spacetime logo
Orchestrating the next generation of aerospace networks
spacetime logo

Orchestrating the next generation of aerospace networks

CONTRACTED BY
Defense Innovation Unit
US Space Force
Intelsat
Telesat
ESA
Defense Innovation Unit
US Space Force
Intelsat
Telesat
ESA
Defense Innovation Unit
DISA
US Air Force
Air Force Research Lab
US Navy
NRL
US Space Force
Space Warfighting Analysis Center
SOCOM
Rivada
Intelsat
Telesat
ESA

What is spacetime?

Spacetime is a SaaS platform for orchestrating large and constantly-changing communications networks with steerable or directional signals – like satellite constellations and airborne mesh networks.
Download Our White Paper
Click to Watch

history and achievements

2013

Google begins work on a software platform for Temporospatial Software Defined Networking (TS-SDN)

Read more
2015 - 2021

Deployed at scale with 2 million flight hours for Loon’s stratospheric mesh network.

Read more
MAR 2022

Aalyria is formed; acquires TS-SDN technology (Spacetime) from Google.

Read more
JULY 2022

Contract with Defense Innovation Unit for Hybrid Space Architecture Program.

Read more
MAR 2023

Spacetime is selected to orchestrate Rivada Space Networks LEO constellation.

Read more
SEPT 2023

Aalyria signs deal with Intelsat to advance multi-orbit connectivity.

Read more
NOV 2023

Telesat selects Spacetime for orchestration of its revolutionary Telesat Lightspeed Constellation.

Read more
DEC 2023

Spacetime to develop ESA's O-RAN platform for 5G/6G NTN connectivity.

Read more
TECHNOLOGY
A TEMPOROSPATIAL SDN
A TEMPORO-
SPATIAL SDN
Unlike traditional SDN and SD-WAN controllers, which perform route orchestration over a static or unknowable set of physical links, Spacetime is a Temporospatial SDN – capable of orchestrating the underlying wireless link topology in networks of steerable directional beams across land, sea, air, space. Instead of routing over a predefined set of scheduled links, it performs path computation over the multiverse of topologies that can exist across space and time – and tasks/schedules the optimal link topology, spectrum, and routing based on the end-to-end network services and their respective business or mission requirements. And it can rapidly adapt, within seconds, to reconstitute networks or support new mission/business requirements.
Request a Demo
Click to Watch

NETWORKS THAT ANTICIPATE

Spacetime can forecast the near-term future motion of spacecraft, aircraft, land vehicles, and ships – and model all possible opportunities for communication between them. It also ingests meteorological data from NOAA’s polar orbiting satellites, allowing it to anticipate the impact that weather would have on free-space optical or RF links in different bands. This planet-scale digital twin allows Spacetime to anticipate and avoid packet loss by proactively orchestrating the network ahead of things like terrain obstructions, sun outages, wingtip or fuselage obstructions, and rain fade impacts.

ALL DOMAIN

Spacetime supports networks that span land, sea, air, and space – including the wired ground segment, terrestrial terminals and handsets, ground stations, ships, aircraft, HAPS, LEO, MEO, and GEO satellite constellations, cislunar, and deep space network nodes. End-to-end continuous connectivity or store-and-forward data transfers can be orchestrated between any sets of nodes – across all domains.

RESILIENCE AND RAPID RECONSTITUTION

Spacetime can adapt the network link topology and routing within seconds to mitigate jamming threats, adapt to unexpectedly poor link performance, or mitigate the loss of ground stations or satellites – even an entire constellation. The impact of new constraints, such as avoiding detection by an adversary or applying new regulatory or geofencing requirements, can be previewed first – and then rapidly enacted.
Click to Watch
integration

Integrate, with open apis

Spacetime leverages a modern, open source framework to facilitate systems integration. As a Temporospatial SDN, it exposes the canonical northbound (enterprise) and southbound (controller-to-dataplane) APIs as well as an “east/west” federation interface for coordinating interconnections with partner and allied networks.
ENTERPRISE AUTOMATION
OSS/BSS or Battle Management Decision Support applications, human operators, or any other authorized application can use the northbound interface to request end-to-end data services matching specified throughput, priority, and latency requirements. Real time operations and incident management applications can subscribe to time-series data about their fulfillment and other key performance indicators. This interface also facilitates synchronization with enterprise data fabrics with south-of-truth for parameters of motion and capabilities.
anduril logoleolabs logopagerduty logo
google cloud logo
read more
CROSS-NETWORK COORDINATION
The Federation API addresses the growing need for aerospace & defense networks to share resources, spectrum, and to orchestrate interconnections and transit across administrative boundaries. Operators with excess capacity can improve their asset yield by micro-leasing their services. Operators suddenly lacking coverage in key regions can access services available through partners with available capacity. Customers can leverage automated service ordering for near real-time allocation of new interconnections and transit on tactically responsive timeframes.
sda logotelesat logodiu logo
read more
VENDOR HARDWARE
The southbound interface supports the on-ramp of new communications hardware and networking technologies. It allows Spacetime to task and schedule link handovers, radio spectrum changes, and forwarding rules. And it allows Spacetime to monitor network congestion and wireless signal quality so that it can react to the unexpected.
idirect logokymeta logoviasat logocomtech logodpdk logotightbeam logo
read more
The APIs that Spacetime has adopted are all open and neutrally governed by the Outernet Council These human- and machine-readable ICDs dramatically reduce integration effort by generating idiomatic client/server stubs in a variety of programming languages. And because they’re open and modular, any satellite or infrastructure operator can add support for them – whether they are using Spacetime or not. We’re also working with TIP and the European Space Agency to advance evolved O-RAN APIs for future 5G/6G NTN-based networks.
Partnership

partner with us

EMULATE
OPTIMIZE
ORCHESTRATE
COORDINATE
Get started by modeling your current or planned network on a private, hosted and managed instance of Spacetime. Together, we can emulate your current or next-generation network and showcase Spactime’s ability to optimize your business or mission outcomes.

Add real hardware to the Spacetime environment as prototypes and final systems become available to incrementally grow into a production-ready instance. Aalyria can host on your preferred infrastructure provider and classification level, and provides 24x7x365 carrier-grade support to keep your network operational at the highest level of reliability.

And after your production deployment, we will continue to future proof your network with continuous feature updates and the ability, when you’re ready, to coordinate resource sharing and interconnections with partners and allied networks – on your terms.
Contact Us
FAQ
Is this a network management system? A network traffic protocol?

Spacetime is a new twist on a Software Defined Network controller.  Whereas contemporary SDN controllers can only orchestrate the layer 3 network control plane (routing), Spacetime is capable of orchestrating the present and scheduled network control plane across layer 1 (physical link topology), layer 2 lower MAC (transceiver/air interface configuration), and layer 3 (routing).  We refer to this concept as Temporospatial SDN in academic literature; it reflects the fact that the controller’s information base must contain the ability to propagate the future motion of the physical platforms in order to model the candidate wireless link topology, to orchestrate that topology, and to compute routing paths across space and time.

In addition to these layer 1-3 control plane functions, Spacetime is also capable of monitoring network telemetry (like signal quality and traffic congestion) for the purposes of network resource optimization.  It also exposes key metrics (like present and forecast fulfillment of service level agreements, comparisons of signal quality vs digital twin estimates, etc.) to facilitate automated alerting by external incident response and management systems.

Who are the intended customers that would deploy Spacetime?

Aalyria’s primary target customers for Spacetime are those commercial and public sector organizations charged with operating communications network infrastructure – especially ones with mesh networks that incorporate steerable directional wireless communications.  These include commercial and military satellite network operators, earth observation and intelligence community satellite constellation operators, HAPS and airborne mesh network operators, maritime mesh network operators, terrestrial network operators employing millimeter wave and optical technology in integrated access and backhaul networks, and civil space exploration agencies.

However, the network effect of Spacetime and the Federation model provides secondary benefits to organizations and enterprises even when they do not have any such infrastructure under their control. See “What if some/all of the satellite payloads are out of our control?” below.

What if some or all satellite payloads are out of our control?

An instance of Spacetime can incorporate networks outside your control, supports automated network switching,  and can even support the automated brokering of dynamic interconnections with and across these networks – while simultaneously performing the complete control and optimization of any assets you fully control.  Each instance can mix and match assets and networks across the following tiers, which are listed and described in increasing order of capability afforded to the customer:

(1) Basic: Like contemporary SD-WAN solutions, Spacetime can monitor key performance metrics for network services that transit networks outside of your control and reactively switch networks when necessary.  It does not need any information for this basic tier.

(2) Enhanced: By adding to Spacetime any available information about the satellite orbits, transmitter and receiver chains, and antenna gain patterns, Spacetime can predict impacts caused by weather, terrain obstructions, potential jamming threats, and other disruptions – proactively switching connections for seamless continuity.  It can also proactively forecast disruptions to mission / customer end-to-end service requirements before they even occur.

(3) Federation: Buyers of satellite capacity can compel commercial satellite operators to add support for the open-source Federation API, even if they aren’t using Spacetime to orchestrate their networks.  A number of the largest commercial satellite network operators have already selected Spacetime to orchestrate their production networks, which natively supports the Federation API.  When these networks choose to share information with your network via these open APIs, Spacetime can dynamically broker connections across their networks in real-time, offering unparalleled flexibility and responsiveness.

(4) FullControl: For first party network infrastructure, Spacetime can directly orchestrate everything – satellites, ground stations, user terminals, etc. – for complete control and optimization.

How is it better than SD-WAN over multiple COMSAT providers?

Contemporary SD-WAN solutions ignore that the physical wireless links and paths across the underlying networks are constantly changing. In reality, the commercial satellite providers have provisioned their network around certain expectations about the geographic locations and statistical distribution of demand – all based on the static procurement contracts and service level agreements they’ve signed with their customers.  These expectations determine the operators’ static schedule of beam handovers, management of satellite payload resources, and paths across their network.  SD-WAN solutions only attempt to sense the health and current performance of these paths and automate switching between commercial providers.

This approach has its limitations. To illustrate them, consider a LEO constellation like SpaceX Starlink/Starshield configured to provide services to their static prediction of the statistical demand from a population of user terminals registered in known locations (labeled UT in the diagram below).

[credit Mike Puchol's blog]

In this example, SpaceX has configured their network expecting some statistical demand from US DoD customer terminals in configured geographies.  But, what if a US DoD customer terminal has a sudden mission requirement to log in from an unexpected cell / geography – one where SpaceX has not configured their network to expect a log-in?  Or what if it’s in an expected location; but, the customer has a mission constraint that requires transit through a certain POP to a private network instead of the Internet?  Or what if the US DoD mission requirements exceed the link layer capacity of the spectrum resources assigned to the cells – or the available capacity through ISLs and GWs, given competing flows?  SD-WAN cannot even attempt to solve such problems.

Supporting these requirements requires the SATCOM provider to modify the way they are orchestrating their network.  Until now, typical turnaround times for a customer to ask a SATCOM provider to support such needs (for example, to provision a new beam in a new geography) would typically involve a human <> human request between the customer <> provider and then, once understood and approved, a human-in-the-loop network operations task to reconfigure the provider network. This would take hours or days. Those are not tactically responsive timeframes.

In order to reduce this timeframe to mere seconds, three things are needed:

  1. The SATCOM provider needs access to a technology capable of intent-driven, automated orchestration of the network topology, radio resource optimization, and routing within seconds of new requests.
  2. The customer network (in this example, the US DoD) needs to compel the provider to implement open APIs that expose the candidate points of interconnection (ingress) and candidate reachable destinations (egress) and accept requests for on-demand network transit.  Note that the provider does not need to expose anything about the inner workings of their network.
  3. The customer network (again, in this example, the US DoD) needs access to a technology capable of modeling the time periods when interconnection with the provider’s ingress points is possible.  For wired interconnections, this is trivial.  It’s also fairly straightforward for anyone to build software to model the time periods when a government-managed terminal has an unobstructed field of view of provider satellites. For interconnections from and between airborne terminals, maritime terminals, and in-space interconnections (e.g., between SDA PWSA and commercial LEO across SDA-compliant optical communication terminals), this is non-trivial.

Spacetime fulfills all three of these needs.

CONTACT us

Explore collaboration and partnership opportunities with us.
Thank you! We will contact you soon.
Sorry, something went wrong while submitting your form.