The U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) has awarded a multi-year contract to SES Space & Defense to conduct a series of tests designed to integrate space broadband services across a multi-orbit satellite network in support of the Defense Experimentation Using Commercial Space Internet (DEUCSI) program.

This announcement by AFRL is the third award under the DEUCSI CALL 003 Program seeking experimentation for use cases in the Artic region and airborne communications.

The DEUCSI program is intended to establish communications with military platforms via multiple commercial space internet (CSI) constellations in Geosynchronous Orbit (GEO), Medium Earth Orbit (MEO), and Low Earth Orbit (LEO) utilizing a common user terminal with the ability to alternate between space broadband providers.

“An integrated multi-orbit, multi-band satellite architecture is a requirement in today’s contested and congested environment for a network-centric military,” said SES Space & Defense Senior Vice President of Space Initiatives, Jim Hooper. “The DEUCSI program is a great example to showcase SES Space & Defense’s multi-orbit, multi-band holistic approach to deliver seamless interoperability to the U.S. Air Force to achieve unparalleled situation awareness and strategic advances for mission success.”

As the industry’s leading COMSATCOM integrator, SES Space & Defense, a wholly-owned subsidiary of SES focused on delivering satellite network solutions for the U.S. Government, will demonstrate multi-orbit, multi-band solutions that seamlessly switch among commercial space broadband services in different frequency bands to access favorable spectrum or failover between constellations.

In doing so, SES Space & Defense will leverage common hardware elements to communicate with commercial space broadband constellations and military communications systems to provide greater flexibility in communication paths while minimizing the deployment of constellation-specific hardware.