LONGMONT, Colo.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Roccor, a Colorado-based disruptive military and commercial hardware supplier in the rapidly growing small satellite market, has created a deployable L-band antenna that makes possible the reception and transmission of Link 16 signals via spacecraft.

The project is in partnership with Viasat, Inc. (NASDAQ: VSAT), a global communications company, and the Air Force Research Laboratory Space Vehicles Directorate, and is part of the world’s first-ever Link 16-capable Low Earth Orbit (LEO) spacecraft demonstration mission called XVI, which will launch later this year.

Roccor’s helical, two-meter-long deployable RF aperture, will be extended and supported on-orbit by Roccor’s slit-tube composite ROC™ boom, a product the company has successfully demonstrated in space on three other antenna systems for top-tier military customers.

“This will significantly broaden the Link 16 tactical communications network capabilities,” explained Bruce Davis, Roccor’s director of Space Antenna and Deorbit Products. “Viasat came to us with a hard problem and a tight timeframe. They needed robust broadband capabilities – ‘big ears’ – to enable communications across a range of frequencies and they wanted to demonstrate it on a small satellite platform that is easily scalable to constellation-class missions. Our solution extends the range of Link 16 networks, substantially enhancing situational awareness and mission capabilities for U.S. military personnel operating across the global battlespace.”

According to Davis, the widely proliferated Link 16 tactical communication network is the preferred choice of U.S. Department of Defense customers and a number of NATO allies for communication between ships, aircraft, maritime vessels, and troops operating at the tactical edge.

“The Link 16 antenna development program is a success story we share with our XVI mission customer Viasat and our technology development sponsor AFRL,” said Mark Lake, Roccor’s chief technology officer. “Roccor’s satellite antenna portfolio has grown from years of investment in simple, low-cost deployment mechanism technologies – like the ROC™ boom system used to deploy the Link 16 antenna – that are revolutionizing deployment systems for constellation missions. The upcoming XVI antenna deployment comes on the heels of decades of research and development and millions of dollars of investment into high-strain composite deployment systems starting in the early 2000s at AFRL and reduced to flight-certified products at Roccor over the past five years.”

According to Lake, Roccor won an additional $3 million contract through Space and Missile Systems Center and AFRL space pitch day last fall to evolve the current Link 16 demonstration mission antenna into a production-ready design capable of serving the needs of upcoming constellation providers starting in 2021.

Late last year Ken Peterman, president, Government Systems, Viasat, said that “Roccor’s antenna will be vital to the success of the XVI program. This Link-16 capable Low Earth Orbit spacecraft will address the Department of Defense's urgent need for a fast-to-market, cost-effective, space-based Link 16 solution that will help our forces maintain the technological edge needed across today’s battlespace.”

About Roccor: Roccor was founded in 2012 and is based in Longmont, Colorado. It is a fast-growing, vibrant, high technology supplier into the aerospace and terrestrial military markets. Roccor’s novel designs address cost and performance limitations to revolutionize spaceflight and military operations. The company has contracts with NASA, the U.S. military, and commercial space companies all around the world and already has several deployable systems on orbit as of late 2019 and with numerous additional systems delivered and planned for launch in 2020. Visit Roccor at www.roccor.com.

About Viasat: Viasat is a global communications company that believes everyone and everything in the world can be connected. For more than 30 years, Viasat has helped shape how consumers, businesses, governments and militaries around the world communicate. Today, the Company is developing the ultimate global communications network to power high-quality, secure, affordable, fast connections to impact people's lives anywhere they are—on the ground, in the air or at sea. To learn more about Viasat, visit: www.viasat.com, go to Viasat's Corporate Blog, or follow the Company on social media at: Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter or YouTube.

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Lisa Metzger

720-771-4238

[email protected]

Source: Roccor

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