Viasat Added Storage and Increased Processing Power of Link 16 Expeditionary Tactical Gateway Products

Viasat Inc. announced it added significant storage and increased the processing power of its Link 16 expeditionary tactical gateway products.

These technology improvements will help keep today’s warfighter reliably connected to real-time air/ground geospatial intelligence and critical network functions when on the frontline of battle.

The enhancements were made as part of the company’s Non-Developmental Item (NDI) business model, which delivers capabilities faster, at lower lifecycle costs and with lower risk to the customer when compared to traditional defense acquisition programs and timelines. By leveraging the NDI approach coupled with the gateways’ open architecture, the firm will keep pace with commercial technology advancements and ensure warfighters are equipped with the latest technology advancements.

Technical enhancements include:

• 8x increase in storage: Expanding storage from 512GB to 4TB will help provide battlefield units in adverse conditions with more accurate situational awareness and targeting data to help fight near-peer adversaries that deploy sophisticated techniques that attempt to disable military forces’ ability to communicate and collaborate.

• Processing power: By increasing gateway processing power it will be capable of delivering higher speeds and better performance with lower-power consumption for key application hosting and advanced network services on the battlespace. The additional processing power will be for capabilities such as the firm’s Assured Resilient Integrated Network (ARIN), a solution delivering robust, secure communications for deployed tactical networks. Today, the processing power leverages PacStar’s family of small form factor, modular router and server communications solutions.

“The technology enhancements to Viasat’s expeditionary tactical gateway products are critical as we shift our focus to large-scale combat operations where we expect to fight more sophisticated threats in austere, denied, degraded and disrupted communications environments,” said Andy Kessler, VP and business area director, next gen tactical data links. “Our NDI approach enables our defense products to keep pace with the rapidly accelerating technology trajectories in the private sector. This model enables us to quickly and cost-effectively integrate significant technology enhancements into our products, keeping warfighters safer and more reliably-connected during tactical mission engagements.“

Expeditionary tactical gateway products receiving the enhancement include the firm’s advanced Move Out/Jump Off (MOJO) Link 16 expeditionary tactical gateway system, which is a compact, multi-network Link 16 communications system currently in use by all US military services.

The technology enhancements are available to all Department of Defense customers as a field-upgradeable option on the company’s expeditionary tactical gateway products.

About Viasat
It is a global communications company that believes everyone and everything in the world can be connected. For more than 30 years, it has helped shape how consumers, businesses, governments and militaries around the world communicate. Today, it is developing the global communications network to power high-quality, secure, affordable, fast connections to impact people’s lives anywhere they are-on the ground, in the air or at sea.