Viasat’s Hybrid SATCOM approach (HSA) platform and Multi-Domain Unified Secure Integrated Communications (MUSIC) was selected for awards at the Satellite User Association (MSUA) 2025.
Its solutions won awards in the Government Mobile Innovation and Software Defined Network Innovation categories, respectively. These annual awards recognize innovations in mobile connectivity on land, sea, air, and space.
Viasat’s HSA is a flexible airborne platform offering multi-orbit, multi-frequency, and multi-network/constellation satellite connectivity. With Viasat’s dual-band (Ku/Ka), global aero terminal as the base and a modular open architecture, HSA provides access to global high-capacity coverage with cellular-like roaming across satellite frequency bands, networks and constellations, and satellite orbits.
Vic Farah, Senior Vice President of Viasat Government Services and Solutions, stated, “Today’s battlespace is rapidly changing and we’re proud to be on the forefront of supporting modern missions with highly reliable and resilient SATCOM for seamless data and intelligence sharing. Our team is extremely focused on solving customer challenges and our HSA platform solution offers customers the flexibility to quickly access the multi-orbit, multi-network communications required for a wide range of missions.”
The open architecture design enables the integration of multiple terminals, including Viasat’s Ku/Ka array antenna, Ku-LEO, L-band, UHF, Mobile User Objective System (MUOS) or others, for increased operational flexibility and resilience. HSA integrates customer-trusted, currently available solutions into a high-performance connectivity solution for government and military aircraft.
Matured in partnership with the U.S. Department of Defense Office of Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering (OUSD R&E) under its Technology Readiness and Experimentation (T-REX) initiative, Viasat’s MUSIC solution is a cutting-edge configuration of Viasat’s software-defined networking (SDN) capability, designed to support uncrewed swarm communications operations with secure, multi-path transport and network orchestration to optimize satellite connectivity for the mission.
Built on Viasat’s SDN platform, NetAgility, the MUSIC architecture ensures reliable communication for autonomous systems across various networks and transports. This advanced connectivity solution enables the coordination of autonomous systems to achieve mission advantages by quickly moving critical application and mission data when and where it’s needed.
These innovative technologies are already being recognized as force multipliers by government customers across the world. For example, Viasat is currently working on integrating the HSA into the Embraer C-390 platform. The MUSIC networking solution was successfully used to connect autonomous maritime systems during the AUKUS Autonomous Warrior 24 exercise late last year and the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) will use MUSIC to support its Replicator initiative focused on the coordination of autonomous systems.
Susan Miller, President, Viasat Government, also commented, “Viasat is honored to be recognized by MSUA with the Government Mobile and Software Defined Network Innovation awards. These awards are a testament to the commitment of our teams and their work to develop and deliver innovative, flexible SATCOM and advanced tactical network solutions for the real mission needs of government and military customers.”
David Schmolke, Vice President of Mission Connections and Cybersecurity, highlighted Viasat’s customer-centric approach, “Our team worked closely to understand and address customer needs throughout the development of the MUSIC architecture.
“The coordinated use of autonomous systems offers critical operational advantages as the demands to quickly collect and share mission data grow. We are proud to be collaborating with government users in addressing complex tactical networking challenges through advanced, software-defined orchestration capabilities like MUSIC and NetAgility.”
MSUA announced the full list of 2025 Satellite Mobile Innovation Award winners following the awards presentation on March 11th.
