Telecommunications

New technologies and applications for satellite communication

ATHENA-Fidus

Dual system for telecommunication services

This project provides for the development of a geostationary satellite for dual broad-band communications services dedicated to independent users and proprietors, for Italian and French military and government use. The use of "bands" oriented towards providing broad-band telecommunications services in the entire hemisphere of the geostationary orbit is also foreseen to support military actions and Italian institutional and humanitarian missions abroad.

Athena-Fidus will realize a telecommunications infrastructure that can substitute/integrate ground networks in case they are not available or if they are damaged.

The system will provide the following services:

• Broad-band access to Internet for fixed or portable terminals located in areas with low levels (or degraded levels) of communications infrastructures (for the management of natural or harmful disasters in situations of general emergency)
• Broad-band telecommunications services for police force terminals (for example, access to remote multimedia databases)
• “Seamless” interconnections (LAN-to-LAN, Virtual Private Network) between sites that have local telecommunications infrastructures
• Telecommunications services to provide remote surveillance in critical areas (ports, airports, railway in both natural disaster and non-disaster areas, etc.)
• Telecommunications services for Armed Forces that complement existing or provided military solutions foreseen in the near future