ATLAS triples in size following integration with Viasat Real-Time Earth

ATLAS triples in size following integration with Viasat Real-Time Earth
by Staff Writers
Traverse City MI (SPX) Mar 10, 2023

ATLAS Space Operations, the leading Ground Software as a Service (GSaaS) provider, has announced a new partnership with Viasat Real-Time Earth (RTE). The partnership between ATLAS and Viasat RTE makes 10 new antennas within the Viasat network immediately available to ATLAS clients, with two additional antennas available by the end of the year.

For ATLAS, the partnership with Viasat represents another significant expansion of its federated global ground network of 44 sites after adding 11 ground sites belonging to AWS last month. The federated network is operated by ATLAS' proprietary communications and management software, Freedom.

Through Freedom, ATLAS clients easily onboard their missions and manage data flow and pass execution from a single point of entry while the software abstracts away all hardware differences. The result is a network of networks that enables users to access many ground networks through a single provider-ATLAS.

"Through our partnership with Viasat we are expanding the global footprint of our federated network and demonstrating the usefulness of software in the SATCOM marketplace," said Brad Bode, Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer of ATLAS Space Operations. Bode continued, "Developments like this are less about infrastructure implications, and more about the utility of software to enhance hardware capabilities. Through Freedom we are able to extract far greater value from existing hardware without incurring additional costs.

"Using software to create one common ground solution allows us to offer extensive capabilities atop data delivery, such as automated insight into pass performance, Copilot to enable rapid onboarding, a superb user interface, and our single TT&C entry point in the cloud, no matter the site. Most importantly for our clients, Freedom is flexible and accessible through our unified interface, which means as our federated network grows, new antennas are immediately available to clients without any software changes on their end."

"We view our partnership with ATLAS Space Operations as a true win-win for our companies and the industry," said John Williams, Vice President of Viasat RTE. "We are already seeing enormous interest in this joint approach. Government customers flying a variety of assets appreciate the diversity of antennas available to them through a single interface, while commercial customers see the value in more antennas in different locations to significantly reduce the latency between data collection and data delivery."

Beyond network capacity growth, the new partnership between ATLAS and Viasat opens new horizons for ATLAS clients through larger antennas. Most antennas in the Viasat RTE network are 7.3 meters and include Ka-band reception for remote sensing missions-ideal for high throughput connectivity and better signal strength to support further missions. With these larger apertures, clients can now contact satellites in MEO and GEO orbits, opening expanded orbits for satellite operators.