Thales to upgrade NATO protected SATCOM capability
Thales will upgrade the protected SATCOM capability of NATO under a new contract announced on 25 January. The award, issued by the NATO Communications and Information (NCI) Agency will see the company carry out work to increase operational performance and reduce operating costs.
The upgrade will expand the performance of the NATO-EMS to high rate data links while significantly improving the spectral efficiency of the transmission links and optimising the bandwidth occupancy at satellite level.
The NATO Electronic Protective Measures (EPM) Modem System – or NATO-EMS (EPM Modem System) – provides robust anti-jam, low probability of exploitation and low probability of intercept SATCOM transmission capability. The system allows NATO to deploy highly protected SATCOM links between anchor stations and Transportable Satellite Ground Terminals (TSGT).
According to Thales, 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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