Viasat, Inc. (NASDAQ: VSAT) confirmed that NASA has chosen it to back its Communications Services Project (CSP). Communications Services Project (CSP) aims to speed up the development of near-Earth communications by collaborating with commercial satellite communications (SATCOM) providers.
Viasat is developing a space relay capability that will use its upcoming ViaSat-3 global satellite constellation and a newly developed terminal to allow on-demand and cost-effective communications services for LEO spacecraft anywhere at any time in their global orbit, matched with the CSP objectives.
Viasat will use NASA's CSP initiative to speed up the deployment of its space relay services to help commercial and government NGSO operators, whether their spacecraft are performing atmospheric analysis or swiftly transporting data to help warfighters at the tactical edge. By allowing adjustable transport choices between the RTE ground network and ViaSat-3, Viasat's unified space relay network will provide the best of both worlds.
This is projected to significantly reduce data latency by providing a low-cost option for time-critical, latency-sensitive data transfer, as well as several daily opportunities to downlink massive volumes of data over a worldwide ground network. With locations in North America, South America, Europe, Australia, and Africa, the Viasat RTE network now spans five continents.
Furthermore, Viasat's existing RTE service has already saved satellite operators money by eliminating the need to build and operate a costly global network of ground station antennas to gather information from the LEO satellite; however, operators must wait until their satellites pass over a ground station before downlinking their data. This causes delay, which can extend anywhere from minutes to hours. The ViaSat-3 geostationary orbit (GEO) network, which will contain three Terabit-class high-throughput satellites, will enable LEO operators to transport data in real-time from any point in LEO orbit.