Robert Wright, Jr., (U.S. Air Force Colonel, retired) is the Senior Vice President of Integral Systems’ Military and Intelligence Group. Before assuming his current role, Colonel Wright served as Commander of the Space Innovation & Development Center at Schriever AFB, Colorado. His long career in space and communications includes commanding two communications squadrons and a communications group, including a one-year deployed tour supporting Operation Southern Watch. He held several key staff positions, including Executive Officer to the Director, National Reconnaissance Office, as well as aide-de-camp and Executive Officer to the Commander, United States Central Command. Colonel Wright has earned numerous awards and decorations including the Legion of Merit, the Defense Meritorious Service Medal with one oak leaf cluster, and the Air Force Commendation Medal.

Bo Norton joined Vizada in 2003 and is responsible for all facets of service and support for Vizada’s service providers, distributors and agents working with all US government agencies. At Vizada, Norton was responsible for developing a number of key industry firsts including the first L-band Aeronautical Leasing Program for the Closed User Group (CUG) in conjunction with Inmarsat and a key Service Provider partner. Now in its second year, this growing leasing program provides assured access for government customers all over the world and around the clock.

Terry Magee is executive vice president in charge of Wavestream’s business development, sales, marketing and product management. Terry’s distinguished career is marked by 27 years of service in the U.S. Navy as a Naval aviator with extensive operational experience and tours on staffs and in the Pentagon. His four command tours included command of two Aviation Squadrons on the Duluth and the Kitty Hawk.

There are many X-band and Ku-band satellite tracking antennas for On-The-Move (OTM) applications, but only a few products have been developed for Ka-band. With the deployment of the Wideband Gapfiller Satellites (WGS) the demand for OTM Terminals at Ka-band will increase.

Most of the Network Management Systems (NMS) solutions on the market today evolved out of Monitor and Control (M&C) solutions. Operators at an Earth station relied on the M&C system to monitor and control one or more antennas’ RF equipment without having to walk amongst the racks in order to determine if there was a failure on any piece of equipment. As network operators acquired or built out more infrastructure to meet the ever growing demand for bandwidth from their customers, M&C systems were forced to evolve into the NMS solutions on the market today.

There are many operational and environmental conditions which adversely affect military satellite communications, impairing network performance and consuming valuable bandwidth. While satellite communications enable mobility and communications in remote locations, satellite-based Internet connectivity suffers due to adverse weather, interference, high-latency and transport and application protocol inefficiencies.

Cisco Systems wants to put a router on every communications satellite — the networking giant has already sent the first one into space. The company announced today that the router has successfully completed initial in-orbit tests, after being launched November 23 aboard the Intelsat 14 communications satellite into geosynchronous orbit, 22,300 miles above the Earth.

A complete SDR-based BGAN radio was successfully demonstrated at the SDR Forum Conference and Exhibition 2009 in Washington D.C. in December. The demo revealed the result of the joint SDR program completed by GateHouse, Inmarsat, and Spectrum Signal Processing by Vecima (Spectrum) and gave evidence that BGAN SDR-based satellite communication (SATCOM) is an opportunity readily at hand for manufacturers of military radios.

A principal objective of recent U.S. Department of Defense telecommunication transmission policy is to simplify its integrated wireless networks. To reach that objective, DoD policy includes a reduction in the number of available wireless waveforms and corresponding network hardware.

Historically there have existed far fewer choices for Ka-band amplifier products than their lower frequency counterparts. Factor in military grade Ka-band amplifiers and the selection becomes even more scarse. Paradise Datacom has released a new family of Ka-band LNAs and SSPAs that build upon their tradition of highly reliable SatCom amplifier products. These products are suitable for deployment in demanding military applications such as Wideband Gapfiller Satellite (WGS) terminals.

All satellite communications links are subject to uncertainties and variations in equipment, environmental and atmospheric effects, and random variables that make satellite communications link design as much art as science. While tools are available for developing link budgets, the decisions and assumptions that really determine link performance come from careful consideration of all aspects of the link itself.