SATCOM USER TERMINALS
Supporting Military And Commercial Platforms
When you need reliable, secure and high-speed communications, Ball Aerospace’s industry-leading line of electronically steerable antennas (ESAs) deliver. Ball’s antenna solutions are proven and leverage more than 50 years of phased array design and manufacturing techniques. We are bringing the power of planar phased arrays to today’s SATCOM challenges. Our antenna solutions provide unmatched flexibility to meet any use case, enabling customizable and affordable ESAs for government, military and commercial markets.
ESAs are software controlled to instantaneously track and connect highly mobile users to GEO, MEO and LEO satellites. Our ESA technology is interoperable across satellite networks and can be adapted to land, air and maritime platforms.
The ESA Value Proposition:
• Delivering low profile, high bandwidth terminal solutions to mobile platforms
• Electronic beam steering improves communication reliability by eliminating mechanical moving parts
• Keeping mobile platforms locked onto the satellite in the most extreme environments, ensuring high performance communications
• Instantaneously electronic beam switching between satellites enables the next generation of Low Earth Orbit/Medium Earth Orbit (LEO/MEO) constellations
• Supporting communications requirements of today and tomorrow with a singled future proof antenna
Ku- and Ka-Band SATCOM Antennas and Terminals
Ball Aerospace's Ku- and Ka-Band phased array antennas feature our innovative subarray antenna architecture. The subarray is an environmentally-sealed ESA building block. The image to the right shows a subarray with its housing facing up. The opposite side of this subarray has the radiating elements and integrated radome. A terminal's transmit and receive antenna sizes are optimized by tiling multiple subarrays together to meet requirements as shown in the figure below.
Ball Aerospace’s subarray architecture brings affordable ESA technology to the SATCOM market. Affordability is achieved through our innovative architecture and manufacturing scale. Our subarrays are fully electronic with no unique materials or complex assembly processes. This allows the antennas to be assembled in volume, minimizing cost. The subarray architecture drives economies of scale for all users, cost is driven down as volumes increase. The subarrays support both military and commercial use cases, including in-flight connectivity (IFC), communications on the move (COTM) and communications on the pause (COTP).
In-Flight Connectivity
Revolutionizing Airline Connectivity
Ball ESAs Support Alaska Airlines
Intelsat was selected by Alaska Airlines to implement in-flight Wi-Fi using Ball’s electronically steered antenna (ESA).
In-flight Connectivity Demo
OneWeb and Stellar Blu Solutions successfully delivered broadband in-flight connectivity to a commercial aircraft via low-earth orbit (LEO) satellites and a Ball-built electrically steered antenna (ESA).
New In-Flight Connectivity Solution
Intelsat launches new IFC solution for airline customers using Ball Aerospace’s electronically steered antenna (ESA) technology to enable flexible access to GEO and LEO satellites.
SUB-ARRAY ARCHITECTURE AND COST
Commercial Phased Arrays
We are connecting people, technologies and markets with our commercial phased array antennas.
SATCOM GROUND SYSTEMS
Tracking, Telemetry & Commanding
When it comes to supporting an ever-increasing fleet of space assets and providing users with reliable network operations, we offer emerging and affordable technology that is ready for operation.
Ball Aerospace’s proven S- and L-band multibeam phased array technology help address many challenges military and commercial customers are facing in modernizing ground antennas to meet the needs of tomorrow’s LEO, MEO and GEO constellations.
Our leading-edge ESAs instantaneously track and connect with multiple live satellites via L/S band frequencies for commanding, telemetry and ranging.