September 16, 2013
September 16, 2013
Iridium NEXT, a new iteration of the Iridium satellite constellation, is currently in development and will provide higher bandwidth per user, hosted payload capability, and other improvements. At the heart of the Iridium NEXT ground architecture is the Access Network Controller (ANC), powered by 40 Gbps AdvancedTCA (ATCA). In this xTCA & CompactPCI Systems interview, Hermon Pon of Iridium Communications, and Michael Lohman of Hughes Network Systems discuss upgrades to the Iridium ground architecture, and how ATCA is helping roll out the NEXT constellation. Edited excerpts follow.
