Hughes Network Systems, a unit of EchoStar, said it has enhanced the capability of its Jupiter broadband satellite platform and made progress with its work with OneWeb, an initiative that is developing a constellation of low earth orbit (LEO) satellites for broadband.
On the Jupiter front, Hughes said it has doubled the throughput of HT2xxx terminals, to more than 200 Mbps, which, for example, will bring more data capacity to the Jupiter Aero System, which delivers more than 600 Mbps to each aircraft that’s served.
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The Jupiter System, which has also added an in-route prioritization scheme for faster browsing for encrypted web pages and apps like automatic tellers, is currently deployed on more than 20 satellites round the world.
Hughes, which times the announcement with the Satellite 2018 show, is also working on Jupiter 3 (EchoStar XXIV), a high-capacity satellite that will be capable of delivery 100 Mbps or more. That satellite is expected to enter service sometime in 2021.
For the OneWeb project, Hughes’s gateways include multiple tracking antennas to support operation and handoff of traffic to and from the coming LEO satellites. Hughes said each gateway will be able to handle up to 10,000 terminal hand-offs per second.
Hughes said the shipment is the first of 40 gateways that will support OneWeb, factoring into a $190 million contract announced in November 2017.
