A cellular type communications system for cellular telephone networks to operate, control and communicate with unmanned aerial vehicles and remote piloted vehicles, the system including a first near-ground region to communicate with devices near the ground, as well as one or more layers covering roughly the same areal extent as the ground region but which are separated from each other and also elevated above ground substantially, and within which an aerial vehicle may rely on communications using the cell-based communications network.

A system includes a computer that is programmed to actuate to switch from a first satellite link between a terminal and a first satellite to a second satellite link upon determining that a data throughput of the first satellite relative to a first satellite throughput capacity exceeds a threshold.

Methods and systems are described for providing end-to-end beamforming. For example, end-to-end beamforming systems include end-to-end relays and ground networks to provide communications to user terminals located in user beam coverage areas. The ground segment can include geographically distributed access nodes and a central processing system. Return uplink signals, transmitted from the user terminals, have multipath induced by a plurality of receive/transmit signal paths in the end to end relay and are relayed to the ground network. The ground network, using beamformers, recovers user data streams transmitted by the user terminals from return downlink signals. The ground network, using beamformers generates forward uplink signals from appropriately weighted combinations of user data streams that, after relay by the end-end-end relay, produce forward downlink signals that combine to form user beams.

A high throughput fractionated satellite (HTFS) system and method where the functional capabilities of a conventional monolithic spacecraft are distributed across many small or very small satellites and a central command and relay satellite, the satellites are separated and flight in carefully design formations that allows the creation of very large aperture or apertures in space drastically reducing cost and weight and enabling high throughput capabilities by spatially reuse spectrum.

A satellite system operates at altitudes between 100 and 350 km relying on vehicles including a self-sustaining ion engine to counteract atmospheric drag to maintain near-constant orbit dynamics. The system operates at altitudes that are substantially lower than traditional satellites, reducing size, weight and cost of the vehicles and their constituent subsystems such as optical imagers, radars, and radio links. The system can include a large number of lower cost, mass, and altitude vehicles, enabling revisit times substantially shorter than previous satellite systems. The vehicles spend their orbit at low altitude, high atmospheric density conditions that have heretofore been virtually impossible to consider for stable orbits. Short revisit times at low altitudes enable near-real time imaging at high resolution and low cost. At such altitudes, the system has no impact on space junk issues of traditional LEO orbits, and is self-cleaning in that space junk or disabled craft will de-orbit.

A method for providing a multipath satellite backbone is disclosed. The method includes: creating sub-backbone flows over multipaths between a first peer and a second peer, wherein each of the sub-backbone flows is associated with one of the multipaths; retrieving a policy corresponding to each of the multipaths, the first peer and the second peer; receiving a transport metric for at least one of the multipaths; calculating distribution weights for the sub-backbone flows based on the policy and the transport metric; and transporting traffic over the sub-backbone flows based on the distribution weights, wherein at least one of the multipaths is relayed by a satellite.

A satellite system may have a constellation of communications satellites that provides services to users with electronic devices such as portable electronic devices and home/office equipment. A network operations center may use gateways to communicate with the satellite constellation. The satellite constellation may include sets of satellites with different orbits such as circular orbits with different inclinations, sets of satellites with elliptic orbits, sets of satellites with circular orbits of different altitudes including low earth orbits, medium earth orbits, and/or geosynchronous orbits, sets of satellites with sun synchronous orbits, and/or sets of satellites with other orbits. The orbits of the satellites in the constellation may be selected to provide coverage to desired user population concentrations at different locations on the Earth, while reducing the amount of capacity that goes unused (e.g., is idle) at one or more times of day.

Methods and systems are described for providing end-to-end beamforming. For example, end-to-end beamforming systems include end-to-end relays and ground networks to provide communications to user terminals located in user beam coverage areas. The ground segment can include geographically distributed access nodes and a central processing system. Return uplink signals, transmitted from the user terminals, have multipath induced by a plurality of receive/transmit signal paths in the end to end relay and are relayed to the ground network. The ground network, using beamformers, recovers user data streams transmitted by the user terminals from return downlink signals. The ground network, using beamformers generates forward uplink signals from appropriately weighted combinations of user data streams that, after relay by the end-end-end relay, produce forward downlink signals that combine to form user beams.

Methods and systems are described for providing end-to-end beamforming. For example, end-to-end beamforming systems include end-to-end relays and ground networks to provide communications to user terminals located in user beam coverage areas. The ground segment can include geographically distributed access nodes and a central processing system. Return uplink signals, transmitted from the user terminals, have multipath induced by a plurality of receive/transmit signal paths in the end to end relay and are relayed to the ground network. The ground network, using beamformers, recovers user data streams transmitted by the user terminals from return downlink signals. The ground network, using beamformers generates forward uplink signals from appropriately weighted combinations of user data streams that, after relay by the end-end-end relay, produce forward downlink signals that combine to form user beams.

Concepts and technologies disclosed herein are directed to providing redundancy for satellite uplink facilities using software-defined networking (SDN). According to one aspect disclosed herein, a satellite network system can include a video collection facility (VCF), a remote uplink facility (RUF), and a diverse uplink facility (DUF) in direct communication with a core network. An SDN controller that operates in an SDN network that provides logical SDN links to the VCF, the RUF, the DUF, and the core network. The SDN controller can track a site configuration of the RUF. The SDN controller can detect that the RUF has been downed due to an adverse event such as inclement weather. The SDN controller can obtain the site configuration of the RUF. The SDN controller can cause a redundant remote uplink facility (RRUF) to be instantiated with the site configuration of the RUF.