Detraxi - Virtualized Satellite Communications System

Traditional and new industries are capitalizing upon the vast capabilities of a ‘Cloud-Driven Ecosystem’…                               … Satellite Communications is well positioned to follow suit. The US Government and DoD share many similar requirements with the Commercial business segments, when it comes to satellite communications (SatCom), those primarily of unit cost, availability, and flexibility.  The USSF has made recent calls for SatCom solutions that offer resilient and affordable capabilities, including: - Overcoming adversaries working to deny, degrade, and destroy the satcom capabilities - Delivering capacity flexibility, terminal, and network agility, with cyber and link security - Management capability to view, synchronize and direct The USSF Vision for SatCom is difficult to envision being achieved with the rigid technologies and architecture of today’s SatCom philosophy. Detraxi has recognized the limitations of the SatCom domain and addresses them via a groundbreaking shift from current deployed architecture.  Today’s SatCom architecture relies on complex and expensive high-performance capabilities in-orbit. But space technology is restricted by its high cost, harsh environment, and inaccessibility.  The supply chain perpetuates the mantra of ‘all things in space’ developing higher priced onboard technology that will not keep pace with increasing user demands. But more importantly they place little emphasis on the ground component and how it is vitally critical of resolving the SatCom limitations. Detraxi resolves this two-fold, by removing the shackles of complex space hardware, and the hardcoded RF gateway infrastructure, via an architecture that enables the transformation to a fully software-defined domain. This is achieved primarily through the power, flexibility, and scalability of Cloud Computing and a virtualized SatCom ecosystem.  Detraxi incorporates a patented architecture that results in a softwarization of the gateway to spacecraft segment, enabling an environment that can deliver the government’s needs via digitized capabilities rather than inflexible stovepiped RF hardware. The essence of the architecture involves moving complex onboard capabilities in space down to the Cloud Computing domain, resulting in lower cost spacecraft asset.  Placing higher order functions into the cloud domain enables an adaptive capability not present in today’s SatCom design.  Placing the heavy lifting activities within the cloud provides advantages which can be unlocked through a Thick-Route Optical Feeder Link to the satellite. Such technology is anticipated to be developed and delivered in the next few years with the European Union currently in the lead. However, the US can be the first to establish and lead virtualized cloud computing satellite R&D.