LM Launches Commercial Ground Control Software for Satellite Constellations

March 14, 2023

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To help future developers of commercial satellite constellations plan missions and operate their systems, Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT) is now offering commercial licenses to its proven Horizon™ Command & Control (C2) and Compass™ Mission Planning software.

Horizon and Compass leverage an integrated and scalable modular architecture designed to meet specific customer needs. They provide mission critical capability for small, medium or large constellations, which includes orbit management, autonomous operations and formation flying.

Lockheed Martin has used versions of the Horizon and Compass software in more than 50 spacecraft, performing government, research and commercial space missions.

“As more commercial companies start exploring services and capabilities from orbit, Lockheed Martin’s mission planning and command and control expertise is helpful to the developing space economy,” said Paul Koether, program director at Lockheed Martin Space. “Compass and Horizon offer the flexibility to meet a variety of constellation requirements, benefitting user companies in such a way that they can focus on providing services to their customer versus managing the complexities of flying their satellites.”

Horizon: Flexible Mission Management
Horizon is an extensible, cloud-enabled C2 jump-start kit built on industry and telemetry standards. It has been designed for customer flexibility, as its capabilities are extendable to any satellite bus and adaptable to any mission planner. It also includes a semi to full autonomous operations mode to enable “lights out” operations for periods where direct human engagement is not necessary.

• Key Horizon features include commanding, telemetry processing, storage and analytics, scheduled execution and intuitive user displays.

Compass: Making the Most of On-Orbit Time  
Compass is a modularized, microservice-based software tool suite that enables customers to efficiently develop and deploy satellite bus, payload and communications mission planning. Its out-of-the-box, cloud-native, mission-adaptable, data-driven configuration uses mission-tailored automation to plan the most efficient missions. This helps customers maximize use of their space vehicles to make best use of satellite available time overhead and minimize on-orbit fuel usage.

• Key Compass features include dashboard visualization, orbit management, feasibility assessment, downlink scheduling, altitude control, payload scheduling, rules-based planning and contact planning.

Source : Lockheed Martin Corporation