Syncom Legacy: Glimpsing the Future
Syncom 2, built by Satellite Development Center and launched in 1963, blazed the trail for hundreds of communications, defense, and weather-monitoring satellite systems that have touched virtually everyone on Earth. What could possibly remain to be accomplished in the 2000s and beyond?
Plenty, according to Jim Simpson, Director of Business Development for SDC, which is developing a raft of new technologies and applications.
SDC strategy in the fifth decade after Syncom calls for focusing on key government programs, competing in commercial areas where SDC has discriminators, leveraging commercial and government synergies, and translating the enterprise's offerings into end-to-end systems and services for network connectivity.
Broadband is one technology area that SDC has targeted for growth. "Heavy utilization by the government is driving the continuing development of broadband, which provides capabilities applicable for commercial programs that require greater bandwidth. These applications include high-definition television (HDTV), streaming video, large file transfers, and two-way communications. On the commercial side, HDTV is becoming more popular, with channels constantly being added," Simpson said. In addition to HDTV, other broadband applications will be available soon. The SDC-built Anik F2 satellite, scheduled for launch next year, will provide one of the first multimedia services across North America.
SDC is also poised to take existing mobile networks to the next level, continuing a progression that began in the 1990s with such programs as ICO and MSAT. Buoyed by the recent successes of the Thuraya mobile phone system, which serves a region of 2.3 billion people, and XM Satellite Radio, which delivers digital radio service to 1.2 million U.S. subscribers, the enterprise is looking to expand these capabilities to other regions around the world.
"Thuraya is providing phone service throughout the Middle East and is critical in Iraq, which has virtually no land-based communications infrastructure. The ubiquitous coverage has implications for homeland security and many other applications," Simpson said.
Another key growth area is automobile-focused applications, called telematics, that use satellite systems to back up terrestrial cellular systems to guarantee that mobile phones will work anywhere, at any time.
"SDC has tremendous experience in the commercial and government worlds. The technology that serves both arenas, such as digital processors and phased array antennas, give us a market advantage and will enable us to offer unique solutions to our customers," Simpson said. "In addition, virtually every government satellite constellation will be replaced over the next decade, and we're positioned to gain a large portion of that market."
It's been quite a 40-year run since Syncom 2. Who knows what the next 40 years will bring?