Sweden upgrades Ka-band system
November 25, 2021
By Chris Forrester
Swedish Space Corporation (SSC) has upgraded its polar and equatorial locations to support Ka-band data reception and has rolled out a global Ka-band network mainly focused on Earth Observation (EO) missions. This important milestone will enable EO missions to use higher bandwidths and receive larger data volumes, allowing space companies to use their assets more effectively.
The upgrade spans SSC’s strategic locations in Punta Arenas in Chile, Sri Racha in Thailand, Inuvik in Canada and Esrange in Sweden, as well as the SSC partner station in Weilheim, Germany.
The network upgrade builds on the recent work where Ka-band capability was added to SSC’s polar sites in Canada and Sweden. While the polar stations provide large data volumes at good latency, the equatorial stations allow increased volumes and enabling timeliness coverage for selected regions. The expansion continues as the company plans for complementary Ka-band featured antennas, starting with the two new radome antennas introduced in northern Sweden in 2021.
“We are very happy to introduce the world’s first global Ka-band network for Earth Observation missions. SSC always strives to offer ground support that reflects the size and ambitions of the Market. This investment meets the growing demand of higher throughput capability for Earth Observation missions”, said Miranda Pirrie, President Satellite Management Services at SSC.
“By operating a global network which contains both polar and equatorial stations with a high level of redundancy, we advance our position as a leading supplier of ground connectivity for Earth Observation operations. But it does not stop there, we keep on strengthening our network to feature the most advanced technical properties“, says Patrik Melvås, Head of Business Development SaMS at SSC