Non-GEO Constellations Analysis Toolkit 5.0

The Non-GEO Constellations Analysis Toolkit (NCAT) fuses datasets, analytics and interactive visualisations into factual performance assessments of LEO and MEO satellite constellations.

Strategists, business and technical professionals alike leverage the NCAT platform to analyse the capabilities of NGSO constellations and their impact in any country or region.

Delivered as an online WebApp, the newly released NCAT v5.0 (NCAT5) includes enhanced tools for granular assessments of bandwidth supply and demand dynamics, market addressability and business case sensitivity. It also introduces new metrics and compares the competitive standing of constellations with that of terrestrial networks.

Toolkit coverage

NCAT5 leverages over 60 thousand lines of original code and 2 million query-able database rows to drive unbiased assessments of constellations’ performance metrics and capabilities. Millions of calculations are computed dynamically through tools that are easy to use and configurable though filters, visualisation controls and user inputs. 

Features include:

• Rigorously coded algorithms: driving factual analytics and visualisations.
• Comprehensive database: with enhanced update cycles for users to run fresh simulations effortlessly.
• Daily updates: the number of in-orbit satellites (Starlink, SES mPOWER, OneWeb, etc.) and their orbital observations are updated daily and automatically.
• Weekly updates: the new statistics tools leverage extensive satellite catalogues updated weekly and automatically.
• Quarterly updates: enhancements to the core software and database are deployed quarterly.
• Point-and-click interactivity: through interactive maps and controls (layers, filters, buttons and settings) users zoom in/out, click to set user-terminal locations and control dynamic calculations and visualisations.
• Multi-orbit, multi-band analysis: simulations are configurable for combinations of shells from one or multiple systems, driving calculations concurrently for thousands of satellites.
• Dynamic, animated visualisations: users visualise propagating conditions in real time including satellites position, footprint, visible satellites, antenna look angles, link latency variations, supply and demand heatmaps, etc.
• Space-time controls: NCAT5 allows real-time and accelerated time-lapse analysis globally, regionally or locally.
• Simulations can be accelerated up to 300 times, allowing toolkit users to run an entire day of constellation performance in around 5 minutes.
• Hexagonal ground grid: NCAT5 uses a dynamic hex-grid with country-level precision configurable down to city-size resolution (~9 km cell radius).
• The new 'shapes' tool allows users to define any geography beyond the 258 countries and regions preset in the NCAT database.
• Boosted IP throughput computations: computes link-budget throughput analysis concurrently on all user and gateway beams for combinations of gateway and user-terminal look angles.
• Fully flexible demand models: NCAT5 allows users to select from different pre-set criteria or define custom demand factors, including the distribution of user terminals and functions driving the bandwidth demand calculations.
• Demand-driven supply: via selectable supply fairness criteria, NCAT simulates reconfigurations of steerable beam capacity to meet changing demand conditions.
• Mobility tool: the NCAT server is linked to sources of commercial flights information for the assessment of in-flight connectivity (IFC) supply/demand dynamics (tens of thousands of flight routes, airlines and airports).
• Statistics: NCAT5 introduced two new statistics tools that interact with catalogues of over 61 thousand unclassified objects launched to space since 1957.
• Downloadable charts and data: all charts, maps and infographics are downloadable in PDF/PNG format. The output data is downloadable in tabular CSV format to allow further processing outside the platform.
• Tables, charts data, benchmark metrics, time-stamped samples, terrestrial grids with supply and demand data, assessment summaries, flight routes, look angle stats, beam utilisation, etc. 

Questions answered

• How does current and future NGSO architecture benchmark at multiple layers including coverage, capacity, beams and satellites?
• What is the forward and return link capacity (spectrum, bandwidth and IP throughput) per gateway/user beam, satellite and sub-constellation?
• How can the capital cost per usable Mbps be inferred?
• What is the business-case sensitivity to satellite manufacture and launch cost elements?
• Under what conditions can satcom constellations become more competitive than fiber optics to target underserved communities?
• How sensitive is the backhaul business case to capex and opex?
• How to assess bandwidth supply and demand factually, based on configurable mobility and fixed broadband service plans? Where are the congestion areas and how do they shift over time?
• What is the maximum, average and minimum number of satellites 'in view' or line of sight (LoS) across all latitudes, per shell and combination of shells?
• How does fibre latency benchmark against LEO systems and topologies, depending on POPs, use of optical inter-satellite links (OISL) and link relays?
• What are the regulatory exclusion angles for NGSO systems to avoid interfering with GEO (GSO) systems?

Who should use this toolbox

• Established and emerging satellite operators (GSO & NGSO, FSS & MSS /D2D)
• Spacecraft manufacturers and component vendors
• Terrestrial and wireless network operators including telcos, MNOs, towercos, cable operators, IP transit, WLL and cloud service providers
• Ground system vendors (terminals, MSA/ESA antennas, hub/modems, SD-WAN, ground-network virtualisation)
• Teleport operators, satellite service providers, integrators and distributors of NGSO managed services
• Major users of NGSO capacity including government, defence and commercial end users (for example, airlines, cruise lines, energy players)
• Industry associations, research labs and institutions
• IT companies that are developing virtualised cloud software solutions for constellations
• Regulators and spectrum research agencies
• Financial institutions, investment management and insurance. 

Satellite systems included (examples)

Amazon Project Kuiper, AST SpaceMobile, Boeing, E-Space, G60 SailSpace, GW-2, GW-A59, Hughes, Inmarsat Orchestra, Intelsat MEO, Iridium, Kepler, Lynk Global, Mangata Networks, Omnispace, OneWeb, Rivada, SES mPOWER & O3b, SpaceX Starlink, Telesat Lighspeed, ViaSat

As an online configurable toolset NCAT has unlimited usability and is delivered pre-populated with datasets for leading NGSO systems, including granted, operating and proposed systems.