Multi-channel phased-array antennas can simultaneously track multiple satellites. (Graphic: Quasar Space Technologies)
ORLANDO — Australian startup Quasar Satellite Technologies is pioneering a new approach for keeping tabs on space objects using a multi-channel, phased-array antenna, according to CEO Phil Ridley.
The goal, he told Breaking Defense, is to be tapped to participate under the AUKUS security pact’s Pillar 2 initiative to provide critical technologies to all three member states: the US, the United Kingdom and Australia.
“I can’t talk too much about the nature of the discussions, but we are talking to the Australian government,” he said, including “in the context of AUKUS.”
To help secure that, Ridley said that Quasar is also planning to open a US office in 2024. “Most likely in Colorado,” he noted, with the “other option” being the Washington, D.C. area.
Under AUKUS Pillar 2, which involves looking for opportunities to engage industry from all three countries, the US, UK and Australia already are working on another, more traditional project to improve space domain awareness. The three nations’ top defense officials announced on Dec. 1 that they will jointly operate the Deep-Space Advanced Radar Capability (DARC), which will be able to track objects in geosynchronous Earth orbit (GEO) 24/7, rain or shine. Each nation is housing one of the new radar systems, being developed by Northrop Grumman under a February 2022 contract with the US Space Force.
The new space tracking system, which will be unveiled by Quasar in demonstrations here this week at a conference sponsored by the Space Force Association, isn’t a traditional radar, however. Called Quasar Sense, the ground-based, phased-array antenna deploys more than 30 steerable beams and uses passive radio-frequency (RF) location to find, follow and characterize multiple satellites simultaneously, according to the company’s press release. In other words, it “listens” to spacecraft in low Earth orbit, medium Earth orbit and GEO.
“It’s extremely sensitive, because it’s a very different architecture, particularly in that it’s connected to the whole sky at the same time and can track multiple objects simultaneously. We’ve already proven that, and that’s really, really different to a typical satellite dish or radar,” Ridley said.
Quasar Sense is essentially an an outgrowth of the multi-channel antenna the company has been developing over the last year under a grant from the Australian Defence Ministry’s Defence Innovation Hub. That antenna, operating in S-band, is optimized for satellite communications (SATCOM).
Current ground antennas for SATCOM — large parabolic dishes — can tune into only one satellite at a time. Phased array antennas don’t have to physically move to track RF beams, and also can fix on multiple satellites at the same time.
The company already has demonstrated its first operational Quasar Sense space tracking array at its headquarters in Sydney, Ridley explained, where the RF environment is “very terrible,” with a tremendous amount of signal interference. “It shouldn’t even work, but it works better than we expected it to,” he added. “We were shocked.”
In addition, Ridley said the company already is working on a next-generation system. “We’ve got a prototype unit that we have to make ready by the end of 2024. That unit will be in production in 2025,” he said.
