEO Meir Moalem said: “This is an important step bringing us closer to building the operations of a full constellation of nanosatellites.

“It also signifies our continuous commitment to building strong relationships with leading space industry players in the UK and beyond.

“This partnership will further boost our technological capabilities and help us build a satellite communications network infrastructure which is considered state-of-the-art in the industry.”

The SAS Pearls constellation is expected to comprise 200 highly autonomous narrow-band communication nanosatellites in selected orbits by 2020.

The constellation will be developed to offer equatorial coverage of Earth and is set to create an affordable global communication network for voice, data and instant messaging for more than three billion people currently living without any access to mobile coverage.