Senior Buyer

ST Engineering iDirect advances intelligent satellite operations with new AI capabilities. Sep 10, 2026, 07:00 ET New capabilities for AI governance, operational control and rapid onboarding help operators simplify complexity, strengthen compliance and scale automation with confidence HERNDON, Va., Sept. 10, 2026 /PRNewswire/ - ST Engineering iDirect, a global leader in satellite communications, today announced new capabilities for Foresight, its AI-driven orchestration and intelligence platform designed to help satellite operators simplify increasingly complex multi-orbit and multi-service network environments. The new capabilities introduce enhanced AI governance, operational controls, and guided onboarding tools that help operators adopt AI responsibly, maintain oversight of operational changes and accelerate deployment. "Satellite operators are under increasing pressure to deliver services faster, manage growing operational complexity and adopt AI responsibly," said Sridhar Kuppanna, CEO of ST Engineering iDirect. "With these new Foresight capabilities, we're extending the intelligence, automation and governance that operators need to confidently modernize their operations. From accelerating onboarding to governing AI-assisted workflows, Foresight provides a practical path toward more intelligent and automated satellite operations." With support for air-gapped deployments, strong data governance and secure AI operations, Foresight enables operators to accelerate automation while maintaining control of their networks and data, helping them move from reactive management toward autonomous network operations. Foresight's latest AI capabilities include: * Agentic Governance: Delivers oversight, auditability and risk controls for AI agents through governance policies, audit trails, operational safeguards and compliance-focused controls. * Governed Change Management: Enables approval-based workflows with review, risk assessment and authorization before AI-driven operational changes are applied. * AI Usage Visibility and Cost Controls: Provides monitoring, budgeting and policy-based controls to help operators manage AI consumption and maintain operational oversight. * Accelerated Onboarding: Simplifies deployment by automatically discovering network inventory, deploying required platform components and guiding administrators through privacy, data and deployment configuration options. First introduced in March 2026, Foresight represents ST Engineering iDirect's vision for more intelligent and automated satellite operations, bringing together automation, orchestration and AI-driven insights in a unified operational environment. ST Engineering iDirect, a subsidiary of ST Engineering, is a global leader in satellite communications (satcom) providing technology and solutions that enable its customers to expand their business, differentiate their services and optimize their satcom networks. With over 40 years of delivering innovation focused on solving satellite's most critical economic and technology challenges we are committed to shaping the future of how the world connects. The product portfolio, branded iDirect, represents the highest standards in performance, efficiency and reliability, making it possible for its customers to deliver the best satcom connectivity experience anywhere in the world. ST Engineering iDirect is a leader in key industries including mobility, broadcast and military/government. In 2007, iDirect Government was formed to better serve the U.S. government and defense communities. For more information visit www.idirect.net. SOURCE ST Engineering iDirect

ST Engineering iDirect demonstrates multi-waveform 5G NR-NTN User Equipment pilot. Sep 02, 2026, 10:46 ET INT3000 modem pilot marks next milestone in phased multi-waveform user equipment development HERNDON, Va., Sept. 2, 2026 /PRNewswire/ - ST Engineering iDirect, a global leader in satellite communications, today demonstrated a pilot version of the INT3000, its multi-waveform 5G New Radio Non-Terrestrial Network (NR-NTN) User Equipment (UE) modem, at the European Space Agency (ESA) 5G NTN Forum. The INT3000 is being developed to support both 5G NR NTN and DVB-S2X/MRC waveforms in a single device, enabling operators to deploy native 5G NR-NTN services while also supporting DVB and hybrid network architectures during migration and modernization. The INT3000 modem pilot provided the ESA 5G NTN community a look at ST Engineering iDirect's progress in advancing 5G NR-NTN UE, with the demonstration conducted over a satellite simulator. On the network side, the pilot connected through the Intuition ground system, which implements native 5G NR-NTN gNodeB capabilities. "This pilot demonstration is another important step in our multi-waveform, multi-orbit user equipment roadmap," said Shravan Gaddam, Vice President, CTO Office, ST Engineering iDirect. "The industry is moving toward standards-based 5G NTN connectivity, but at the same time, operators must support existing satellite networks. Our vision for the INT3000 is to bring these worlds together in a single user equipment, providing a practical path for operators to evolve their networks while leveraging existing investments." The INT3000 modem pilot provides the foundation for extending ST Engineering iDirect's satellite networking capabilities into the broader 5G ecosystem, bringing together the technology, ecosystem partnerships and product framework required to support future interoperability between satellite and terrestrial communications networks. As part of its broader 5G NTN strategy, ST Engineering iDirect is also advancing 5G NR waveform innovations designed to reduce reliance on Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) and satellite position data for timing and synchronization. These enhancements are intended to improve resiliency and operational flexibility across multi-orbit satellite environments while supporting the continued evolution of 5G NTN technologies. Built on the cloud-native, multi-orbit Intuition ground system, the developments in the INT3000 modem pilot support the industry's evolution toward globally interoperable 5G NTN satellite connectivity and future 6G networks. ST Engineering iDirect, a subsidiary of ST Engineering, is a global leader in satellite communications (satcom) providing technology and solutions that enable its customers to expand their business, differentiate their services and optimize their satcom networks. With over 40 years of delivering innovation focused on solving satellite's most critical economic and technology challenges we are committed to shaping the future of how the world connects. The product portfolio, branded iDirect, represents the highest standards in performance, efficiency and reliability, making it possible for its customers to deliver the best satcom connectivity experience anywhere in the world. ST Engineering iDirect is a leader in key industries including mobility, broadcast and military/government. In 2007, iDirect Government was formed to better serve the U.S. government and defense communities. For more information visit www.idirect.net. SOURCE ST Engineering iDirect

iDirect wins SATCOM contracts in expanding Asian market. August 14, 2026 The satellite communications (SATCOM) company iDirect - a subsidiary of Singapore-based ST Engineering - has won a recent series of defence and government contracts. Announced on 28 July were five awards - two in Southeast Asia and three in Europe. One Southeast Asian military "is reinforcing the communications backbone for its naval forces, enabling real-time situational awareness and coordinated command operations across coastal and open-water environments through automatic beam switching, open antenna to modem interface protocol interoperability, advanced spread-spectrum capabilities, and transmission security-enabled security," the company shared. Asian Military Review understands this contract is to an archipelagic nation, possibly Indonesia. The statement continued, "The other is modernising protected mobility and fixed communications with defence-grade security, multilayer resilience, global network management, and rapidly deployable low-SWaP [size, weight and power] terminals that support flexible, secure operations across tactical and fixed sites." Growing defence demand. Acquired by ST Engineering in 2005, iDirect provides technology, software and integration solutions that enable customers to optimise their SATCOM networks. With militaries around the world seeking sovereign SATCOM solutions and building next-generation satellite networks, the company believes it is well placed for future growth. Keith Blanchet, Vice President of Global Government, ST Engineering iDirect, told AMR that the commercial sector currently represents around 70% of its business compared to the government and defence sector, but he expects this will reduce to less than half within 3-4 years. This trend is exacerbated by the rise of commercial entities such as Starlink and Amazon Leo, which "have shrunk the overall addressable market" for all the traditional players. "What that has produced is now a business that's focusing more and more on the government defence sector, where countries where Starlink is not necessarily palatable or desired. And also there's a rise of sovereign thinking in the SATCOM domain and space domain overall." Blanchet outlined that this is "something that plays very well into the direction of ST Engineering". Blanchet described the new Southeast Asian contracts as "highly strategic", with the nations opting "to go in the direction of multi-orbit, software-defined ground segments, trusting the roadmap that ST Engineering iDirect are proposing to them over the next few years. They may not all be acquiring the same capability today because of budgets, etc., but they're buying into the idea of being able to adapt over that roadmap." Integration and Intuition. Blanchet described iDirect as a "player that collates or brings together the satellite operators and different satellite constellations that exist out there. The whole concept of multi-orbit networks is key, and that now gets us ahead of most of the other players since we took an early start there. Now we're able to demonstrate and not just talk about it." Amongst ST Engineering iDirect's specialties are ground segment SATCOM networks. Blanchet explained satellites are software-defined nowadays to keep them up to date, and "that means the ground segment, whatever receives the signal from the satellite, needs to be able to not only provide that full capacity on the ground now, but evolve over time as well". "What we do is we offer the market the flexibility of all the strengths of those different constellations and orbits, and to bring them all together on the ground." This matches the requirements of militaries who want diversity, redundancy and resilience. One of iDirect's key products is Intuition, and the company is currently developing a new version specifically for government and defence clients. Blanchet could not say when it will be ready, other than "very soon". He believes the new version will immediately accelerate adoption by government customers. Asian sovereignty. Sovereignty is particularly important in Asia, as regional countries do not collaborate as they do in NATO, for instance. "So essentially, we're a glue that brings together the various constellations and satellite options that are out there," the Canadian executive explained. iDirect does not offer full-stack sovereign ownership, which is the old way of countries owning and managing every component in their satellite chain. Rather, the firm promotes the concept of sovereign control, where nations can localise the technologies important to them but still make use of iDirect's ability to integrate everything. iDirect already serves 20 of 27 EU nations, and 24 of 32 NATO member states. As for Asia, Blanchet said "most countries in Asia are customers of ours at some level, whether on the commercial side or on the defence side". Blanchet predicted the Asia-Pacific market will "double very quickly" and it may even triple in coming years. He added that growth will be even faster if Australia gets its SPA9102 sovereign SATCOM tender under way. After initially selecting Lockheed Martin Australia to support this project with its proposed geostationary Earth orbit network, Canberra halted it in 2024. Last year, Australia resurrected the project, and a request for tender is actually expected this month. It is now seeking a multi-orbit-style constellation, and one that partially leverages commercial solutions in order to reduce costs. This approach is totally up iDirect's alley, and it is eager to participate in this SATCOM tender. by Gordon Arthur