Kratos supports the satellite industry’s digital transformation with sales of virtual ground system products to more than 20 customers

Kratos Defense & Security Solutions, Inc., a leading provider of national security solutions, announced that in the first quarter of 2021 it delivered products supporting the movement of the satellite industry to virtualized terrestrial systems for 24 customers worldwide. These include products in Kratos’ quantum and SpectralNet lines, both of which are part of OpenSpace’s family of dynamic virtual ground solutions.

OpenSpace quantum products of Kratos offer software versions of satellite terrestrial system components that are traditionally used as hardware, such as modems and front-end processors (FEPs), needed to communicate with the satellite or its payload. Kratos quantum products are used by hundreds of satellite operators around the world, supporting tens of thousands of satellite passages per month.

Kratos SpectralNet products provide connection to modern virtual ground operations by reliably digitizing the radio frequency (RF) signals from the satellite in Internet Protocol (IP) format, which can be processed by digital systems running in the cloud, pre-hybrid and hybrid environments.

Quantum OpenSpace products (called virtual networking features or VNFs) are not only cheaper than the hardware they replace, they run at a lower cost and are more flexible to adapt more quickly to changing missions and conditions. For example, when it may take weeks to deploy system ground equipment, quantum VNFs can be deployed and configured to support different missions for hours. Kratos’ OpenSpace platform, the most advanced line in the OpenSpace family, can go even further, allowing satellite operators to deploy, configure and adapt entire networks in minutes, using its orchestrated software-defined network architecture (SDN).

Sales of OpenSpace quantum and OpenSpace SpectralNet products in the first quarter were concluded with satellite operators, manufacturers and service providers, including some of the world’s largest operators, New Space, leading contractors for the US government and directly to government agencies.

According to Kratos Vice President of Product Management Greg Quigel, “Quantum OpenSpace and OpenSpace SpectralNet product lines are a step towards space companies seeking to take advantage of the digital transformation of their terrestrial systems to support new goals and opportunities. Our recently launched OpenSpace platform takes the core technologies developed for quantum and SpectralNet to another level, providing a fully integrated approach to ground operations. “