Miniature WCDMA Payload

The MUOS Satellite provides a S-WCDMA Bent pipe to a Terrestrial Base Station. The proposed MUOS-Aero provides a B-Band surrogate for the satellite that provides a S-WCDMA or WCDMA bent pipe to a MUOS-Aero compatible Base Station. This architecture would allow standard MUOS terminals to operate in mountainous or extremely northern or southern latitudes that cannot see the MUOS satellites. An in-theater base station would provide local calls and potentially reach back for global coverage through polar satellites. The MUOS-Aero design makes use of technology developed by Assurance Technology Corporation for the Naval Research Laboratory, Code 8120. This Software Reprogrammable Payload technology has off-the-shelf RF modules that would be reprogrammed with a MUOS compatible bent-pipe waveform to demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed MUOS-Aero architecture during Phase I. The proposed approach would be extended into a low cost (~$25K in 50 unit quantity) MUOS-Aero product during a Phase II development.