These services would ultimately be mission-critical to the agency, which would rely on them to replace NASA’s purpose-built, dedicated Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System (TDRSS). NASA and the US Congress have agreed to discontinue further TDRSS satellite builds and just let existing on-orbit assets fly out to their end of life.

But why is NASA relying on this new Communications Services Project (CSP) and industry partners for something so important as near-Earth space relay communication? And, after investing more than $275 million to seed this commercial market space, when will NASA – and other users – be able to leverage commercial relay services?

To get answers to these and other questions about CSP, we sat down with Eric Gunzelman of SES Space & Defense, a commercial satellite provider that was one of the six companies chosen by NASA for the CSP.

During our discussion, we asked Eric about why NASA is looking to the commercial satellite industry for this essential capability, how the agency will benefit from this arrangement, and the progress that SES Space & Defense is making with its partner, Planet Labs, on the LEO Relay System that is being developed in part with CSP funds.

Government Satellite Report (GSR): What is the TDRSS? What does it do, and why does NASA need it?

Eric Gunzelman: Since the first TDRSS launched 41 years ago, its main purpose has been to provide space relay capabilities for NASA. TDRSS has provided space relay capabilities for many notable programs, like Skylab, the Space Shuttle, Landsat, and the International Space Station—as well as the Hubble Space Telescope and even some firsts, like the first pole to pole phone call in April 1989.

Overall, 13 TDRSS satellites were built but TDRS-2 was lost with the 1986 Challenger accident. About six of those satellites remain operational and three are available for operational relay support at any time. By allowing NASA to relay data from lower orbits to satellites in higher orbits, NASA could effectively communicate with science satellites and space station crews and receive data at any time. They could even transmit data and communicate when no ground station was in view.

They’re incredibly important because NASA needs assured communications and connectivity in orbit. Even when the space shuttle or the International Space Station orbits the Earth over an ocean, and they cannot see a ground station, they still need connectivity. TDRSS delivers that assured, mission-critical connectivity.

GSR: Why transition to commercial satellites for this purpose?

Eric Gunzelman: Candidly, the TDRSS constellation is expensive to operate for NASA and government funding could be used for new endeavors, such as the Artemis program, which has NASA going back to the moon. Given technology advances and expanding market opportunities in the commercial sector, space relay could now be provided as a commercial service. This lowers the cost of service for NASA when costs are spread over a larger commercial market.

Commercial alternatives will drastically lower NASA’s initial capital expenditure. NASA will no longer have to pay to build and launch a new generation of TDRSS satellites and service them. They’ll also deliver some other benefits, including increased capabilities, innovation, and capacity.

“Think about what airlines, shipping companies, and farms can do with real-time weather data and imagery from space. It could bring great precision and decision speed to the commercial industry, as well as government agencies, helping to provide greater insights and lower operational costs.” – Eric Gunzelman

Commercial satellite providers have made incredible advancements in their technology and solutions in the 40-plus years since TDRSS was launched. Today, COMSATCOM providers operate incredibly high-throughput satellites across multiple orbits, including LEO and MEO. This makes it possible to transmit large amounts of data in near real-time with very low latency.

Also, large commercial satellite providers expanded their constellations, and new providers came online in that time. There is a massive ecosystem of commercial satellites across multiple orbits that have a tremendous amount of capacity for government missions.

Today, TDRSS’s capacity is limited and requests for service can take weeks to get approved. This means that some requests for service either can’t be filled or will be deprioritized for other, more important missions. That won’t be an issue for commercial satellite providers since there is so much capacity available.

GSR: Where are we in this process? How far off are we from having commercial services replacing TDRSS?

Eric Gunzelman: In the latter half of last decade, NASA developed the supporting analyses and presented the business case to Congress. Legislation evolved and eventually declared that the U.S. government would let the TDRSS program fly out and let NASA work with the commercial industry to develop a space relay commercial market with requisite capabilities that can effectively replace TDRSS functionality.

“The test that we conducted was effectively the first-ever multi-orbit, multi-band commercial space relay link to a LEO flight-representative terminal on the ground. The next step in our partnership with Planet involves an actual flight demonstration.” – Eric Gunzelman

NASA competed the Communications Services Project (CSP) in 2021 and selected six companies for the varied approaches to space relay – different orbits, bands, etc. CSP gave these companies seed money to begin finding ways to turn their solutions into a relay system.

The chosen companies are now in the process of maturing various solutions and conducting testing to ensure it will meet NASA’s needs and requirements by the 2026-2027 timeframe. Once they have various options across multiple bands and orbits, NASA will take those options and present them to NASA and U.S. government users so that they can design their relay requirements against what is available.

GSR: I understand that SES Space & Defense has partnered with Planet Labs for its CSP contract. What role does SES SD play in this? What role does Planet Labs play?

Eric Gunzelman: SES Space & Defense is providing the space and ground segment of our relay solution. Our MEO and GEO satellites, along with our ground segment, will provide multi-band, multi-orbit relay from LEO satellites.

Planet Labs will provide the NASA surrogate satellite, one of their Earth Observation satellites for the relay capability testing. They’re effectively using their LEO spacecraft and earth observation mission to approximate a NASA science mission.

While this sounds simple—relaying data from Planet’s LEO satellite to our MEO and GEO satellites—significant work needs to occur to enable this relay since it was not designed into our satellites originally. Nonetheless, SES prides itself in building open, agnostic architectures so incorporating relay as an additional function is highly doable.

“Given technology advances and expanding market opportunities in the commercial sector, space relay could now be provided as a commercial service. This lowers the cost of service for NASA when costs are spread over a larger commercial market.” – Eric Gunzelman

And for Planet, that work includes the design and development of space-rated LEO communications terminals needed to talk to our MEO and GEO satellites.  They have been an excellent partner for SES Space & Defense, shouldering much of the heavy lifting associated with developing and deploying the space-rated LEO terminals.

GSR: Is this something that only NASA and military users will benefit from? Or could these space relay solutions also benefit commercial users?

Eric Gunzelman: This new capability will be incredibly beneficial for commercial users as well as government users. Planet is a commercial satellite imagery provider, and we purposely teamed with them because they represent an excellent use case in which to demonstrate relay capability to NASA using a similar mission set but also do it from a commercially based platform in operation today.

As such, Planet as a representative of commercial satellite imagery services, shows how NASA could be one of many customers in this new market. And then, for almost any mission, relaying that data through MEO or GEO satellites provides a more responsive option for users verses waiting to overfly the next ground station before getting time-critical science data to the ground for NASA or others to analyze. This means the data can be delivered—including imagery—from space in almost real-time.

That can be huge for many industries. Think about what airlines, shipping companies, and farms can do with real-time weather data and imagery from space. It could bring great precision and decision speed to the commercial industry, as well as government agencies, helping to provide greater insights and lower operational costs.

GSR: Last month, SES Space & Defense and Planet Labs announced that the companies had successfully tested the service. What did this test involve? What’s next?

Eric Gunzelman: The test that we conducted was effectively the first-ever multi-orbit, multi-band commercial space relay link to a LEO flight-representative terminal on the ground. The next step in our partnership with Planet involves an actual flight demonstration. That is scheduled early 2025 and – if successful – sets the stage for the launch of our service offering.

The post Exploring the Benefits of CSP For NASA and Industry appeared first on SES Space and Defense.

In an effort to evaluate and begin tapping into the accelerated innovation coming out of the COMSATCOM industry, NASA has created the Communications Services Project (CSP), an agency initiative that seeks to harness commercial industry’s advances in order to, “…ensure NASA missions have the reliable, secure and continual space communications on which their long-term operations depend.”

NASA recently announced that SES Space and Defense, in partnership with Planet Labs (Planet), will be awarded a Funded Space Act Agreement to support the development and demonstration of near-Earth space relay communication services in support of the agency’s future mission needs.

To learn more about the CSP, why SES Space and Defense was chosen to support the project, as well as how the company’s O3b mPOWER satellite constellation will deliver near-Earth comms capabilities to NASA, the Government Satellite Report recently sat down with Eric Gunzelman, a Senior Director at SES Space and Defense.

Here is what he had to say:

Government Satellite Report (GSR): What is the NASA Communications Services Project? What are they looking to deliver communications and connectivity for?

Eric Gunzelman: NASA’s Communication Services Project (CSP) is primarily focused on pioneering the future of NASA’s near-Earth space communications and evaluating the feasibility of leveraging commercial SATCOM networks to reliably support future NASA missions, particularly through space relay, also known as satellite-to-satellite communications.

NASA has recognized the growth in commercial satellite technology and the maturation of that technology to now handle communications relay through space, as a more efficient, cost-effective alternative to the purpose-built TDRSS that NASA has operated for decades.

TDRSS is a highly capable satellite that sits in Geostationary Orbit (GEO) and provides relay services to NASA science missions at Low Earth Orbit (LEO), with the highest-profile one being the relay mission from the International Space Station (ISS).

Sometimes these LEO satellites are not always in view of the ground station, but NASA investigators still need immediate access to the scientific data collected. TDRSS functions to relay that scientific data to the ground immediately even when the LEO satellite is not in view of an earth station.

For example, Johnson Space Center can communicate to astronauts who may be on the other side of the Earth, via the 24/7 direct communication TDRSS enables.

GSR: Why is NASA looking to replace TDRSS? Why is commercial satellite a viable or preferred candidate to replace TDRSS?

Eric Gunzelman: The main reason is the expense. It costs a lot of money to build your own purpose-built constellation of satellites to cover the globe. NASA believes that the commercial technology marketplace has matured enough to enable reliable space relay capabilities. As a case in point, the commercial imagery industry has matured to the point of providing high-resolution photographs that we have all seen on the national news throughout the Ukraine conflict.

NASA is providing the funding to not only help demonstrate these emerging COMSATCOM relay services, but also the “seed” money to develop the market such that NASA is one of many customers. If they can get CSP off the ground in a cost-share agreement to help create the market – but not be the sole proprietor of the service – then that will be a big win that will save the agency money over continuing to develop and launch a purpose-built TDRSS satellite system.

“O3b and SES have been operating in a mature MEO system since 2014, providing services to the U.S. government since 2016. They have delivered more than 10 gigabytes per second on 41 contracts. That experience and legacy will ensure that NASA is receiving a low-risk, high-payoff capability for space relay.” – Eric Gunzelman

GSR: Will SES Space and Defense be delivering capacity on GEO satellites only, or will it also be leveraging its Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) satellite constellation to deliver service to the CSP?

Eric Gunzelman: We will begin primarily with the hybrid, GEO/MEO concept. The long-term plan is to offer most of our services through MEO, due to its lower latency and higher throughput. However, we can provide services through GEO as well.

GSR: Why is the CSP so important for NASA? How has the agency’s connectivity and communications requirements changed and shifted to make connectivity in LEO so essential?

Eric Gunzelman: Most of NASA’s Earth-observing missions are in LEO because of its closer proximity to the Earth. And a lot of those scientific missions are best served if we can get the data back to the NASA Principal Investigator as soon as the event happens. This helps NASA understand the science as it happens on our planet, and enables NASA to identify any correlation with other events around the globe.

Currently, NASA science missions that operate in polar orbits sometimes need to wait up to 30 minutes to downlink their data to an earth station if they don’t have enough priority to use TDRSS.

GSR: How will delivering MEO capacity via O3b mPOWER better enable NASA missions in LEO? What will this make possible for them? What capabilities will it enable?

Eric Gunzelman: NASA has a handful of mission sets that can be serviced by relay, including launch and early orbit, as well as your standard LEO science missions. With our 50+ GEO satellites and new O3b mPOWER MEO constellation, we can service them without the need of being in view of a NASA ground station. This reduces the long-term costs for NASA, saving budgets on TDRSS procurement and ongoing operations and maintenance, and on the ground infrastructure required to support TDRSS.

“If [NASA] can get CSP off the ground in a cost-share agreement to help create the market – but not be the sole proprietor of the service – then that will be a big win that will save the agency money over continuing to develop and launch a purpose-built TDRSS satellite system.” – Eric Gunzelman

As noted earlier, NASA missions don’t always have access to TDRSS because of other mission priorities (such as manned flights/the ISS). There’s a priority structure. In addition, a market implies many vendors to choose from. So, in theory, NASA could have access to multiple providers so buying a service when they need it and only when they need it should save billions of dollars, averting the cost to build and maintain TDRSS.

In fact, NASA has been working on this effort for nearly a decade now. The Phase One studies showed that COMSATCOM technologies had advanced and matured to consider the market space. In fact, NASA has committed to Congress, as a result of their Phase One studies that they can get off of TDRSS by the early to mid-2030s, with some new missions capable of transitioning much sooner. The final TDRSS will fly out, and they will make use of their services as they can. But the current plan is to transition to commercial for new NASA missions beginning in 2026.

GSR: Why were SES Space and Defense and Planet chosen for this program? What role will SES Space and Defense play? What role will Planet play?

Eric Gunzelman: We were one of six vendors chosen by NASA — we offer the only mature non-GEO satellite system today, that being O3b constellation operating at MEO (8,062 km). This gives us a unique vantage point because we see more of the Earth at any one time than our LEO counterparts but we don’t suffer the high latencies of GEO satellites.

“Most of NASA’s Earth observing missions are in LEO…a lot of those scientific missions are best served if we can get the data back to the NASA Principal Investigator as soon as the event happens.” – Eric Gunzelman

Planet is chosen because they know how to build and launch LEO demonstration satellites with an Earth observation payload — they know how to build small efficient satellites with an earth-based mission (imaging in this case). Planet has launched nearly 200 satellites.

GSR: What is the timeline for the CSP? Is it up and working today? If not, when will it be operational?

Eric Gunzelman: It is a four-year demonstration program that will conclude with an operational service in the late-2025/early-2026 timeframe. Ideally, NASA wants to immediately transition from this demonstration program into operational service.

O3b and SES have been operating in a mature MEO system since 2014, providing services to the U.S. government since 2016. They have delivered more than 10 gigabytes per second on 41 contracts. That experience and legacy will ensure that NASA is receiving a low-risk, high-payoff capability for space relay. We are just moving the terminal from the ground to space, and bringing the connectivity along with it.

To learn more about the agreement between NASA, SES Space and Defense, and Planet click HERE.

The post Moving the Terminal from the Ground to Space – How COMSATCOM Will Enable the NASA Communications Services Project appeared first on SES Space and Defense.