When a flight director in Houston gives a go for a lunar mission, when a controller at ESOC in Darmstadt commands a satellite manoeuvre, or when range safety officers in northern Norway clear a rocket for launch, the conversation passes through communication infrastructure that has to work the first time, every time. In a significant share of these environments, that infrastructure is built by Frequentis.
As project partner in COSMOS-SECURE, FREQUENTIS Solutions & Services s.r.o. brings this operational heritage directly into Slovak and European research on secure, post-quantum voice communication for space. The following overview outlines where Frequentis technology is deployed today, and why that footprint is relevant to the work being carried out within the project consortium.
NASA and human spaceflight
Frequentis has been a supplier to NASA since 2007, delivering voice communication systems for mission control under the Mission Operations Voice Enhancement (MOVE) programme. The systems coordinate flight directors, discipline specialists and support teams across crewed and uncrewed operations.
The same infrastructure underpins the Artemis programme, including Artemis II, the first crewed mission to the Moon in more than five decades. Deep-space links remain the responsibility of NASA's dedicated communication networks; Frequentis technology operates one layer closer to the decision — inside Mission Control itself, where reliability is measured in seconds.
ESA and European mission control
Frequentis has worked with the European Space Agency for more than a decade across research and operational programmes covering satellite communications, secure IP networking and ground-segment evolution.
Its technology is in service at the European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) in Darmstadt and at the Columbus Control Centre, which manages Europe's contribution to the International Space Station. The work supports Europe's capacity to conduct multinational missions on a sustained operational basis.
Commercial launch in Europe
Frequentis is also active in Europe's emerging commercial launch sector. At Andøya Spaceport in northern Norway — the first operational orbital spaceport on the European mainland — the company supplies communication systems used for launch coordination and range safety.
During test flights of the Spectrum launch vehicle, developed by Isar Aerospace, Frequentis technology supported safety procedures including controlled flight termination over defined safety corridors. The deployment illustrates how a single communication backbone can serve aviation, maritime and launch-range safety within one operational concept.
A consistent requirement: assured communication
Frequentis does not operate spacecraft or launch vehicles. Its role is narrower and, in operational terms, foundational: ensuring that the people responsible for time-critical decisions on the ground can speak to one another clearly, securely and without interruption. That requirement is the same in Houston, in Darmstadt and on the Norwegian coast.
Relevance to COSMOS-SECURE
Within COSMOS-SECURE, FREQUENTIS Solutions & Services s.r.o. leads Pillar 2 — Optimal and efficient communication interfaces for voice communication in space. The project, coordinated by Decent Cybersecurity s.r.o. and co-financed by the European Union under Programme Slovakia, addresses two converging challenges: the introduction of post-quantum cryptography into mission-critical voice systems, and the design of communication interfaces capable of operating reliably across radio-frequency, optical, satellite and hybrid scenarios.
The voice traffic that today coordinates Artemis controllers, ESA mission teams and European launch operations will need to remain trustworthy well beyond the arrival of cryptographically relevant quantum computing. Combining Frequentis's operational record with Slovak research expertise in post-quantum cryptography is one practical contribution to that long-term objective — and to Europe's digital sovereignty in space communication.