GMV to install satellite control system

GMV, an independent supplier of commercial telecommunication satellite control centers, has signed a contract with Northrop Grumman for development and supply of the Satellite Operations Center for Space Norway HEOSAT’s ASBM-1 and ASBM-2 satellites.

Space Norway HEOSAT, a subsidiary of the government owned Space Norway, is a Norwegian company set up to run the Arctic Satellite Broadband Mission (ASBM). ASBM-1 and ASBM-2, built by Northrop Grumman on the GeoStar3 platform, make up the core of ASBM, a satellite system designed to work in highly elliptical orbits (HEO) to ensure broadband connectivity at latitudes beyond the reach of geostationary satellites. Geostationary satellites are capable of providing coverage from the equator, whereas ASBM satellites will be using their unique orbit to provide coverage in the Arctic, from 65 degrees Northwards, providing broadband for civil and military users in the Arctic.

Each one of the satellites, penciled in for a late-2022 launch, is fitted with payloads for Inmarsat, the Norwegian Ministry of Defense and the United States Airforce.

GMV will be developing and installing the control center for Northrop Grumman, including the real-time command and telemetry processing system based on Hifly®, the flight dynamics system based on FocusSuite, plus the ground segment control and monitoring system, Magnet. The contract’s scope also takes in the provision of other GMV flight control solutions, like Flyplan, for operation planning and automation, FleetDashboard, for global knowledge of the state of the system, together with CentralLog, which pools the events of all the various subsystems.

GMV will install the control software and equipment at the ground stations in Northern Norway.