Katherine Ziesing | Canberra
In an effort to educate current and possible new customers, Inmarsat has held a series of ‘boot camps’ around the country. ADM attended the Canberra session, alongside a host of uniforms from all three services, Border Force, DFAT, Immigration and the AFP.
One of the pieces of equipment on show was the antenna now aboard the Cape class vessels, manufactured by Queensland SME EM Solutions. The bespoke piece of kit is able to swap between both commercial and military standard sat feeds as needed and was designed and manufactured here in Australia.
The commercial Ka band system from the company under the $1.6 billion Global Xpress program (a series of three satellites with global coverage and a fourth due to be launched this year) is now well and truly up and running but EM Solutions has evolved their pricing and contracting structures to be more flexible for governments.
The satellite has six steerable beams that allow for maximum speeds and bandwidth. Peter Dingley, Inmarsat’s vice president Offer Development (Global Government) confirmed that a single beam could handle the data payload on a Triton UAS. The satellites are very similar to the WGS series that Defence has signed up for, (Boeing makes both satellite series) with Dingley confirming that commonality between the military standards was a focus for Inmarsat. The Global Xpress satellites operate on Ka band, but hops between other L band constellations as conditions or customer needs dictate.
The latest Inmarsat contract in to Defence, according to Austender, was to CIO Group for $66 million in January last year through until the end of 2017. The company also has numerous contracts into the wider Defence sphere and indeed other central agencies mentioned above alongside the Bureau of Meteorology and Antarctic Service for mobile communications.
The company has moved away from terminal/antennae side of the business in many areas, working with partnerships like EM Solutions, Hughes and Honeywell, with the Global Xpress constellation able to use any terminal that is certified for WGS.