Singapore’s AddValue Technologies has signed an agreement with New Space Earth observation satellite company Open Cosmos for the provision of AddValue’s Inter-Satellite Data Relay System (IDRS™) that will link the Open Cosmos constellation in orbit in real time.
This partnership will provide continuous communication and “data-burst as-a-service” to constellation-based remote sensing and Internet of Things (IoT) businesses. It will allow Open Cosmos’s nanosatellites to stay in continuous communications with their operation centre on the ground, enabling mission tasking and mission data delivery in near real time. The combination of light weight, small form factor, and a low cost system also makes it suited for carrying out telemetry, tracking, and command (TT&C) communications, mission tasking, trouble-shooting, and restoring operations.
This agreement builds on Addvalue’s Inter-Satellite Data Relay System (IDRS™) capability and Open Cosmos’s satellite-as-a-service, offering to service a range of customer applications needing near-real time connectivity. The Addvalue terminal on-board the satellite will communicate to its operations centre via Inmarsat’s global space and ground network.
Open Cosmos and Addvalue are working together to prequalify the technical integration of the IDRS™ terminal with a qbee satellite platform. Customers of Open Cosmos can then expect rapid deployment of the IDRS™ capability on any of the qbee satellite platforms from 6U, 12U to 50kg as Open Cosmos will have IDRS™ terminals readily available on its qbapp marketplace™ from 2019.
“This partnership to provide an IDRS™ terminal tailored to the qbee satellite platform as an add-on function will enable us to shorten our turnaround time to deploy the IDRS™ service as and when real-time connectivity is required by Open Cosmos customers,” said Dr Colin Chan, Chairman and CEO at Addvalue.
“Many of our space mission customers have been asking for near-real time communications with our qbee satellites,” said Rafel Jorda Siquier, Founder and CEO of Open Cosmos. “Addvalue is using our simple-i service to fully qualify the compatibility of its IDRS™ in our qbkit and when that is done we will be able to offer it as an off-the-shelf service in all our satellites.”
UK-based Open Cosmos provides simple and affordable space missions. Based at Harwell Campus, it was founded in 2015 with the goal of enabling companies to use space technologies for tackling global challenges.
Addvalue Innovation Pte Ltd, a wholly-owned subsidiary of SGX Mainboard-listed Addvalue Technologies Ltd (A31), is a one-stop digital, wireless, and broadband communications technology products innovator, providing state-of-the-art satellite-based communication terminals and solutions for a variety of voice and IP based data applications.
