{"id":66079,"date":"2018-02-15T21:07:15","date_gmt":"2018-02-15T13:07:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/infostellar-unveils-leop-support-service-for-amateur-operators\/"},"modified":"2018-02-15T21:07:15","modified_gmt":"2018-02-15T13:07:15","slug":"infostellar-unveils-leop-support-service-for-amateur-operators","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/infostellar-unveils-leop-support-service-for-amateur-operators\/","title":{"rendered":"Infostellar Unveils LEOP Support Service for Amateur Operators"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n

The \u201cAirbnb for satellite antennas\u201d is introducing a new software platform to support the Launch and Early Orbit Phase (LEOP) for amateur Ultra High-Frequency (UHF) satellites. Tokyo-based startup Infostellar<\/strong>\u2019s platform, called StellarStation Amateur, is a precursor to the company\u2019s full StellarStation service, which will allow users to track and download telemetry data from their satellites once it goes live later this year.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s safe to say that many anomalies that could endanger the success of a mission occur shortly after launch. During LEOP, operators work around the clock to ensure their satellite\u2019s subsystems deploy nominally, such as its solar arrays and antennas, as well as to manage attitude control maneuvers as the satellite coasts to its orbital slot. The goal of StellarStation Amateur is to give operators improved situational awareness about how their satellites are behaving during this critical time frame.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\"a\"
Naomi Kurahara, CEO and co-founder of Infostellar. Photo: Infostellar.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

According to the company\u2019s CEO Naomi Kurahara, Infostellar doesn\u2019t necessarily expect to reap much profit from the launch of StellarStation Amateur. Rather, the platform will act as a testbed for Infostellar\u2019s network management software, which Kurahara said is the \u201ckey technology\u201d behind the company\u2019s flagship service set to debut in the third quarter of this year.<\/p>\n

Essentially, Infostellar intends to generate additional value for satellite operators by connecting them to more antennas on the ground to downlink data from space. Satellites operating in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) can only communicate with ground stations for about 30 minutes per day, meaning there is a lot of downtime in between its communications windows.<\/p>\n

Infostellar itself doesn\u2019t intend to own any antennas \u2014 instead, it will act as a broker between operators and owners of ground stations. Already, it has formed partnerships with All Nations University College<\/strong> in Ghana, BRAC University<\/strong> in Bangladesh, the Kyushu Institute of Technology<\/strong> in Japan, and the National Cheng Kung University<\/strong> in Taiwan. In total, Infostellar\u2019s network comprises 10 different locations spread across the globe, with more to come in the near future.<\/p>\n

The beta version of StellarStation will be limited to UHF band satellites, Kuraharasaid, but the company plans to expand its support to S-, X-, and Ka-band soon after public release this year.<\/p>\n

While Kurahara expects many of Infostellar\u2019s customers to operate remote sensing satellites, the StellarStation platform itself is mission-agnostic. \u201cMany satellites planned to launch this year are using amateur frequencies,\u201d she said. \u201cSome of them are from universities but also companies use amateur band to demonstrate their technologies.\u201d<\/p>\n

One such example is France\u2019s Picsat satellite, launched in January on a Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV). Developed by the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), Picsat uses amateur band spectrum to transmit its photometry measurements of an exoplanet orbiting the 23 million-year-old star Beta Pictoris. Active satellites on the commercial side using amateur band include NanoAvionics\u2019<\/strong> LituanicaSat 2 and GomSpace\u2019s <\/strong>GOMX 1. Kurahara predicts \u201chundreds of academic and non-commercial UHF satellites\u201d will be orbited this year, supplying a healthy customer base for StellarStation Amateur.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe customers in general \u2026 don\u2019t care if the service is a sharing model,\u201d Kurahara said \u2014 operators simply want an easy and cost-effective way to get their data to and from space. Once an operator signs up for the service, they receive an antenna-sharing device that grants them access to Infostellar\u2019s cloud-based platform. To allay cybersecurity concerns, Infostellar is including a \u201ctight firewall\u201d on the module and also uses a Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) on all nodes to ensure secure transport of data.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery time we get a new satellite we don\u2019t want to change the hardware,\u201d Kurahara said. \u201cSo, we do the data processing on the cloud.\u201d One of the major challenges she highlighted for Infostellar is customizing the network to support each satellite\u2019s varying communication protocol. The company is taking steps, however, to ensure that \u201cindividual customizations per user will become as few and as simple as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

Infostellar closed out a successful Series A financing round in September, collecting about $7.3 million in funds from a group of private investors led by Airbus Ventures<\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The \u201cAirbnb for satellite antennas\u201d is introducing a new software platform to support the Launch and Early Orbit Phase (LEOP) for amateur Ultra High-Frequency (UHF) satellites. Tokyo-based startup Infostellar\u2019s platform, called StellarStation Amateur, is a precursor to the company\u2019s full StellarStation service, which will allow users to track and download telemetry data from their satellites […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":64454,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-66079","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66079"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66079"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66079\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64454"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66079"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66079"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66079"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}