Bothell, WA, 24 September 2019 – Tethers Unlimited, Inc. (TUI) announced that its S-band radio, the SWIFT-SLX Software Defined Radio, has been selected to provide communications and navigations capabilities for the Lunar Node 1 mission under development by the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center. Lunar Node 1 will demonstrate and test navigation technologies needed to build out a lunar navigation network to support missions in lunar orbit and on the lunar surface. The SWIFT-SLX software defined radio will serve both as a navigation beacon and communications link with NASA’s Deep Space Network (DSN).
“We are very excited that our SWIFT-SLX radio has been selected to go to the Moon. Our team has worked very hard to develop and produce a reliable communications platform that can be used anywhere from the surface of the Earth to the surface of the Moon.” said Seckin Secilmis the General Manager at TUI. “SWIFT radios are successfully providing high performance communications for a number of small satellite missions. The Lunar Node 1 mission is a great opportunity to demonstrate SWIFT radio technology for deep space missions, and to begin building out critical navigation infrastructure to support NASA and commercial endeavors at the Moon,” said TUI’s CEO, Dr. Rob Hoyt.
The SWIFT-SLX radio is a compact, affordable software defined radio designed to provide both S- and L-band communications for small satellites. Its “software defined” attributes make it readily configurable to support a wide range of mission needs, including in-flight adjustment of operating frequencies and modulations, and ensures compatibility with a wide range of ground station modems. Developed under Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) investments from the Air Force Research Laboratory and the Army Space and Missile Defense Center, the SWIFT software defined radios enable satellite operators to rapidly configure and tune their communications systems to maximize the amount of data they can deliver through the congested radio frequency spectrum.