This offer proposes a set of activities to develop concepts and architectures to explore the potential deployment of a cellular radio base station as a CubeSat payload to support MUOS communication beyond 65 latitude. Following a traditional systems engineering approach, the Phase 1 objective is to work through the full array of needs, requirements and constraints for the mission and then provide the exploration, analysis and trades necessary to arrive at an architecture and concept that best satisfies the mission objective - MUOS satellite communication services in the Polar Regions.
Benefit: The obvious benefits for such a system are as stated in mission objective, MUOS satellite communication services in the Polar Regions . The MUOS satellite constellation consisting four geosynchronous satellites is designed to support a LOS that extends 65 degrees latitude. While the capability has been demonstrated to extend beyond these limits, there are limits in availability. A MUOS base station deployed in a polar orbit could provide the added resiliency needed to support deployed solders operating in those regions. The software definable radio platform of the base technology lends itself to supporting a variety of waveforms including GSM, WCDMA, CDMA, HSPA, or LTE. Features of the advanced 4G/5G networks make them appropriate for IoT applications. Future considerations for the technology include connecting wirelessly to smart devices via a private network to sense, command and control remote systems.
Keywords: Gateway, Gateway, small cell base station, SATCOM Beyond 65 lattitude, SATCOM, cubesat, MUOS, WCDMA, NanoSAT