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Defence Space

Thales to upgrade NATO protected SATCOM capability

Thales has been awarded a contract by the NATO Communications and Information (NCI) Agency1 to upgrade the protected SATCOM capability of NATO in order to increase operational performance and reduce operating costs.

Thanks to the new capability upgrade contract, the NATO-EMS will be able to expand its performance to high rate data links while dramatically improving the spectral efficiency of the transmission links, thus optimising the bandwidth occupancy at satellite level.

The NATO Electronic Protective Measures (EPM) Modem System – or NATO-EMS (EPM Modem System) – which provides robust anti-jam, low probability of exploitation and low probability of intercept SATCOM transmission capability was contracted to Thales in 2006 and completed in 2008. The system allows NATO to deploy highly protected SATCOM links between anchor stations and Transportable Satellite Ground Terminals (TSGT).

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The NATO-EMS is based on Modem 21e, the Thales EPM transmission system. The Modem 21e defines a complete military solution designed to satisfy all Armed Forces applications
(tri-service: land / sea / air) using a common transmission core which is fully adapted to the wide range of protected SATCOM operations. The Modem 21e incorporates the best of SATCOM technology to respond to all constraints of integration in military platforms combining advanced protection against jamming, interference and fading, dynamic resource allocation and full compatibility with SATCOM On-The-Move (SOTM) applications.
 

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