As the Chief Operations Officer, Lt Gen Saltzman has overall responsibility for operations, intelligence, sustainment, cyber, and nuclear operations of the U.S. Space Force. Prior to his current role, he most recently served as the Deputy Commander of the U.S. Air Force’s Central Command, and Deputy Combined Force Air Component Commander of U.S. Central Command, Southwest Asia.

During the event, Lt Gen Saltzman reflected on the Space Force’s second year accomplishments, examined how the U.S. should address current adversarial efforts in the space domain, and discussed why the U.S. government must begin leveraging commercial satellite architectures and capabilities for its military missions.

Two years of accomplishments

On December 20, 2021, the U.S. Space Force celebrated its second birthday, and to begin the forum, Lt Gen Saltzman opened with an enthusiastic discussion about the major accomplishments Space Force made in its two years of operations.

He prefaced the discussion by setting the stage and reminding the audience that 2021 witnessed a lot of adversarial activity in the space domain. He explained that U.S. adversaries took worryingly bold actions in space this past year, specifically referring to Russia’s testing of anti-satellite (ASAT) missiles and China’s hypersonic missile test. “These are dynamic times in the space security environment, so we need the Space Force to be going fast,” said Saltzman.

And, indeed, 2021 was a fast-growing year for Space Force, beginning with its intelligence directorate’s induction as the 18^th member of the intelligence community (IC).

“Leah Lauderback is the head of our intelligence community apparatus here and she’s just doing a fantastic job,” said Lt Gen Saltzman. “And the level of support that I’m able to give to the Pentagon based on that foundational intelligence that’s focused on space threats has just been remarkable.”

Lt Gen Saltzman also highlighted that in 2021 the Secretary of the U.S. Air Force signed an organizational change request, establishing the first service components of the Space Force’s combatant commands in Europe, the Pacific, the Middle East, and South Korea.

Last year, Space Force also laid down the groundwork for nearly 700 interservice transfers, which Saltzman said is much more challenging than one would assume. “While you think they just raise their hand, swear the oath to the Space Force, and change uniforms, as you all know it’s a little more complicated than that.” Lt Gen Saltzman explained that ensuring seamless interservice transitions that don’t create any adverse effects on new Guardians has been a lot of work, which he is extremely proud of.

This growth and the major accomplishments couldn’t come at a better time, as America’s adversaries become increasingly active and bold in space.

Deterring the adversary

During the discussion, Lt Gen Saltzman highlighted some of the recent adversarial efforts that occurred in the space domain in 2021, specifically Russia’s successful ASAT missile test and the implications the test has on the country’s space posture.

Lt Gen Saltzman declared that the ASAT test was an extremely “irresponsible” and “hazardous” act, and that the space debris that resulted from Russia destroying its defunct, Soviet-era satellite will pose kinetic threats for years to come.

“We are now spending a tremendous amount of our time, energy, and capacity to characterize the nature of that debris field,” explained Lt Gen Saltzman. “Because at a minimum, we know that it poses a hazard to the astronauts on the ISS. And it’s one of our basic responsibilities to make sure that we characterize all of the objects that are on orbit, to protect not just humankind up there on the ISS, but all of these very expensive, exquisite satellites that we spend blood, sweat, tears, energy, and national treasure to put into orbit and perform some remarkable services for us.”

In order to establish stability and a framework of accountability in the domain, Lt Gen Saltzman referred to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin’s tenants on responsible behavior in space as one of the gold standards that should be followed in order to deter this type of dangerous behavior.

“If it’s the Wild Wild West out there in space, then it’s hard to hold people responsible for any kind of behavior, because you haven’t really defined what’s acceptable and what’s not acceptable,” explained Saltzman. “I don’t think we should underestimate how important setting the framework for what responsible behavior in space looks like.”

Lt Gen Saltzman explained that another component of deterrence would be ensuring that the U.S. has the capability and the capacity from the ground – and space – to rapidly characterize new space debris fields.

“Although this one was an ASAT test, there are other times when two objects just run into each other and create debris field,” explained Lt Gen Saltzman. “Debris generating events can occur by accident as much as it can occur deliberately. And we have to have that capacity to rapidly characterize, figure out where those orbits are, and then start doing projections about potential hazards those new objects that are created on orbit could cause to manned spaceflight, as well as other capabilities.”

Leveraging commercial space

When it pertains to the capabilities that the U.S. Space Force will need in the future, Lt Gen Saltzman explained that satellite architecture currently in space is not prepared and readied for combat capability and capacity.

“The architecture that we have was largely designed for a benign environment,” said Lt Gen Saltzman. “And we just didn’t talk about combat attributes or combat attrition. We didn’t talk about the kinds of adversarial behavior that we would have to account for with the Force design.”

Lt Gen Saltzman explained that the original goal of the U.S.’ current space and satellite architecture was originally focused on “getting the most out of the capabilities as possible,” not on being able to support a warfighting architecture.

According to Lt Gen Saltzman, in order to get the warfighting capabilities necessary to protect U.S. assets from space, there must be a shift in how the U.S. military acquires the required capabilities and functions. And one solution that he believes could help remedy this problem is the commercial space industry.

Lt Gen Saltzman explained that there is currently a commercial space boom happening around the world, and that the U.S. government needs to take more advantage of the services and capabilities industry can provide to the military.

“With the technology that’s being employed, I think we’re going to be able to leverage commercial capabilities to accomplish a subset of our missions,” explained Lt Gen Saltzman. “And as we distribute those up, not only does it free up resources for us, but it creates a more resilient architecture because of the number of different places and pathways where we can get the information we need.”

Lt Gen Saltzman explained that when it comes to the grand design of the Space Force, it’s not just what the branch builds, but also what the branch buys to ensure it has the necessary resources at the right time and space. And Lt Gen Saltzman did admit that it may take time to flesh out all these aspects of the Force’s design.

“Some of these things take a while to get on orbit and put in place,” said Lt Gen Saltzman. “But, you know, a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. That’s the path of the journey we’re on.”

Click the video below to watch the Spacepower Forum in its entirety.

The post Happy birthday, Space Force! Lt Gen B. Chance Saltzman reflects on the branch’s second year in operation appeared first on SES Space and Defense.

To say that the future of the U.S. military is more software-enabled, and more network-enabled than ever before would be a massive understatement. Everything that the military is developing and piloting for use in battle today needs connectivity.

Just look at the Army’s IVAS program, which is working to deliver an advanced augmented reality (AR) solution to the warfighter on the battlefield – putting important information, situational awareness capabilities, and other tools directly in their field of vision via a HoloLens headset.

According to Steve Kitay, the Senior Director of Azure Space at Microsoft, the IVAS headset will be augmented by Azure cloud services, and function to, “[keep] soldiers safer and [make] them more effective…[by] delivering enhanced situational awareness, enabling information sharing, and decision making for a variety of scenarios.”

And while this is certainly an exciting and revolutionary new tool in the warfighter’s kit, it’s only possible with connectivity in theater.

If everything that the warfighter relies on in theater is going to become network-enabled, then connectivity needs to be assured. Training a soldier to rely on a tool that only works when connected would be setting them up for failure if the network that supports the tool can be degraded or denied. Resilient, assured networks are no longer “nice to have,” they’re mission-critical.

While that looks good on paper, assured networks are easier to discuss – or write about – than they are to implement in the real world.

Complexity and a lack of transparency impact uptime
The terrestrial networks that provide the backbone of our high-bandwidth connectivity at home are incredibly stable and reliable, with SLAs and uptimes that ensure that connectivity is almost always available. Unfortunately, those terrestrial networks, themselves, are often unavailable where the military and government operates.

In foreign countries and isolated geographic locations, terrestrial networks may not exist at all. If that infrastructure does exist, it could be unreliable, or it could be untrusted. But that’s not just a problem that the military faces abroad. There are large swaths of our own country with no high-bandwidth terrestrial networks due to cost, geography, or other reasons.

In these places, satellite connectivity is essential and necessary to deliver the high-bandwidth, high-throughput, low-latency connectivity necessary for the government and military to operate their next-generation, network-enabled platforms, devices, and vehicles.

“…Hydra includes an inventory management system that integrates shared and dedicated devices, circuits, and the space segment into the same contextual environment…[allowing users] to schedule and monitor the entire end-to-end network in a single, integrated pane of glass, diagnose problems more rapidly, and fix problems before they take applications, services, and capabilities offline.” – Amit Katti

But adding satellite communications to the network infrastructure for government agencies and the military effectively increases the complexity of the networks – giving them a network architecture that incorporates assets on Earth, and in space. Much like with a modern car that’s more of a computer than an automobile, this increased complexity can also mean that there are more things that can fail or more things that can go wrong.

Worse, the military is utilizing a number of disparate terrestrial networks, disparate terrestrial hardware, and utilizing space assets and networks that include their own military assets, as well as commercial assets. This creates a lack of transparency and visibility into everything that’s happening across the network – a problem that the military is actively working to fix by embracing a joint operating environment across all of the DoD’s branches and organizations.

For the government and military to ensure connectivity and have assured networks, they need the ability to see the entire network – both terrestrial assets and space assets – on a single pane of glass. If a single, unified view of the network and the individual devices connected to it were available, the government and military would be able to diagnose problems more rapidly, and fix problems before they take applications, services, and capabilities offline.

Luckily, such a solution now exists.

Increasing transparency and uptime with Hydra
Earlier this week, commercial satellite operator, SES Space and Defense launched a new common operational picture (COP) platform called Hydra that the company claims, “…provides end-to-end situational awareness in a single unified operational network platform.”

Hydra was built in-house by SES Space and Defense specifically for their government and military customers. The solution integrates network data from multiple different sources – including operational data from the company’s satellite networks – and enables users to display it on a single dashboard or pane of glass. This could effectively enable the government and military the opportunity to view everything happening on and within their networks in one place – increasing transparency and allowing them to identify and remediate problems with the network more quickly.

“In addition to providing basic M&C data, Hydra includes an inventory management system that integrates shared and dedicated devices, circuits, and the space segment into the same contextual environment,“ explained Amit Katti, a Principal Engineer at SES Space and Defense. “This ability to incorporate and visualize the entire network allows the customer to schedule and monitor the entire end-to-end network in a single, integrated pane of glass, diagnose problems more rapidly, and fix problems before they take applications, services, and capabilities offline.”

COP platforms, such as Hydra, could be revolutionary in enabling the military to better monitor their networks – both on Earth and in space – and identify problems before they bring down networks. With network-enabled and software-enabled devices, applications, and platforms making their way into every government and military mission and operation, the timing couldn’t be better.

Networks aren’t “nice to have” at the tactical edge anymore. They’re essential. COP platforms like Hydra are ensuring that these networks are always on and available to the warfighter. This way, the next-generation, high-tech tools that our government and military personnel rely on are there when and where they need them – even in the most remote and austere of environments.

In our next article on the Government Satellite Report, we’ll look at the military’s push for an integrated commercial and military satellite architecture, and how COP platforms like Hydra could help make that a reality.

To learn more about the new Hydra common operational picture platform, click HERE.

The post Hydra – delivering more resilient networks to a more network-enabled military appeared first on SES Space and Defense.

But what isn’t as simple is embracing new, disruptive technologies that require a massive change to the organization, its culture, or its way of thinking. The adoption of these technologies and the organizational changes that enable it takes time. It requires buy-in from the highest levels. And it often requires an organization to take risks and doing things that may be uncomfortable.

Cloud adoption was like that – especially within the government and military.

To embrace the cloud, government and military organizations had to answer a difficult question, “Does control only come from ownership?” They had to shake decades of thinking and a deep cultural belief that to truly control and secure something, they needed to own every part of it outright.

For the agencies and organizations that were able to overcome those cultural objections and put aside their need to own everything, there were significant rewards.

The embrace of the cloud-enabled immense scalability, agility, and cost savings. It also opened the door to digital transformation and the advanced technologies that are revolutionizing government. But those benefits came at the cost of making difficult decisions and taking risks – doing things in a way that went against decades of doing business a certain way.

According to Brad Grady, a Principal Analyst at space and satellite industry analyst firm, Northern Sky Research, and the SVP of Global Government at SES, Nicole Robinson, the next logical step in how the government and military embrace satellite communications could require a similar change in culture, approach, and thinking. But – much like with the cloud – if the government and military are able to change “business as usual,” the benefits could be equally immense.

New solutions to meet massive bandwidth appetites
During a recent Webinar for press and industry experts entitled, “The Government Network Architecture of the Future,” Brad and Nicole laid out how the next generation of commercial satellites and satellite capabilities could usher in a new era in connectivity.

During their panel discussion, the two satellite experts explained how embracing commercial capabilities could be the best and most effective way to meet the government’s rapidly-increasing appetite for bandwidth at the edge. What is driving that appetite? According to Brad, it’s a combination of three converging trends – improvements in ISR, increasing communications requirements, and a fundamental change in operations:

“ISR demands are on the rise. There are more sensors on more platforms…within that, each sensor is getting higher and higher resolution. Operations are becoming more real-time, with government and military operators looking to bring collaboration tools and services to the edge. Deployments are also becoming more complex.”

To meet these requirements, government and military leaders need a low-latency, high-throughput satellite solution capable of delivering fiber-like connectivity to the edge – places where terrestrial networks are unavailable, denied, or untrusted.  And those low-latency and high throughput satellite capabilities are not currently available through the military’s own communications satellites.

“There is no broadband, non-GEO government system that is operating today,” Brad explained. “There is no multi-orbit government architecture that offers multi-gigabyte [connectivity] out there today.”

They are available through commercial providers, however.

“…instead of continuing to buy government-owned satellites…take a step back…Instead of spending Herculean amounts of taxpayer dollars to get yesterday’s SATCOM links, partner with satellite operators that are already ahead of the curve.” – Nicole Robinson

Over the past decade, the satellite industry has been investing heavily and innovating new capabilities and solutions. The result has been the evolution of high throughput satellites (HTS) that utilize multiple, more powerful spot beams to deliver higher throughputs and bandwidth. There has also been a proliferation of HTS in orbits closer to Earth than geostationary (GEO) orbit – enabling the delivery of high throughput connectivity with low latencies.

But to embrace and adopt these solutions would require a massive sea-change in how the government and military have traditionally acquired satellite solutions.

From purpose-built to combined military-commercial architecture
Historically, when the government and military wanted to acquire satellite capacity, they commissioned a company to build them a satellite to their specifications that they then launched into space and operated themselves. They controlled these satellites and knew they were secure because they owned and operated them.

Unfortunately, the existing wideband communications satellites that the military owns are not high throughput satellites and they’re all in the GEO orbit. To construct and launch their own HTS satellite at an orbit closer to Earth – Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) or Lower Earth Orbit (LEO) – would take years and be extremely expensive. Utilizing commercial capabilities gives the government and military access to these technologies and orbits immediately, and at a fraction of the price.

“…instead of continuing to buy government-owned satellites…take a step back,” Nicole suggested. “Instead of spending Herculean amounts of taxpayer dollars to get yesterday’s SATCOM links, partner with satellite operators that are already ahead of the curve.”

But that means forsaking old satellite acquisition models and partnering with industry to make COMSATCOM solutions an integrated part of a combined government and commercial satellite architecture.

“Maybe, instead of thinking about who owns it, think about having a combined architecture,” Nicole explained. “It’s time to debunk the myth of what commercial and military satellite should and could do. Instead of having the ongoing ‘us vs them’ conversation, we need to have a ‘we’ view of the world.”

This concept of a combined, integrated satellite architecture is something that senior leadership within the military has claimed to embrace. In fact, the inaugural Chief of Space Operations at the United States Space Force, General John W. “Jay” Raymond, committed to, “…continue engaging commercial partners to evaluate opportunities that may complement or possibly replace portions of a traditional military SATCOM purpose-built system.”

But large changes in vision, culture, and approach are never simple, fast, or easy, and many within the military have concerns that giving up ownership of satellites will decrease security and control.

Much like with cloud adoption, if the government and military can put aside their belief that control can only come with ownership, there are considerable benefits they can realize from embracing commercial satellite. Many of those benefits are a result of satellite operators innovating over time to meet the requirements and solve the problems of their commercial customers.

“Industry has always been out front,” Brad said. “They’ve always been innovating because they have lots of commercial customers that are doing very innovative things and solving very complicated problems that look a lot like government problems.”

To bring these commercial benefits and innovations to the military, and to make this vision of a combined satellite architecture possible, there needs to be a change in how the military works with its commercial partners. This means giving industry a seat at the table, working with them to identify and shape requirements in advance of issuing task orders, and challenging them to innovate on not just technologies, but also on business models.

“The U.S. military is starting to acknowledge they need to do more than just solve the connection – issuing task orders and buying capacity,” Brad explained. “That’s an old paradigm that’s dead on arrival now.”

Cloud adoption was difficult and slow in the government. It took a fundamental change in how government-operated and a movement away from the culture and belief of having to own everything to ensure control and security. However, those tough changes ushered in a wave of new innovation that is revolutionizing government. The same lessons learned from cloud adoption can be applied to commercial satellite. The organizational and cultural changes will be significant, but the access to connectivity and capability that COMSATCOM will deliver could be just as revolutionary for our government.

The post How the lessons learned from cloud migrations apply to COMSATCOM appeared first on SES Space and Defense.

The answer may not be as cut and dry as some would think. Military decision makers are increasingly relying on data-centric operations and capabilities that require high bandwidth connections in theater. They’re demanding ISR comprised of high definition, real time video instead of static, low quality images. They want geospatial intelligence available to soldiers to ensure that have knowledge of the terrain around them and the movements of alliance forces.

Satellite connectivity is necessary for filling these connectivity and bandwidth requirements abroad. In places where terrestrial networks have never been built, or can’t be trusted, satellite can deliver bandwidth for mission-critical capabilities. This is especially the case in places like the AFRICOM Area of Responsibility (AOR), where, as Brigadier General Christopher Eubank, the Commandant of the U.S. Army Signal School claimed, “We relied heavily on SATCOM in the AFRICOM AOR. That is a place in the world where they skipped generations of IT. They went from copper to 4G LTE. There is not a lot of CAT5 and CAT6 cable in that country.”

The Army remains one of the largest consumers of satellite services for a very good reason – they’re extremely large and really spread out geographically. To get IT capabilities to the warfighter at the tip of the spear – sometimes in the world’s most isolated and remote locations – satellite is essential. So, with satellite playing such a vital role in a modern military, why is it so hard for the Army to get the bandwidth they need at a faster rate?

What are the warfighters concerns?
If something was essential for your survival and wellbeing, you’d want it close by or relatively easy to find. People that need to take medicine to survive don’t usually let their prescriptions run out. So, why is satellite connectivity so difficult for the Army to access? Especially with the military owning and operating their own satellite constellation – the Wideband Global Satellite (WGS) system?

Part of the challenge lies with WGS, itself. There are simply too many stakeholders and internal customers within the military for the bandwidth that’s available via WGS.

If military satellite communications (MILSATCOM) isn’t going to be available to Army users, then commercial satellite communications (COMSATCOM) needs to be there to fill those holes. Unfortunately, getting COMSATCOM services has never been fast or easy for the branches of the military.

According to Mike Nichols, the Chief of the Commercial SATCOM Technical Support Branch at the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA), “This is a very transactional business…each requirement that comes in is an individual acquisition. Generally, we have plus or minus 100 contracts…for SATCOM services. Each one of these is an individual acquisition, and acquisitions can take some time…If I hear one thing from my customer it’s that the acquisition takes too long.”

The reason for the delay comes down to how satellite service procurement is conducted, and they’re often conducted just like acquisitions for everything else – from rations to tanks.

As Mr. Nichols explained, historically, COMSATCOM services have been acquired in singular transactions to fill individual needs on the spot market. This is effectively the most expensive way to purchase satellite bandwidth. It also puts military users in a situation where they’re purchasing whatever satellite bandwidth is left available, since most of the capacity has already been sold to commercial customers.

As the CEO of SES Space and Defense, Pete Hoene, explained, “Only 10-20 percent of revenue for COMSATCOM owner/operators comes from the U.S. government. The majority is from commercial customers that strike long term contracts and business relationships with owner/operators to ensure they get exactly what they need at an affordable price. This is very different from the U.S. Government buying capacity on the spot market using LPTA contracts that sub optimize on performance, cause a race to the bottom on pricing, and provide little incentive for industry to invest in capabilities the U.S. Government needs.”

However, there has been some positive movement away from purchasing, LPTA (“lowest price, technically acceptable,”) satellite connectivity on the spot market. One of these positive steps was the recent blanket purchase agreement (BPA) that the Department of Defense (DoD) awarded to SES for their O3b MEO satellite services.

This BPA allows military users to purchase SES O3b MEO managed services up to $516.7 million over five-years. By putting the BPA in place, the DoD has been able to drastically cut the amount of time needed to acquire satellite services.

The BPA, and its ability to cut acquisition time, was touted by Mr. Nichols, who said, “We’re initiating a number of Blanket Purchase Agreements. This cuts the acquisition time down to a remarkable level, really, when you think about it…Most BPA task orders can be awarded within 17 business days.”

But that could be 17 days too many when mission-critical satellite solutions are needed. When a problem arises, the Combatant Commands (COCOMS) face massive pressure to have connectivity available immediately, like it would be in a commercial environment.

Brig. Gen. Christopher Eubank did an excellent job of describing this pressure when he said, “As a COCOM J6 with an AOR of 53 countries – massive continent – your boss walks in and says, ‘I have a problem in Country X. I need this. I need it now.’ The last thing he wants to hear is that it takes me 17 days to get that bandwidth. Let me explain what he’s expecting. He’s expecting that [it’s similar to when] he walks into Verizon and buys a phone. It’s provisioned and he walks out with a service.”

So, how can the military create a situation where SATCOM services are always available to the warfighter when and where they’re needed?

Partnering for a SATCOM pool
Although the BPA is a step in the right direction, it still takes time between identifying the need for SATCOM solutions and effectively acquiring them through the BPA. In addition, the bulk of satellite purchases outside of the BPA are still done on the spot market. A system that, according to Mr. Hoene, treats COMSATCOM services as a “commodity” and COMSATCOM providers, “just like any old vendor,” when they should be treated, “like a strategic partner,” and the capacity treated as vital infrastructure (similar to the way the U.S. Government buys fiber).

That’s because, by more closely aligning with the satellite industry, the military could find some reasonable alternatives that will make satellite bandwidth more readily accessible at the speed of war.

One concept floated by the panelists involved the creation of a “bandwidth on demand” pool of satellite resources that could be tapped into by military organizations when and where they needed them.

In this instance, satellite resources would be acquired in advance. With tight, restricted budgets, it was difficult for military organizations to spend dollars on something that they wouldn’t benefit from or use immediately. However, the appetite for that could be changing.

According to Mr. Nichols, “One of the areas that we are exploring is establishing a core network…As customers have a demand for service, we would already have a core network in place in various bands for various services that would essentially lead to a very rapid ability to acquire that bandwidth because that bandwidth would already be in place.”

To help make a system like this possible, industry and the military could work together to shape requirements and identify an acquisition model that would work for both parties. This sentiment was shared by Mr. Hoene when he said, “When we talk about bandwidth on demand, we understand that there’s an affordability aspect. There has to be a creative and innovative way to make this happen from a contracts perspective…“

As the discussions at this year’s AUSA SATCOM panel illustrated, today’s military relies too heavily on IT services and capabilities to not have immediate, on-demand access to the secure satellite communications they need to keep the warfighter connected. COMSATCOM providers can no longer be, “just another old vendor.” They are key strategic partners providing a necessary warfighting tool. By working together, the military and satellite industry can identify innovative acquisition models and methods to ensure that satellite connectivity is always there when it’s needed.

The post Army demands consumer-like access to satellite at AUSA appeared first on SES Space and Defense.

During the first part of our discussion, we defined and explained CNSSP-12 and discussed how it has evolved and changed as it’s been reevaluated and refreshed over time to keep up with shifting threats. We also looked at how the policy has helped commercial satellite communications providers service the military more securely.

In part two of our discussion, Andrew shares his predictions for what the next iteration of CNSSP-12 will look like, discusses how it will impact the industry, and provides insights into how CNSSP-12 can shape space policy across the military in the very near future, thanks to the ongoing Wideband Satellite Analysis of Alternatives (AoA) being conducted by the Air Force.

Here is what Andrew had to say:

Government Satellite Report (GSR): The updated CNSSP-12 hasn’t been released yet, but can you tell us what changes you’re anticipating for commercial providers when the new, updated policy is revealed?

Andrew D’Uva: When the policy is released, I anticipate that we’ll see an increased focus from the government on verifying the security posture of these commercial solutions.

In the past, industry designed their systems and then – if they were going to play in the government and military market – they would go back and try to implement U.S. Government security requirements at a later stage. Now, they’re working to incorporate these things into these satellite systems at design time and maintain them throughout the system lifecycle. This shows industry is starting to think about security up front.

I anticipate that the new CNSSP-12 guidance will take advantage of that new attitude and incorporate much more information sharing between industry and government. This will ensure that the government is aware and informed about the steps that industry is taking to make their solutions reliable, robust, and secure.

This will lead government to require more security assurance systems in place for commercial satellite solutions, and more auditing. What I expect to see is much more focus on formalizing processes, taking a quality management approach, documenting things and making security part of the daily activities of managing these systems.

GSR: Will the CNSSP-12 refresh have any impact on the developing Wideband AoA and the USG’s ability to better harmonize commercial and military space architectures?

Andrew D’Uva: This is really an important question due to what is currently happening across the military in regard to satellite architectures. Up until now – in terms of SATCOM – the U.S. military has first relied on purpose-built satellites that they own and operate and looked to commercial meet excess demand. I’m talking about AEHF, WGS, and MUOS, which are used for different missions, including strategic nuclear command and control, tactical protected SATCOM, wideband SATCOM, and narrow-band, tactical SATCOM. All of those have performed well, and have their benefits and drawbacks.

Commercial wideband systems have been, until the recent introduction of managed services, largely transponded capacity where the Government’s focus was ensuring positive control of the commercial satellite bus, not necessarily the underlying communications services.

Looking forward, the government is trying to figure out if it makes sense to continue to use these siloes of purpose-built constellations and use commercial to fill in the rest, or, to what extent should commercial infrastructure solutions be part of meeting the baseline demand and integrated into an enduring architecture that spans both government and commercial capabilities.

Despite there being a two-decade track record of success in using commercial solutions securely, for the government to be really comfortable in advocating for an integrated architecture – which is supported by industry – they need to be confident in the level of security and mission assurance.

The security requirements like those in CNSSP-12, NIST cybersecurity framework and other cybersecurity guidance and policies will ensure that the SATCOM industry can continue to participate in an environment that is increasingly non-benign. The environment that we’re in and are moving into in the future is one in which our adversaries are seeking to do us harm through cyber effects. In this environment, the government needs to know that the security posture of wideband COMSATCOM systems is on par with purpose-built MILSATCOM systems.

I believe that many commercial systems are on par, but that’s not the perception of some military decision makers. I’ve had senior level defense decision makers tell me that MILSATCOM is held to a higher cybersecurity standard than COMSATCOM. However, COMSATCOM satellites are held to the same requirements contractually by DOD. A lot of government personnel don’t realize that – they think commercial is lesser than and not as secure as MILSATCOM. They don’t realize that COMSATCOM typically has secured locations, cleared personnel and high security standards. I’ve seen cases where once that’s understood, military leaders are willing to consider commercial solutions, including their unique benefits.

Since CNSSP-12 applies to both military and commercial satellites it should help military decision makers to adopt an enduring role in an integrated wideband SATCOM enterprise architecture for qualified COMSATCOM solutions.

Now, there are certain military SATCOM missions – such as nuclear command and control that are designed to work in a nuclear war environment – that requires a higher level of mission assurance than will ever be offered by commercial providers. Those special missions will always require costly, custom-built government satellites. But for most missions, COMSATCOM can fill that need if operators have implemented these security requirements. If some commercial offerors haven’t implemented them, those solutions may be fine for other commercial or government uses, but not for national security missions.

GSR: What does the COMSATCOM industry need from the military to make this a reality? How can the military incentivize the industry to incorporate CNSSP-12 requirements into their systems and service offerings?

Andrew D’Uva: The government needs to match its acquisition policy and practice to the policies that are levied. The government needs to move away from simply looking at the lowest priced solution as being the best solution. They first need to look at effectiveness and cyber security before looking at price. If there are participants in the acquisition process that don’t meet these security requirements, they need to be ruled out as not technically acceptable. Then the military can focus on competition among the multiple compliant suppliers.

That has not yet happened. There are many reasons, but they primarily have to do with the way that COMSATCOM typically has been funded. COMSATCOM is typically funded from Overseas Contingency Operations money, which is short-term money that is available to a Combatant Command and it’s not in the baseline DoD budget. Military purpose-built SATCOM programs, which are programs of record, don’t charge fees to the user when they’re utilized. This makes it seem that – from a user perspective – MILSATCOM is free while COMSATCOM costs money. The truth is that everything costs the taxpayer money.

So, it’s a function of how these budgeting processes work, and we need to fix that.

If you look at the FY18 NDAA, there is a section in there – Section 1601 – that assigns the Commander of Air Force Space Command as the DoD acquisition authority for COMSATCOM leases, in consultation with the DoD CIO. That is a major change and will be a very important one to watch in 2018.

For the very first time – when that change is done – the organization that builds the wideband SATCOM programs of record will be the same as the organization that has authority to lease COMSATCOM capacity.

In the past, DISA handled commercial leases and Space Command handled programs of record. The two sides never needed to make a budget or resource decision about how to best spend taxpayer dollars between those two acquisition approaches for SATCOM capabilities. But, a year from now, there will be one acquisition authority.

This will be the first time the DoD will be organizationally structured to make those decisions and spend the taxpayer’s money more effectively while still getting the resources and capabilities it needs. That also means that 2018 will be the first time that the government will be able to drive industry into participating in an integrated architecture. It’s a great opportunity for all of us to ensure the nation has the SATCOM capabilities it needs.

If you missed part one of our two-part conversation with Andrew D’Uva, click HERE to read it in its entirety.

The post Analyzing the Impact of the CNSSP-12 Refresh with Andrew D’Uva of Providence Access Company appeared first on SES Space and Defense.

One of the military’s largest concerns today involves the space domain. Space is increasingly congested and our adversaries are becoming increasingly capable of compromising and attacking our satellites. With many military IT capabilities, applications and services traveling over satellites, cybersecurity is becoming increasingly essential.

One of the policies that the government has put in place to ensure the security of the satellites the military is utilizing in-theater is Committee on National Security Systems Policy 12 (CNSSP-12). That policy is currently being reevaluated and refreshed, and new standards and requirements are scheduled to be released shortly.

To learn more about CNSSP-12, its history and its impact on the satellite industry, we sat down with Andrew D’Uva, the President of Providence Access Co. and the U.S. Industry Liaison on the Commercial Space Infosec Working Group (CSIWG), which is giving the satellite industry a voice in the CNSSP-12 refresh process.

During the first part of a two-part interview with Andrew, we define CNSSP-12, explore how it’s evolved over time, and how it helps the Commercial Satellite Communication or COMSATCOM industry serve the federal government. Here is what Andrew had to say:

Government Satellite Report (GSR): What is the CNSSP-12? Why is a review and update currently being done? What is the status of the CNSSP-12 review/update right now?

Andrew D’Uva: The CNSSP-12 is effectively the CNSS policy number twelve. It’s a formal policy of the CNSS, which is the Committee on National Security Systems – a U.S. government interagency committee comprised of the DOD, National Security Agency (NSA), Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), FBI, the branches of the military, and other national security-focused government agencies and entities.

The CNSS puts out policies and implementation guidance on a variety of information security issues by developing operating policies, procedures, guidelines, directives, instructions and standards. Issues can range from the use of cryptography, secure modes of communications and other security challenges facing the nation.

CNSS Policy 12 is the evolution of an earlier set of policies designed to apply to the cybersecurity of space systems used to support national security missions.

This policy isn’t new, although it periodically gets updated. In the past, it applied to the U.S. government at large. However, about ten years ago, it was updated to clarify that its requirements would apply to foreign and commercial systems used to support national security missions. That was the first time that the government said, “Here is a set of government requirements that apply to COMSATCOM operators and solution providers serving national security missions.”

In the past, COMSATCOM providers wouldn’t have to worry about a policy like this – they would just provide a commercial solution to the government. But the new, updated policy implied a number of cyber security requirements needed to be added to these systems due to their critical role in national security missions.

The policy was updated as part of a normal review process that is supposed to occur every few years. That review process is occurring again right now, with a new update anticipated to be released in early 2018. These updates and reviews are necessary because threats change, and the government’s approach to vulnerabilities has to change and evolve with them.

GSR: You mentioned that CNSSP-12 has been updated and changed over time. What has changed and what new requirements have been added?

Andrew D’Uva: CNSSP-12 levied a requirement in the past stating COMSATCOM systems that served national security missions would have to use what is called NSA-approved cryptography and cryptosystems to protect the satellite command uplink between the ground and satellite. That meant that satellite operators had to design, equip, and operate their satellites using a system that had been reviewed and approved by the NSA on their spacecraft that would apply an approved cryptographic system implementation to secure the commands between the ground and the satellites.

NSA-approved solutions protect the confidentiality and integrity of the commands, preventing third parties from seeing or altering commands in transit to the satellite. This was a requirement that applied to government systems in the past, but the CNSSP-12 policy effectively extended it to commercial systems.

As a result, almost all communications satellite companies that want to do business with the military have worked this into their satellites. It costs them more money and there’s more security involved, but it’s been largely accepted by industry. It has largely been a policy success for the government.

The policy change and update in 2012 involved a new requirement for securing the telemetry – the information traveling from the satellite to the ground regarding its health, safety and monitoring.

The update called for similar NSA-approved systems to be used to protect that information in the downlink direction. That has been slower to be adopted by industry because of a lack of available systems. However, we’re starting to see that get worked into COMSATCOM systems that are used for national security missions.

GSR: How does the CNSSP-12 enable commercial operators to better serve government needs?

Andrew D’Uva: Ultimately, all of these policies and policy changes are all about reliability and robustness. The government wants to use COMSATCOM and commercial imagery, but they want to be sure that those solutions are of high quality and available when needed. CNSSP-12 improved that resilience posture and made them more robust.

A satellite with these solutions – in contrast to one without them – is less vulnerable to being impacted by adversaries. With space becoming an increasingly contested environment, and with our adversaries recognizing the advantage that the U.S. military gains from its satellite infrastructure, this is an increasingly realistic concern for today and into the future.

GSR: How are the commercial operators participating in the CNSSP-12 refresh effort? How has this matured over time?

Andrew D’Uva: Up until this last refresh cycle, the government was the sole driver of the refresh activities. However, in the last refresh cycle, the government – specifically the NSA and DISA – established a working group called the Commercial Space Infosec Working Group (CSIWG), which was open to U.S. industry and designed to look at information security issues, including policy issues.

I serve as the U.S. Industry Liaison, and I lead the CSIWG with two other leaders from the NSA and DISA, respectively, along with a steering committee of industry executives. The CSIWG meets a couple of times a year at various sites, and – through the efforts of the NSA – they work to inform industry about the policy review process and get industry comments.

Through the CSIWG, industry leaders have authored a series of inputs and comments for the government. These comments specifically addressed the current policy, the role of commercial providers, the applicability of CNSSP-12 to commercial systems, as well as some technical issues with downlink telemetry and transmission security and how it is applied. The NSA then took these comments and inputs into the process for consideration.

The government hasn’t shared this revised CNSSP-12 yet with industry, but there are indications that some of that input was taken into account and worked into this guidance.

In part two of our two-part Q&A interview with Andrew D’Uva, he shares his predictions for what will change in the refreshed CNSSP-12, discusses how it will impact space policy for the military, and talks about the impact of CNSSP-12 on the SATCOM industry.

The post Demystifying the CNSSP-12 with Andrew D’Uva of Providence Access Company appeared first on SES Space and Defense.

When it comes to innovative uses of satellites, the answer to that question could come from looking at two examples: Alphabet’s X and Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines.

A recent article from FierceWireless profiled two very innovative implementations of a next generation satellite technology – Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) satellite constellations. These satellites orbit much closer to Earth, drastically cutting latency, the time required for the signal to travel to and from the satellite. They also utilize steerable spot beams that enable real time pointing to global hot spots, frequency reuse,  and significantly higher throughputs.

Both implementations – one by Alphabet’s X and the second by Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines – are exciting due to their ability to deliver capabilities that could be very attractive to federal government agencies and the United States military. Let us look at both individually, starting with the implementation from Alphabet’s X.

Project Loon Brings Connectivity to the Marooned
In late September, a category five hurricane called Hurricane Maria ripped into Dominica and Puerto Rico. More than two months later, Puerto Rico had not yet recovered, with power and other essential services still not available to many of its residents. In fact, as many as 100,000 people may have left the island for the mainland as a result of the destruction of cell towers, roads, and basic infrastructure.

In an effort to give connectivity back to the residents of Puerto Rico, and to help connect rescue workers and emergency personnel, Alphabet’s X rolled out one of their more innovative programs – one that was truly full of hot air – Project Loon.

For those that may not be familiar, Alphabet’s X is a self-described, Moonshot Factory. The organization looks at challenges and comes up with innovative ways to address them using new technologies – or new approaches and implementations for existing technologies. Project Loon is one of their solutions, which utilizes extremely high-altitude balloons to deliver cellular connectivity with MEO backhaul to unconnected areas. Here is a great video primer on the project:

What role did satellite play in Project Loon? Rapid deployment of MEO satellite assets provided mobile backhaul, effectively connecting the balloons from Project Loon to the Internet. This delivered reliable, high-performance connectivity to Puerto Ricans whose lives had been devastated by Hurricane Maria and who had limited means of communication.

X Marks the Spot for the Government
The use of Project Loon following Hurricane Maria illustrates MEO satellite’s ability to deliver timely resources to assist with communications following natural disasters – even on islands and other remote locations.

This is a service model that can be replicated for local, regional and national interests for both commercial and government rapid response.

U.S. and world government bodies can leverage these resources for natural disaster response, emergency management, border patrol infrastructure, robust fiber-like backhaul communications, and austere site connectivity for terrestrial, maritime, and airborne platforms.

Imagine being able to deliver fiber-like connectivity practically anywhere on the planet, even if terrestrial networks are unavailable, or if they have been compromised due to a terrorist attack, natural disaster or other event.

With governments, emergency response organizations, and military organizations increasingly relying on connected platforms and devices for essential capabilities and communications, MEO satellites can play an essential role in making these mission-critical applications available, even when networks are not available.

The Royal Treatment on the High Seas
The second satellite implementation that FierceWireless discussed was being utilized by Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines. Utilizing MEO satellites, Royal Caribbean was delivering fiber-like connectivity to its crew and guests, ensuring that they had the same connectivity on the high seas that they enjoyed when their feet were on solid ground.

This makes sense for a commercial cruise line trying to ensure that customers – especially younger generations hopelessly addicted to connected applications and devices – are having a good time. But here, too, is a use of MEO satellites that the military can learn from and adopt.

Royal Caribbean and other cruise lines are not the only organizations operating large boats with thousands of people on them. Something very similar is done – for very different reasons – by our military, including the Navy and Marine Corps.

As my colleague, Paul Damphousse, recently told the Government Satellite Report when asked about the bandwidth requirements of the Navy, “…the requirements for throughput by themselves are increasing. That has a lot to do with where technology is going in general, where the demands of our naval leaders are going and where our required capabilities are going.”

That increasing bandwidth demand can be filled by MEO satellites, much in the same way they are being used by Royal Caribbean.

A shared connection that can deliver more than 1 Gbps of throughput delivered at sea – or on land – is readily applicable to the federal government and military. This level of throughput and bandwidth could be used to connect carrier-size maritime and aviation platforms, as well as large bandwidth single-users.

There is an overwhelming movement across the federal government to embrace connected platforms and devices – while the government continues to increasingly rely on IT capabilities and applications to accomplish their missions. MEO satellites are being used effectively in the public sector – in implementations like Project Loon and by Royal Caribbean – to deliver fiber-like connectivity where it is needed. I encourage the government to look to these implementations for inspiration, and to consider existing commercial capabilities as they work to identify their requirements for critical mission connectivity.

MEO and HTS constellations are capable of delivering fiber-like bandwidth to practically anywhere on the planet. For additional information of these solutions, download the following resources:

• High Throughput on the High Seas
• White Paper: Satellite Evolution Sparks a Service Revolution
• High Throughput Satellites for U.S. Government Applications
• White Paper On O3b “Fiber Like” Satellite Communications for U.S. Government Applications

The post What the government can learn from Alphabet’s X and Royal Caribbean appeared first on SES Space and Defense.

Far flung military forces rely heavily on remote data processing capabilities that are highly sensitive to transmission delays, or latency, associated with communications satellites in geostationary orbit, some 36,000 kilometers above the equator, these experts said. Satellites in lower orbits do not have the same latency issues, making them better suited to support certain data-intensive military operations.

Speaking at MilSatCom USA, which was organized by the SMi Group of London, U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Peter Gallagher, currently director of architecture, operations, networks and space in the office of the Army’s Chief Information Officer, served up a real-world example to illustrate the trend.

In 2016, U.S. forces operating on the ground against Islamic State fighters in Syria captured what Gallagher characterized as “treasure troves” of battlefield intelligence that would enable them to strike the enemy even harder.

“The problem was [that] the pipes were not there to get that [information] back to do the exploitation necessary to help the special operators on the ground continue to take the fight to the enemy,” Gallagher said. “So, we had to find a creative solution.”

Installing terrestrial fiber links was not an option, said Gallagher, who at the time was a senior information officer assigned to U.S. Central Command. So the Army turned to the commercial satellite sector, in particular, they leveraged a constellation of broadband satellites in Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) to provide the necessary connectivity at about 60% of the cost of GEO backhaul.

“It required a lot of engineering, a tail circuit and a whole lot of creative planning but ultimately our intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance capability was enhanced by an innovative partnership between the CENTCOM team and industry,” Gallagher said. “And we solved the problem.”

Gallagher did not name the constellation, but there is only one that fits the description: SES’ O3b MEO satellites providing fiber-quality broadband links in the low to mid-latitude regions of the world. The constellation is wholly owned by SES, one of the world’s largest operators of communications satellites.

Commercial geostationary satellites are of course a critical complement to the military’s own systems in keeping the U.S. military forces connected. It is well known, for example, that in the early days of the U.S.-led operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, up to 80 percent of the supporting satellite bandwidth was commercially provided.

MEO satellite constellations, such as O3b – which began commercial service in 2014, represent a new capability that Gallagher said is increasingly in high demand: low-latency, high-capacity throughput. Geostationary satellites can have high capacity but are saddled with the latency issue, while current LEO systems lack the capacity to quickly move large amounts of data.

U.S. Marine Corps. Col. Curtis Carlin, of the J6 Operations Division at CENTCOM, displayed a chart during his conference presentation that said low-latency, as an attribute, is becoming almost as important as capacity for military customers. The reason is the military’s increasing reliance on what he characterized as enterprise services, an information technology term that typically refers to the integration of multiple software packages into a single platform that can be broadly applied across an organization to support its mission.

Skyrocketing data requirements among forces deployed in places like Afghanistan and Iraq that lack usable terrestrial infrastructure are driving the requirement for lower-latency systems operating in LEO and MEO, Carlin said.

This could be a boon to MEO satellite operators, as well as companies like OneWeb, which plan to deploy huge constellations of LEO broadband satellites in the coming years.

Carlin said the Marines rely heavily on intelligence information processed on servers at locations far removed from the battlefield, such as at service headquarters in Quantico, Va., or CENTCOM headquarters in Tampa, Fla. This processed information must be transmitted back to forces quickly enough for them to act before the situation on the ground changes, putting a premium on low latency, he explained.

Such “reachback” capabilities relieve U.S. forces of having to lug data servers into the field with them, but drive up demand for low-latency, high-throughput satellite connectivity, industry officials said. Modern web-based applications are generally intolerant of latency, one industry official said.

As Gallagher put it, in relating how MEO satellites came to the rescue in 2016, “there are a lot more of those requirements brewing.”

The post Discussions at MilSatCom USA show low-latency satellite systems growing on U.S. military appeared first on SES Space and Defense.

OneWeb is a startup satellite communications company that is looking to deliver high throughput, low latency satellite bandwidth across the globe. To accomplish this, they’ll utilize a constellation of small satellites in lower earth orbit (LEO) that literarily blanket the Earth in connectivity. The first ten satellites are slated to launch in early 2018.

While this news was a hot topic at SATELLITE 2017, the concept of a satellite communications provider with GEO satellite constellations purchasing or merging with a smaller satellite provider utilizing satellites closer to Earth to deliver high throughput, low latency connectivity is not really new.

SES did the exact same thing when they invested in – and then later acquired – O3b Networks, a satellite communications provider that operates a constellation of satellites at medium earth orbit (MEO). O3b’s satellite constellation augmented the existing GEO constellation that SES already had in orbit, and gave the company the ability to offer its customers fiber-like connectivity anywhere on Earth a satellite could place a beam.

When we see two of the world’s largest satellite communications companies following similar paths and augmenting their existing GEO satellite constellations with LEO and MEO satellites through acquisitions and mergers, it starts to look strangely like a trend. Not surprisingly – that’s exactly what we have here.

But why?

Getting down with GEO/MEO/LEO
As we’ve discussed in previous posts, the beauty of MEO and LEO satellite constellations is their ability to deliver extremely high throughputs and incredible bandwidth through their use of concentrated spot beams. Their closer proximity to the Earth also allows them to deliver that bandwidth with much less latency, in contrast to a GEO satellite constellation.

This may not seem like as big of a deal with the next generation of high-throughput satellites (HTS) coming on line, which also utilize spot beams and offer higher bandwidth. However, there are still differences between what HTS offers and what MEO and LEO constellations offer.

The first is obvious – latency.

Although HTS satellites deliver higher bandwidth, they’re still positioned in GEO, far away from the Earth’s surface. The physical location – less than half the distance from earth as GEO – ensures that MEO will always be lower latency than even HTS satellites.

“There is no question an increasing proportion of defense applications – including many of the military’s mission-critical ones – are and will be based in the Cloud” said Nihar Shah, the VP of Strategy and Market Intelligence at SES. “With applications and databases now hosted in the Cloud, reducing latency and improving network performance is more essential than ever before, since fast, real-time decision making in a tactical environment has lives depending on it.”

Then there’s the issue of flexibility. Although GEO HTS satellites utilize spot beams – much like MEO and LEO satellites –COMSATCOM providers don’t have same ability to navigate or ‘re-assign’ those beams to exactly where their users need them.

Ultimately, by augmenting existing GEO satellites with MEO and LEO constellations, COMSATCOM providers are giving their customers the benefits of one system or another – or both – based on what their particular needs are, and which system will best do the job. The U.S. government is the perfect example of a customer that can benefit from both.

Even better, thanks to the strategic mergers and acquisitions, customers can now get that flexibility all from one provider.

So who really benefits? The end user. Especially government end users.

What this means to government and military
Today’s military is vastly more dependent on IT services and capabilities than ever before..

High throughput, low latency COMSATCOM connections in theater are essential for the military when fiber-like connectivity and latency is required, but fiber simply isn’t available.

That being said, not all military operations and troop positions will require the same level of service and same amount of bandwidth as others.

For forward operating bases and other troop locations where a large amount of bandwidth is needed for both official military communications and operations – as well as the personal use of warfighters in theater – a MEO spot beam can be ‘dropped’ into the base and deliver high-density, fiber-like connectivity capable of handling terabytes of information.

When a smaller, lighter footprint of troops and equipment is needed – the needs are less densely aggregated and positioned, a GEO solution could be sufficient to provide the connectivity and capability necessary in that situation.

“Different operational requirements drive different satellite requirements – some are better addressed via GEO and some are better served by MEO or LEO, but it’s clear the future points to the importance of both” said Shah. “Regardless of which satellite architecture the military may utilize at a given time or in a given scenario, they must integrate into a flexible and unified network so that mission-critical applications and information are shared and accessible in real time between all DoD users.”

Ultimately, when COMSATCOM providers augment their GEO fleets with MEO and LEO constellations, they give their military and federal government customers the flexibility to utilize the right solution in the right situation through a trusted provider and partner with whom they already have a relationship. And the existing relationship is really key, since that makes it easier and faster for the government to acquire and utilize these services.

Then there’s the ever-important issue of security. In an era where space is an increasingly contested environment and our adversaries are working to compromise space capabilities, the military now has to consider space a warfighting domain and protect satellite resources.

Disaggregating, proliferating and distributing military communications across both commercial and military GEO satellites helps provide increased resiliency and makes it harder for adversaries to target military communications. Further disaggregating military communications across both GEO and MEO can foster additional resiliency and redundancy and help ensure space capabilities are always available to the warfighter in theater.

The combination of LEO, MEO and GEO satellite systems is a trend that will most likely represent the future of the COMSATCOM industry – and the government is poised to benefit.

For additional information about O3b, click HERE to download the whitepaper, “O3b “Fiber Like” Satellite Communications for U.S. Government Applications,” or click HERE to listen to an exclusive podcast featuring O3b CEO, Steve Collar.

*Editor’s note: Shortly following the publication of this article, Space News reported, “OneWeb officially called off its planned merger with Intelsat…after the final deadline for a debt swap passed without enough support.”

The post The federal impact of the GEO + MEO trend appeared first on SES Space and Defense.

The WAAS is notable for multiple reasons. The first is its important role in aviation and public safety. Another is the fact that it’s comprised of hosted payloads –WAAS equipment—antennas, receivers, and transmitters—h osted aboard commercial satellites, that are used to broadcast the WAAS signal to users throughout North America.

While the federal government has been slow adopt hosted payloads for widespread usage for plethora government space missions,, the FAA has been a believer and user of hosted payloads for decades – and there’s a very good reason for that. Hosted payloads are a faster, less expensive and easier way to get payloads into space.

Use of a commercially hosted payload means a government organization won’t have to pay the full development and construction cost of the satellite. Further, a hosted payload user  won’t bear the full burden of launch costs. Finally, with approximately 20 commercial launches to geostationary orbit per year and a relatively short timeline to get a payload on orbit – approximately three years from contract to launch—use of commercially hosted payloads can enable a government program to get on orbit faster than use of traditional “free flyer” programs.

These benefits were well illustrated by Al Tadros, the Chair of the Hosted Payload Alliance and VP of Civil and DoD Business for Space Systems Loral (SSL), during the 2016 Hosted Payload and Small Sat Summit, when he listed the benefits of hosted payloads, which included, “Increased access to space, lower launch cost and risk, more resilient architectures resulting from hosting on commercial satellites, operational flexibility of having access on a large number of commercial satellites and payload-focused acquisitions rather than the full-on, purpose built, free-flyer missions that the government regularly uses.”

With the benefits so well established, it’s really no surprise that other federal agencies – besides the FAA – are starting to get the memo about hosted payloads. New hosted payload programs have been executed or announced across both the defense and civilian sectors of the federal government – including the Air Force’s CHIRP Program, and NASA’s GOLD and GeoCarb Programs.

Some of these successful hosted payload programs were the subject of a recent video released by SES Space and Defense. Here is a closer look at some of the programs that SES Space and Defense has run on behalf of the federal government:

To learn more about hosted payloads and how they can give government agencies and the Department of Defense more efficient and expedient access to space, click the following resources:  

• Whitepaper: What is a Hosted Payload?
• Hosted Payloads Infographic
• PODCAST: Nicole Robinson on the benefits of hosted payloads for NOAA and other federal agencies
• PODCAST: CHIRP team discusses program and benefits of hosted payloads

The post New video highlights successful hosted payload programs appeared first on SES Space and Defense.