Kratos revolutionizes satellite communications, transforming proprietary hardware into virtualized network functions

In the realm of national security and defense, one of the best examples of transformation comes from our work with Rancher Government Solutions. And the RGS, the Rancher Government Solutions customer, Kratos, is doing some really cool things in the world of satellite communications. So, with that, I would like to have the director of product management of edge solutions at Kratos, Mr. Kevin Tobias, join me on stage.

Tell us how Kratos is transforming the satellite communications industry.

It's a really exciting time to be in space right now. You just have a renaissance that's happening up in space with satellites. And so, I want to touch on a couple different items that are happening there. I'll take you back first for context to 1962, when NASA launched the first communication satellite known as Telstar 1. That satellite, back in 1962, just provided a broadcast from the US to Europe. But since then, there have just been incremental improvements in bandwidth, coverage and efficiency of the communication over the satellites. But there hasn't really been a fundamental shift. Now, we see this insatiable demand for data, for insights, for communications all around the globe. So, the space industry is really radically responding by beginning to digitally transform the way that space networks work so that they can respond to the demand on the ground.

So, we had Orange on stage yesterday talking about their involvement with Sylva. They're doing a telecommunications platform that's open source to further the 5G deployments globally. I see parallels in the space industry to what's happening in the telco space...

Absolutely.

It seems like you guys are doing what the telco industry has done, where they're going from proprietary hardware to the virtualization of the network functions that provide the services we all depend on.

Yeah, that's exactly right. So, when you think about space networks, they've generally over time been these bent pipes — static proprietary stacks of hardware that are purpose built for the particular mission. So we have hubs and modems in the SATCOM world to provide connectivity to a remote region. Part of what we're doing at Kratos is digitally transforming that by virtualizing the physical network functions, moving them onto general purpose compute and disaggregating that hardware from the software.

So, I know you guys were at CommunicAsia in Singapore a few weeks ago. Let me actually show what you guys were demoing there. Can you talk about the stack here? This is OpenSpace?

This is OpsCenter.

OpenSpace OpsCenter. OpenSpace is the brand, OpsCenter is the tool?

Yes. So, OpenSpace is really our software defined, end-to-end platform that virtualizes all of those network functions. Then, OpsCenter is really about our network operations view. So, here on the UI, you get a view of modems that have been virtualized in the various containerized network functions that are strung together into service chains that can be instantiated in software at a moment’s notice. And then, you also see below that the RF spectrum that's been digitized being sent onto the compute.

Okay, so I'm going to put you on the spot.

Sure.

So, this is a picture of a Hummer here, right?

Yes.

And you told me, which totally blew my mind, that you can repurpose hardware for any application space there.

That’s right.

So, tell me about your first day meeting this Hummer and the task that was put in front of you.

Well, I'll tell you, I wasn't planning on saying this before, but the first time I took a Kratos Hummer, I had to drive it all the way from Virginia out to Colorado Springs, which took me about three days and 14 gas tanks to get there. But I'll tell you, this second event here at Space Symposium, in the picture that you see in the top right-hand, is a Hummer where we were demonstrating multi-mission capability. And so, we had two different antenna apertures carrying out two different missions here. So, we had a NOAA NASA down link from an Earth observation satellite that we were processing on the edge with our CNF on top of K3s. And then, we had a SATCOM modem that had also been virtualized. We were sending out that processed image over the air on a second satellite back to the internet. And that modem was also virtualized running on the same compute there. And so, for our government and defense customers that were looking at this, they're thinking about the mission as it changes and evolves on the ground; they can completely reconstitute that platform at a moment’s notice for whatever the next mission may be.

That’s absolutely amazing. So, given a particular mission order (or directive or objective), you can custom configure commodity hardware via software that we help provide.

That's right.

I want you to talk about the components after this.

Sure.

But you can custom configure and change the capability of that hardware just from a software definition?

Absolutely. And in the past, that would've been a stack of purpose-built hardware.

So, bring in another truckload of gear, just for that particular function. Where now, it's maybe a GitOps-based process and say, "Deploy this app?"

That's exactly right.

So, where does SUSE play in that stack?

So, when we talk about the far edge of the network, these are the actual terminals. These are the remote locations that we're providing connectivity to. So, these are planes, trains, maritime vessels, remote locations, oil platforms. On top of the general-purpose compute that we're using, we've got SLE Micro running, which is crucial. We've got K3s running on top of that. And then, back at the core, we're running RKE2. So, end to end, we're using Rancher and SUSE to digitally transform our network.”

Okay, so I'm going to put you on the spot one more time. From a security perspective, in a previous role, I used to be in the security space. And RKE2, for those that don't know in the US government, there is a sort of a soft blessing called, a STIG: a Secure Technical Implementation Guide. It's basically a document that says this is the best way to secure Product X. Well, our Kubernetes, RKE2, is the only Kubernetes distribution in the US government that has a DISA [Defense Information Systems Agency] blessed STIG. The applause is absolutely warranted because it's a huge accomplishment for us. But in your sales effort to your DOD and defense customers, tell me about the anecdotal thing that we talked about yesterday at dinner where you were talking about RKE2 and the fact that we had a STIG.

Sure. So, talking to a Space Force customer, we were able to speak about our solution. As the security teams started to assess what we were doing and started asking about the security aspects, when we talked about the immutable OS that we can run on, when we talked about a STIG-able OS that we can run both on our digitizers and on our compute stack, the pencils just went down. There were no more questions to be asked. And that was absolutely recognizing the SUSE stack.

I love that story. Okay, so last big question here, and I’m using the word, “big,” intentionally. When you guys came to us, you broke the barrier in terms of numbers...

Yes.

Like previously, before Kratos, we thought 10,000 locations was a big number. Tell us about the scale that you guys see in the field.

When you talk about scale, tens of thousands of remote terminals could be in a single comms on the move, or a mobility network, like a maritime network. One of our customers, who is a satellite operator, has deployed over 10 million terminals over the course of their operations. So, the scale is really massive, ranging anywhere from connecting IOT devices for energy, all the way up to providing remote connectivity to even an island or cruise ship — an airplane. So, your in-flight Wi-Fi you had on the way here, service might not have been great, but it was made possible by satellite to the aircraft.

Yeah, absolutely. Amazing. So, do you have any questions for me or anything we should cover?

No. I think I would just say that we're absolutely delighted to be partnered with SUSE, and we're really excited to change the world together.

I love that. Thank you so much, Kevin.

Yeah, absolutely.