TESAT Government delivers SCOT80 Optical Communication Terminals for Lockheed Martin GPS demonstration

TESAT Government (TESAT Gov) and Tesat-Spacecom GmbH & Co. KG (TESAT) have announced delivery of SCOT80 (Scalable Optical Terminal) Optical Communication Terminals (OCT) that will be demonstrated on a Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) built by Lockheed Martin that is awaiting its call-up to launch.

“The SCOT80 OCT demonstration is an important step towards to expanding the capabilities of future GPS satellites,” said TESAT Government’s Managing Director, Justin Luczyk. “These optical cross-links will enable future GPS satellites to be even more useful to the warfighter.”

TESAT’s SCOT80 is an 80mm aperture OCT capable of supporting data rates of up to 100 Gbps, complies with Space Development Agency’s (SDA’s) OCT Standard 3.1, and has a path for compatibility to updated standards such as Standard 4.0. Currently, 62 SCOT80 OCTs are in orbit on multiple prime contractors’ satellites.

Over the last several months, multiple satellite prime contractors have reported making links between SCOT80 OCTs mounted on their own satellites. More recently, SDA Tranche 0 prime contractors demonstrated the first link between SCOT80 OCTs mounted on different prime contractor’s satellites.