Rivada signs with Aalyria
March 14, 2023
By Chris Forrester
Aalyria may be a new name for many but it was spun-off from Google in September 2022. The new company has won a significant contract with Rivada Space Networks (RSN) and its planned 600-strong mega-constellation of satellites. RSN has ordered the first 300 satellites from Terran Orbital and booked 12 rocket launches from SpaceX.
Aalyria was created together with some key networking and communications technologies developed “over many decades with Alphabet” and has landed an agreement with RSN to use Aalyria’s Spacetime platform to orchestrate the network for RSN’s planned LEO fleet.
RSN’s constellation will consist of 600 satellites interconnected via laser links. The solution will offer integrated core and edge connectivity over a single, global private network in space. The first satellite launch is set for 2025, with global service starting in 2026.
Aalyria’s Spacetime solution offers RSN’s unique architecture an advantage for finding the most robust and reliable means of communications between any two user terminals in the world through real-time analysis of millions of possible paths.
Aalyria says: “Spacetime is an advanced software platform designed for orchestrating and managing networks of satellites, ground stations, aircraft, ships, urban meshes, and more. Spacetime optimises and continually evolves the antenna link scheduling, network traffic routing, and spectrum resources — responding in real time to changing network requirements. Spacetime operates networks across land, sea, air, and space, at any altitude or orbit type, supports all radio frequency bands and optical wavelengths, and is designed for interoperability with legacy, hybrid space, 5G NTN and FutureG network architectures.”
Spacetime is unique in that it is asset and domain agnostic, meaning it can orchestrate networks across nearly anything that is connectivity-equipped on Earth or in Space. Spacetime was used internally at Google and Alphabet for nearly a decade, and most recently powered the communications network for Project Loon’s various deployments in Peru, Puerto Rico, and Kenya. The technology already has millions of flight hours orchestrating and managing airborne communications systems around the world. Spacetime is also being used by the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) to help develop secure internet connectivity throughout the space domain for both private and public sector customers.
Rivada’s constellation will offer access to a secure satellite network with pole-to-pole reach, offering end-to-end latencies similar to or better than terrestrial fibre. The Rivada network combines inter-satellite links with advanced onboard data routers creating an optical backbone in space to deliver ultra-secure and highly reliable global connectivity for business operations in the telecom, enterprise, maritime, energy and government services markets.
“Rivada’s first-of-its-kind constellation is exactly the type of next generation connectivity system Spacetime was designed to advance,” said Chris Taylor, CEO of Aalyria. “We built Spacetime to dynamically route communications across anything that flies or moves, on Earth or in space, to expand connectivity to people, places, and things that were previously thought unconnectable. We’re excited to add Rivada to our roster of world-class partners and look forward to working with them in the coming years.”
Clemens Kaiser, Chief Program Officer at RSN commented: “With our manufacturing and launch services contracts in place we are now moving at full speed on defining the optimal systems solutions to deliver our ground-breaking constellation. We are delighted to be integrating Aalyria’s Spacetime solution and look forward to demonstrating that our fully meshed laser space network, regenerative payload and beam hopping solution can be very efficiently orchestrated to provide unparalleled service performance for our customers.”