Astranis Unveils One of the Most Powerful Geostationary Communication Satellites

Astranis Unveils One of the Most Powerful Geostationary Communication Satellites

Over the past three years, Astranis has sold out multiple launches of MicroGEO communications satellites to commercial customers in countries all over the world: the United States, Mexico, Argentina, the Philippines, Thailand, and beyond. Those satellites will connect millions of people to affordable, reliable broadband internet, and will generate over $1.2 billion of revenue for the company.

Astranis is excited to announce the next-generation product — Astranis Omega — a broadband communications system with better pound-for-pound performance than any other geostationary satellite in orbit today. Astranis Omega will offer 50+ Gbps of dedicated, uncontended throughput per satellite. While maintaining a small satellite form factor. With the first flight vehicle coming in 2025, and the first satellites launching in 2026.

Omega is a leap forward, offering an industry-best throughput per kg without sacrificing the things their customers love about Astranis. They will still sell dedicated satellites; will still build them in less than 18 months; will still maneuver their satellites in orbit; and will still operate their satellites for 8-10 years. 

With Omega, Astranis' customers simply get more throughput at lower prices. 

For Astranis's commercial customers, Omega will mean unprecedented flexibility and access to advanced capabilities like dynamic shifting of capacity to where broadband internet is in the highest demand.

For Astranis’s US government customers, Omega supports the Protected Tactical Waveform and other government waveforms to operate in contested environments. Omega also has a gimballed Q/V band antenna, greatly improving operational flexibility, and can alternatively shift gateway traffic to a Ka-band payload feed when needed. 

This is all possible because Omega comes outfitted with a next-generation Astranis software-defined radio, enabling frequency flexibility, dynamic coverage, beam super surging, formation flying, and more. The obvious question, of course, is “how?” How did they get this much more capability into a small satellite form factor? The simple answer is speed. 

Astranis is moving faster than any other geostationary satellite manufacturer or operator today. They launched our first satellite in 2023. They have made significant upgrades for the four satellites that will launch in 2024 and more for the five satellites that will launch in 2025. And now, Astranis releasing a new product for launch in 2026. 

Some of that speed comes from pulling components in-house. About half of the first satellite was built in-house; the most recent satellites coming off of the line are closer to 60%; and Omega will be about 70% built in-house. Some of that speed comes from hiring more than 300 of the most talented engineers in the country. And some just come from the company’s DNA: Astranis feels an immense urgency to build great things to help connect our commercial customers and keep warfighters safe and in mission. That urgency, more than anything else, is what helps Astranis continue to push cutting-edge capabilities on orbit — as we’re doing here, with Omega.

Click here to learn more about Astranis Commercial Satellites for Broadband Connectivity.


Publisher: SatNow

GNSS Constellations - A list of all GNSS satellites by constellations

beidou

Satellite NameOrbit Date
BeiDou-3 G4Geostationary Orbit (GEO)17 May, 2023
BeiDou-3 G2Geostationary Orbit (GEO)09 Mar, 2020
Compass-IGSO7Inclined Geosynchronous Orbit (IGSO)09 Feb, 2020
BeiDou-3 M19Medium Earth Orbit (MEO)16 Dec, 2019
BeiDou-3 M20Medium Earth Orbit (MEO)16 Dec, 2019
BeiDou-3 M21Medium Earth Orbit (MEO)23 Nov, 2019
BeiDou-3 M22Medium Earth Orbit (MEO)23 Nov, 2019
BeiDou-3 I3Inclined Geosynchronous Orbit (IGSO)04 Nov, 2019
BeiDou-3 M23Medium Earth Orbit (MEO)22 Sep, 2019
BeiDou-3 M24Medium Earth Orbit (MEO)22 Sep, 2019

galileo

Satellite NameOrbit Date
GSAT0223MEO - Near-Circular05 Dec, 2021
GSAT0224MEO - Near-Circular05 Dec, 2021
GSAT0219MEO - Near-Circular25 Jul, 2018
GSAT0220MEO - Near-Circular25 Jul, 2018
GSAT0221MEO - Near-Circular25 Jul, 2018
GSAT0222MEO - Near-Circular25 Jul, 2018
GSAT0215MEO - Near-Circular12 Dec, 2017
GSAT0216MEO - Near-Circular12 Dec, 2017
GSAT0217MEO - Near-Circular12 Dec, 2017
GSAT0218MEO - Near-Circular12 Dec, 2017

glonass

Satellite NameOrbit Date
Kosmos 2569--07 Aug, 2023
Kosmos 2564--28 Nov, 2022
Kosmos 2559--10 Oct, 2022
Kosmos 2557--07 Jul, 2022
Kosmos 2547--25 Oct, 2020
Kosmos 2545--16 Mar, 2020
Kosmos 2544--11 Dec, 2019
Kosmos 2534--27 May, 2019
Kosmos 2529--03 Nov, 2018
Kosmos 2527--16 Jun, 2018

gps

Satellite NameOrbit Date
Navstar 82Medium Earth Orbit19 Jan, 2023
Navstar 81Medium Earth Orbit17 Jun, 2021
Navstar 78Medium Earth Orbit22 Aug, 2019
Navstar 77Medium Earth Orbit23 Dec, 2018
Navstar 76Medium Earth Orbit05 Feb, 2016
Navstar 75Medium Earth Orbit31 Oct, 2015
Navstar 74Medium Earth Orbit15 Jul, 2015
Navstar 73Medium Earth Orbit25 Mar, 2015
Navstar 72Medium Earth Orbit29 Oct, 2014
Navstar 71Medium Earth Orbit02 Aug, 2014

irnss

Satellite NameOrbit Date
NVS-01Geostationary Orbit (GEO)29 May, 2023
IRNSS-1IInclined Geosynchronous Orbit (IGSO)12 Apr, 2018
IRNSS-1HSub Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit (Sub-GTO)31 Aug, 2017
IRNSS-1GGeostationary Orbit (GEO)28 Apr, 2016
IRNSS-1FGeostationary Orbit (GEO)10 Mar, 2016
IRNSS-1EGeosynchronous Orbit (IGSO)20 Jan, 2016
IRNSS-1DInclined Geosynchronous Orbit (IGSO)28 Mar, 2015
IRNSS-1CGeostationary Orbit (GEO)16 Oct, 2014
IRNSS-1BInclined Geosynchronous Orbit (IGSO)04 Apr, 2014
IRNSS-1AInclined Geosynchronous Orbit (IGSO)01 Jul, 2013