Aalyria envisions communications revolution for Earth, the Moon and beyond
Summary
Former Deputy Secretary of Defense Bob Work said in the company’s coming-out press release Sept. 13 that “Aalyria’s vision and technical approach enables, for the first time, the complete communications and network solution for integrated deterrence. “More focus should be placed on companies that have made generational leaps in technology instead of the addiction to trying to achieve value from dispersed and uncoordinated hyper-competition among the same staid players.” The way Aalyria’s business model works, Taylor said, is that commercial customers — in particular operators of large constellations of satellites in low Earth and medium Earth orbits — pay the company to link their communications platforms to Spacetime and allow it to manage the comms links. Well, we plug in their constellation information, and … Spacetime autonomously decides what the best path is to take far faster than any human could.” But the software platform’s applicability reaches far beyond LEO, and eventually could service satellites operating around the Moon and Mars — or even connect lunar/Martian ground stations with Earth. Brian Barritt, Aalyria’s chief technology officer, explained that all satellite operators have to use similar kinds software to manage their own communications networks, even if they are not trying to link with, say, a high altitude aircraft or a ship. But the “next step in the order of magnitude” of such software is Spacetime’s ability “to coordinate networks,” he said — something that “really opens up this new feature of hybrid communications networks, moving data, communications quickly and efficiently across commercial, civil and government assets.” That capability is precisely what caught the eye of the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Unit (DIU), which in July awarded Aalyria an initial contract worth $8.7 million under its Hybrid Space Architecture (HSA) program “to provide global, ubiquitous, and secure internet connectivity throughout the space domain for commercial, civil, and military users, including international allies and partners.” Taylor said that under the DIU program, which also involves Air Force Research Laboratory and the Space Development Agency, Aalyria is demonstrating the “network architecture” for the project.