A KA-band satellite communications flight terminal will be designed for use by NASA terrestrial balloons to provide 10-mbps to 1-gbps satellite communications transmit links and low data rate…

This is a firm fixed-price purchase order awarded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Shared Services Center to Peersat LLC, a minority-owned, small disadvantaged, veteran-owned limited liability company, as a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Program Phase I action.

The contract is for the design and testing of a Ka-band satellite communications flight terminal to provide 10 Mbps to 1 Gbps satellite communications transmit links and low data rate command receive links for NASA's terrestrial balloons. The terminal will be capable of communicating with both commercial Ka-band satellites and NASA's Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System (TDRSS) satellites. Key testing will include evaluating the terminal's size, weight, and power (SWAP) efficiency, as well as its ability to track and handoff between different satellite constellations in geostationary, medium Earth, and low Earth orbits. The potential value of this SBIR Phase I contract is $122,158.

A KA-band satellite communications flight terminal will be designed for use by NASA terrestrial balloons to provide 10-mbps to 1-gbps satellite communications transmit links and low data rate command receive links using either commercial KA-band satellites or NASA tdrss satellites. The transmit KA-band frequencies of NASA tdrss satellites go up to 27.5-GHZ and are adjacent to the commercial kaband satellite frequencies starting at 27.5-GHZ, so this single KA-band flight terminal will be able to tune to both the NASA tdrss and commercial KA-band satellite frequencies. This KA-band flight terminal will be shown to have a lower size, weight, and power (SWAP) to the existing NASA balloon satcom terminals. A relatively low-cost 2-dimensional electronic beamforming antenna will be tested for its capability to point a high-gain antenna beam at the existing commercial or tdrss KA-band satellites in geostationary orbit (GEO) as the terrestrial balloon is moving slowly in relation to those GEO satellites. Testing will also be performed on the ability of this same beamforming antenna to point at and track existing O3B middle earth orbit (MEO) and telesat and spacex low earth orbit (LEO) KA-band satellites that will be moving much faster relative to the balloon. The performance of this KA-band flight terminal will change dramatically from 10-mbps to 1-gbps depending on which KA-band satellite and which satellite beam in which GEO, MEO, or LEO orbit the balloon's terminal decides to access. Software defined radio (SDR) waveform firmware and flight radio hardware will be tested through a channel simulator that uses software to simulate a moving NASA balloon successfully closing satcom links through satellites with different link characteristics. Beam to beam handovers, frequency channel interference mitigation, and the different doppler shift compensation needed for the different GEO, MEO, and LEO orbits will be tested in these simulations of the SDR firmware and hardware.