Mission Microwave and AST Microwave Team to offer Redundant SSPA Systems for Teleports and Gateways

January 13th, 2022

Mission Microwave Technologies, LLC, and AST Microwave, Inc have drafted a teaming arrangement to help customers take advantage of Mission Microwave’s advanced Gallium Nitride (GaN) Solid State Amplifiers in teleports and gateways.  The companies have worked closely to develop integrated redundancy systems that take advantage of the elegant designs and industry leading size, weight, and power of Mission Microwave products, along with AST Microwave’s ability to design custom high power RF solutions.

AST Microwave has been serving the satellite and RF industry for over 30 years with highly reliable customized waveguide switch and load systems able to provide redundancy-switching capabilities for extremely high power RF amplifiers between 6 and 40 GHz for C, X, Ku, and Ka-Band frequencies.  Mission Microwave’s highly reliable Solid State Amplifiers and Block Up Converters offer the best combination of size, weight, and power available in the industry and are widely used on critical SATCOM terminals for government , aviation and maritime terminals.  Mission Microwave manufactures BUCs that operate at power levels from 8 to 800 watts in X-, Ku- and Ka-band.

High Power Amplifier (HPA) systems are typically one of the most complex and expensive subsystems in a teleport.  Advances in SSPA technology have allowed teleport operators to move the HPA systems from expensive air-conditioned shelters to outdoor mounting at the base of the antenna. AST Microwave designs HPA systems using Mission Microwave’s lightweight and compact SSPAs optimally to place the HPA system in the antenna hub or integrated onto the antenna structure to eliminate the RF Loss and complexity of axis crossings on the antenna mount. This allows the teleport operator to use a smaller HPA to produce the same overall transmit power from the antenna at a lower initial cost and a reduced operating cost.

Dave Owers AST Microwave’s President explained “Traditionally these large HPA systems where shipped to a teleport in expensive custom crates and then lifted into place at the base of the antenna using a crane or boom truck – a high risk operation in a teleport. The redundant systems designed with Mission Microwave’s SSPAs can be shipped directly to site without any custom crating and assembled on site by a small installation team. The systems are designed to be easier to install, maintain, and repair in the field. As all AST switches are fully sealed our systems are particularly well suited to withstand inclement weather conditions.” 

Steve Richeson Mission Microwave’s VP of Sales & Marketing added, “Our teleport customers require sophisticated RF switching products that are efficiently and elegantly combined with their ground station antennas.  The partnership with AST Microwave makes it easier and more affordable for our teleport customers to buy a complete system and be confident that the components will work well together and offer the ultimate in ease of installation, maintenance and repair.”