SpaceQ Space news and analysis.
The Satellite 2020 conference has been a busy one for Kymeta who have made a slew of announcements including today’s agreement with Kepler Communications.
Kymeta is well known for advancing flat-panel satellite antenna technology. Kepler are building a Low Earth Orbit constellation for the global satellite data backhaul services for wideband and Internet of Things applications.
The Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between Kepler and Kymeta will see the integration of Kepler’s Global Data Service into the Kymeta u8 Terminal and Kymeta Connect offering.
Kymeta had just announced the u8 Electronically Steered Antenna Platform yesterday. They also announced a hybrid network platform with Cubic.
According to the joint press release “this product collaboration envisions Kymeta combining the value proposition of Kepler’s low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite service with the best aspects of traditional (Geostationary) satellite communications and 4G/LTE communications networks. The relationship builds upon the successful integration work announced by Kepler in mid-2019, when Kepler demonstrated compatibility between its LEO satellites and the Kymeta™ u7 electronically steered antenna (ESA), becoming the first LEO operator to do so.”
Mina Mitry, Chief Executive Officer at Kepler said of the agreement “by expanding the capabilities of their Kymeta Connect product with our high-capacity data backhaul service, Kymeta is delivering on an ask we often hear from users – ‘How do I access all available communications technologies to serve my requirements? Customers want solutions that are ready to go and easy to deploy. Kymeta Connect, with the Kymeta u8 Terminal, tick both those boxes. By deploying Kepler’s Global Data Service with Kymeta Connect, the offering becomes much more powerful and able to address the requirements of a greater range of users that traditional providers are unable to accommodate.”
David Harrower, Senior Vice President of Global Sales at Kymeta commented saying “we are extremely excited about the collaboration with Kepler as it finally brings to market the promise of LEO capacity to deliver connectivity to the mobility markets. By adopting the latest and best technical capabilities, we believe we deliver what the market has demanded in terms of mobile connectivity and have done so by bringing flexible and commercially viable service offerings made possible by each party’s technical advancements.”
Kepler currently has two demonstration satellites on orbit, CASE and KIPP. A third, TARS, will launch sometime this spring. Beyond their initial three demonstration satellites, KIPP, CASE and TARS, Kepler’s next batch of satellites they are building in-house are known as GEN 1, or Generation 1. These will be the first fully operational satellites in their constellations. Two of those satellites will launch this year on a commercial Soyuz-2.1a rocket with GK Launch Services in Q3 of this year followed by several more on a couple of SpaceX missions.
