Viasat Inc. announced the successful launch of the Maxwell satellite as part of a demonstration mission for the NASA Communications Services Project (CSP). The mission is an important milestone in the fulfillment of two NASA contracts with a total cost 81 million dollars. The program is aimed at accelerating the agency's transition from the aging Tracking and Data Relay Satellite system (TDRS) to commercial non-terrestrial communication networks. This is Viasat's second demonstration mission within the CSP.
The Maxwell satellite is manufactured by Rocket Lab at a facility in Long Beach. The device provides power supply, orientation and movement. A Ka-band terminal is installed on board to work with the ViaSat-3 cluster, an L-band terminal based on Rocket Lab's Frontier radio, as well as direct communication channels with the Viasat Real-Time Earth terrestrial network in the S bands, X and Ka.
The management of the company noted, that continuous intersatellite communication eliminates delays, related to the use of ground stations. The demonstration should show the capabilities of commercial services to ensure continuous access, device management and data collection in real time.
Viasat's operations team began orbital operations as part of a five-month demonstration campaign, which will last until March 2027 year. The tests will verify low-latency data transmission over the HaloNet architecture.
Successful completion of the mission will qualify commercial space-to-space links for future NASA research and commercial missions in low Earth orbit.
Source: https://satnews.com