Satellite Fleets - Designed for Multi-Satellite and Fleet support
For more than a decade, L-3 Telemetry-West (TW) has provided solutions for a wide range of satellite programs. This experience has resulted in the delivery of systems supporting satellites from almost all of the world’s major satellite manufacturers.

Since the delivery of L-3 TW’s very first COTS product in 1993, L-3 TW has emphasized the need to offer commercial products that are flexible enough to support any available satellite bus without the need for extensive custom development. In addition, L-3 TW’s software architecture and design has consistently focused on the need to support system evolution – to support additional satellites and satellite types or to add new capability to the system to satisfy mission unique or operational needs.

Over the years, L-3 TW has been monitoring the satellite market to understand end user priorities and preferences. Based on the trend to either consolidate multiple satellite operations into a single operations center or to expand the capacity of existing systems, the need to support a fleet/multi-satellite system has become critical.

The need to support fleet capabilities was a major factor in the design of L-3 TW’s InControl software. InControl offers a fully integrated system that allows a single operator to easily monitor and control many satellites. Multi-satellite support is built into every aspect of the L-3 TW system architecture. This is contrasted with other industry solutions that attempt to stretch old legacy single satellite architectures to offer multi-satellite support. L-3 TW’s approach uses modern technology and architectural concepts to support new requirements and future growth.

A clear example of the power and benefit of InControl’s integrated and consistent software architecture is apparent in InControl’s support for fleet operations. While other product providers propose fleet solutions that simply consist of multiple instances of a single system, the concept of “fleet” is a significant and built-in component within InControl.

InControl helps the satellite operator monitor and control a multi-satellite fleet by consolidating status for all missions into consistent displays. Status data points can be rolled up to generate a high level status of a mission. This type of high-level status can then be used for all missions under the operator’s control - in one simple display. Conversely, if an exception is identified in an individual mission, the operator can easily drill down to the cause of the problem.

The Fleet Monitor Display shows the “at a glance” status of all spacecraft in the fleet. The icons are animated and display the overall alarm status of the spacecraft (or ground entity), the name of the operator in control of each spacecraft, and all of the spacecraft being controlled at the given operator station. This application can also show other conditions defined to be anomalous, such as when no operator is in control of a spacecraft.