General Atomics Aeronautical Systems (GA ASI) recently awarded Hughes Network Systems LLC a contract to provide satellite communications (SATCOM) on the “Type-Certifiable” Predator B remotely piloted aircraft (RPA) system, according to a Hughes executive.
Rick Lober, vice president and general manager of Hughes’ defense and intelligence and systems division, told sister publication Defense Daily March 9 at the Satellite 2017 conference in Washington the contract was a multi-million dollar deal, but he declined to provide details about the contract. Lober also declined to say who Hughes beat out for the deal, instead saying there was hefty competition by multiple sources.
Hughes, Lober said, will provide some of the company’s best modem type technology and waveforms. Hughes will provide customized Hughes HM200 modems that will facilitate the flexibility to employ the most appropriate frequencies for beyond-line-of-sight (BLOS) communications, according to a press release. Lober said Hughes will also perform some SATCOM systems integration.
Lober said these modems will provide more efficient waveforms, faster speeds and some capability in interference reduction. He added it will be fairly significant step up in capability to what has been traditionally used.
Lober said the term type-certifiable means the Predator B system has been designed structurally and with certain systems, including sense and avoid, that it can be certified to fly in civilian airspace. This excites Lober as he believes there could be a growing market due to civilian applications like firefighting and agriculture work.
The Type-Certifiable Predator B system provides the basis for the United Kingdom’s Protector program. The new aircraft is designed to be compliant with NATO and U.K. airworthiness requirements, supporting integration into segregated and non-segregated civil airspace operations around the world. Also known as SkyGuardian, the Type-Certifiable Predator B expects to meet initial European certification standards in 2017. General Atomics said Type-Certifiable Predator B will meet United States airworthiness certification standards in 2017.
Lober said this is Hughes’ first major, “fairly-large” RPA contract as the company has done smaller RPA work and fixed-wing type work. Lober said Hughes views airborne communications as a major focus area and that the company sees airborne intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, both manned and unmanned, as a pretty big market.
Hughes, Lober said, is looking at Class 3 RPAs as a potential market. These are aircraft that have less than 1,320 pounds max gross takeoff weight, operate below 18,000 mean sea level normal operating altitude and achieve a top speed of less than 250 knots, according to the Army. A similar Class 3 aircraft is the RQ-7B Shadow, developed by Textron’s [TXT] AAI division.
Hughes is also marketing its HeloSat product, which Lober said is specialized waveforms that pass through moving helicopter blades. Lober said Hughes is now producing the HeloSat system and expects contracts later in 2017. He said Hughes has mostly produced demos, so far, ranging in the 10s.
Hughes, Lober said, had been working under a Navy small business innovation research (SBIR) contract with the Navy. He said Hughes has been seeing domestic interest for HeloSat now that the company has demonstrated and “production-ized” the system. Lober, in a March 13 email, said this means Hughes packaged the modem in a military specification enclosure, added a new, smaller antenna and in addition to a diversity function. He said Hughes also made the package carry-on/carry-off capable.
Lober said that previously, there was little domestic interest in HeloSat due to logistics and price. He said if HeloSat was “doable,” it was fairly expensive because a potential customer would have to put the antenna on top of the rotor blades, which he said messes up the aerodynamics. Lober said it is expensive to run waveforms through rotor blades.
Hughes recently launched its Jupiter 2 satellite (also known as EchoStar XIX) in December. Lober said Jupiter 2, at 220 GB capacity, is the highest capacity available on the market and twice that of what the company launch three years ago. Lober said Hughes also introduced its Jupiter 2 airborne modem and combination Ku- and Ka-band antenna array.
Lober said Hughes is marketing both the Jupiter 2 satellite and the modem to serve a market that he called en route communications. An example of this, he said, would be soldiers that need to stay connected traveling to a destination. Lober said this modem would have applicability to Defense Department aircraft like C-130s or VIP type aircraft.
Hughes is a division of EchoStar [SATS]. Satellite 2017 is produced by Defense Daily parent company Access Intelligence.