Strap in. We’re taking another trip to outer space, friends.
Yesterday, SATCOM company ALL.SPACE announced that it’s teaming up with connectivity company and Google spinout Aalyria to combine the former’s Hydra terminals with the latter’s Spacetime network orchestration software.
Now, why do we as defense tech nerds care? Well, in layman’s terms, this means that the two companies have created a SATCOM network that stays up even when things are jammed or comms-denied. That’s pretty huge for all y’all that want to send your drones to, idk, the front lines in Ukraine.
“If one SATCOM network is denied, Hydra’s multi-link capability and Spacetime’s adaptive orchestration ensure automatic failover and continuous connectivity,” the companies said in a statement.
“This allows for systems to adapt and evolve to real-time threats across all domains; cyber threats taking out networks, EW denying certain frequency bands, or kinetic removing [of] critical satellites,” ALL.SPACE CTO John-Paul Szczepanik told Tectonic. That means that even when you’re jammed, your comms keep comm-ing.
Pew pew redux: We’ve written about Aalyria before: the company started as a secret project within Google codenamed “Minkowski,” then spun out into its own company in 2022. In a release at the time, they said they aimed to build “hyper fast, ultra-secure, and highly complex communications networks that span land, sea, air, near space, and deep space.”
They’ve got two main products:
- Tightbeam: A laser comms system, which the company says can deliver “fiber-equivalent speeds wirelessly through atmospheric conditions where traditional infrastructure cannot reach.” Back in
- Spacetime: A software-defined networking platform (PaaS) that can coordinate “large and constantly-changing communications networks with steerable or directional signals—like satellite constellations and airborne mesh networks.” Think of this as the brain that coordinates the comms.
They’ve also won a whole bunch of contracts with the DoD, including a DIU contract with a $31.7M ceiling in 2022 to develop a hybrid space architecture prototype (alongside Anduril, Enveil, and Atlas Space). Last year, they were also one of 20 selected as part of a Space Force Rapid Capabilities Office (RCO) IDIQ with a cap of $1B to modernize satellite tactical ground operations.
Flapjack: ALL.SPACE, for its part, builds advanced satellite communication terminals—essentially smart antennas—that can connect to multiple satellite networks at the same time. The terminals (called Hydra) look like high-tech, rugged pancakes that can sit on the back of a truck, on a ship, or in a base station.
- As a refresher on space comms 101, traditional satellites can only communicate with one satellite at a time. That makes them vulnerable to things like jamming or kinetic interference (say, a space weapon taking it out).
- ALL.SPACE’s terminals can link simultaneously to satellites across different orbits—LEO, MEO, and GEO—as well as terrestrial networks like 5G.
- That means users (especially military and government users) get uninterrupted, high-bandwidth connectivity even if one network is jammed, out of range, or underperforming.
By plugging ALL.SPACE’s terminals into Aalyria’s orchestration network, then, you get a pretty hefty mash-up that can power things like JADC2 (Joint All-Domain Command and Control) and NGC2 (Next Generation Command & Control), the companies say.
- ALL.SPACE essentially provides the physical layer—the nodes that can connect to multiple different networks at once.
- Aalyria provides the brains for the whole system—the software that continuously routes data across those links in real time to find the fastest, most reliable, and most secure path.
- This “creates a unified network-of-networks that operates across LEO, MEO, HEO, GEO, 5G, terrestrial, and cloud systems,” the companies said.
- For users, that means drop-free connectivity when “tracking hypersonic or ballistic threats, coordinating fires, [or] sharing intelligence across multi‑domain assets,” even if adversaries try to intervene.
- While he couldn’t tell us who, exactly, the two companies are working with, Szczepanik said they “are working with many customers on delivering this capability as it answers the requirements set out by US DoD and also UK MoD.”
“Overall this delivers the vision of intelligent and resilient communications for next-gen command and control,” he added.
The official statement put it more bluntly: “Put simply: your network stays on, your sensors stay connected to effectors, and mission command retains situational awareness – even when the enemy tries to break these links.” Sounds pretty good, if we do say so ourselves.