Satellite provider Astranis has announced a new mission-critical and dual-use military and first responder network product, Astranis Vanguard.

Developed in partnership with Persistent Systems, Kymeta, and Satcube, Vangard is a fully air-gapped, rapidly deployable system that aims to deliver a resilient, self-forming geostationary satellite network delivering voice, video, and broadband data.

“Astranis Vanguard is a big deal,” Astranis CEO John Gedmark said in a LinkedIn post about the product. “It’s a capability that customers have long asked us for. This is real equipment that is already deployed all over the world with warfighters, first responders, and a wide array of enterprise customers. In industries that care about mobility and security, like oil and gas.”

In addition to military use through the delivery of command and control and situational awareness in contested areas, the technology is suited to disaster response applications to act after severe weather, wildfire, and other natural disasters.

Vanguard can support push-to-talk radio, live drone feeds, data sharing for command centres, and linking remote crews and equipment in cellular-denied places. Astranis makes use of its MicroGEO satellites to support Vanguard’s applications, each of which possesses a beam footprint of about 2,250 km (1,398 miles).

"With a dedicated satellite and the on-board digital processing of Astranis' software-defined radio, you can do true ‘hubless' communications," Gedmark told press, "meaning that your internal communications never have to hit the broader internet."

To date, Astranis has deployed five of its MicroGEO satellites, announcing the commencement of broadband service on two of them, NuView Alpha and NuView Bravo, in August, following their launch in December 2024, both covering the continental United States on behalf of in-flight connectivity specialist Anuvu.

A live demonstration of the technology successfully proved the capability of Astranis’ software-defined radio over its mobile ad-hoc network (MANET) using West India-based Persistent Systems’ MPU5 broadband radios to share video feeds, comms, and IP traffic.

The groundside was facilitated by Gothernburg, Sweden-based Satcube’s flat panel user terminals for communications on the pause, and Redmond, Washington-based Kymneta’s terminals for communications on the move, supplied with satellite backhaul by Astranis to extend Vanguard beyond line of sight.

In 2023, Astranis was set back by the partial failure of its debut satellite, Arcturus, during launch, which rendered it unsuitable for service. Its launch last December replaced Arcturus with a new satellite, UtilitySat, which is still coming online.