As Gen. Goldfein explained, his vision for future multi-domain operations, “…isn’t just about the domains…nor is it just about executing operations across these domains, we already do that now. Where we’re going is to use dominance in one domain or many, blending a few capabilities or many, to produce multiple dilemmas for our adversaries in a way that will overwhelm them. This is where we’re going.”

On display in the video presentation was a fictional military situation being responded to by the military that Gen. Goldfein claimed we’d need in 2030 – and the force that he and his contemporaries are prepared to create for our nation. And, from my seat in the National Harbor’s Gaylord resort, it was certainly impressive.

The vignette illustrated an integrated and collaborative approach to multi-domain operations that showcased how sea, air, land, space and cyber operations – working collaboratively – could be pressed into service to quickly respond to escalating aggressions from an adversary and almost immediately repel a fictional invasion of an imaginary allied nation.

And while the vignette and presentation was impressive and aspirational, it was also frustrating for some in the room. That’s because, while it incorporated coalition forces in practically every domain, it was obviously missing something that the Air Force has claimed it would increasingly rely upon in the future – commercial satellites.

Why commercial satellite matters
While there are many things that commercial satellite services could deliver to the military, there are two specific benefits that I really consider the most important – innovation and resiliency. And both of those things could have been used by the fictional force in Gen. Goldfein’s vignette.

Air Force senior leadership has admitted on numerous occasions that the commercial satellite industry is the clear leader in space today. It’s the leader because it moves quickly and must satiate the world’s enormous appetite for satellite capacity.

Commercial satellite providers are constantly building and launching new satellites to replace aging spacecraft and to fill the capacity requirements of their customers. With the nearly constant and rapid pace of satellite development, construction and launch, the commercial satellite industry gets frequent opportunities to incorporate the latest and greatest technology advancements into their satellites.

Compare this to how the military has traditionally operated. The military has been building and launching similar WGS satellites for a decade. And the time it takes the military to design, develop, build and launch a new satellite means that, by the time they launch a new satellite, the technologies on it are no longer cutting edge.

When it comes to resiliency, commercial satellite providers have been long fighting against the misconception that their services are in some way less resilient and secure than military satellites. And there is a good reason why that misconception exists, there are demonstrated benefits to operating in the X band frequency, as satellite expert, Phil Harlow, recently articulated in another article on the Government Satellite Report:

“With only ten [X band] WGS satellites in orbit, there is less chance of adjacent satellite interference. This means that more power can be put down from each satellite without fear of interfering with other, adjacent satellites (or being interfered with by other satellites). This higher power results in a stronger signal on the ground that further overcomes attenuation from environmental factors, increases throughputs and improves link reliability.”

However, the small number of WGS satellites creates a resiliency problem itself. If a near-peer adversary is looking to deny the military’s satellite services – which have long been a strategic edge for our military – they only have ten potential satellites to target.

This lack of diversity makes it easier for enemies to target and deny satellite capabilities, which is why Kimberly Morris, satellite communications operations division head at the U.S. Naval Network Warfare Command recently called for an increase in satellite options when she said, “We need diversity – we need a wide range of diversity,” at this summer’s Milsatcom USA Conference.

By utilizing commercial satellites in conjunction with military satellites, the ecosystem of potential satellites that could be carrying military signals increases from ten to more than 150. This not only can help disrupt an adversary’s targeting calculus, but also provide back-ups should military satellites be denied. As Morris said at the same event, “You go after our [military-owned] systems, I’ve got something else that I can get to. Historically, with a lot of the weapon systems that are brought to bear in the modern age, it’s not the primary system that has been a hero, it’s the secondary system, because the enemy puts so much effort into taking out that primary system.”

With the potential to increase resiliency and bring new, innovative solutions to bear, it’s clear that commercial satellite needs to be a part of military plans in the future. So why wasn’t it in the vignette? Especially since it could have been so beneficial?

What could have been – and what will be
During Gen. Goldfein’s vignette, the two coalition military satellites being relied upon for communications in every other domain were jammed by adversary space assets. The response of the coalition forces in the vignette were to bomb targets deep in enemy territory and relocate military spacecraft – which is an extremely time-consuming and risky response.

How would that have played out if this futuristic force was utilizing a combined commercial and military satellite architecture?

First, the adversary would have struggled mightily to target the correct satellites. Today’s commercial satellite industry operates innovative new satellites in more orbits than just the traditional geostationary orbit. With more than 150 satellites in multiple different orbits – including GEO, MEO and LEO – that could have been transmitting military communications in theater, the adversary would have struggled mightily to identify which satellite to target for jamming or even kinetic attacks.

Should the adversary jammed or denied the correct satellites, the coalition forces in the vignette would have had an even easier, far less risky response should they have been using an integrated commercial and military satellite architecture. They simply could have relocated a digitally-steered beam from a different commercial satellite – possibly even one in a different orbit – to deliver high-throughput, low-latency connectivity to the battlefield.

No jets would have needed to be scrambled, no military satellites would have needed to expend precious fuel to be repositioned, and no pilots’ lives would have needed to be risked.

This is why Ken Peterman, the President of Government Systems at Viasat recently told attendees at a panel discussion during SATELLITE 2019 that, “…within government circles, support continues to build for a DoD, hybrid, multi-network adaptive enterprise so that the DoD has the improved resiliency, improved mobility and improved flexibility to take full advantage of commercial innovation.”

So, where do we stand with that “hybrid, multi-network adaptive enterprise,” or integrated commercial and military satellite architecture? I asked Gen. John Raymond, the Commander of United States Space Command, during a media roundtable at the Air, Space and Cyber Conference, and he assured us that it’s still on the table – even if it’s not in vignettes.

When asked about the potential to utilize satellites of different sizes and in different orbits, General Raymond responded, “I think what we’ll see in the future is a more hybrid architecture which would provide us with more resiliency.“ And adding commercial satellite to the military’s network architecture and infrastructure was also a priority for Gen. Raymond moving forward.

When asked about the timing and roadmap towards this combined architecture, the General responded, “[The Air Force] had several meetings with the commercial industry to partner with them on a vision going forward. I expect to publish a vision document towards that end in the coming months. We’re here to work with industry and I think that the relationships that we have and that were provided to us by the National Defense Authorization Act will provide us great advantage.”

Both the military and the satellite industry see the potential that an integrated commercial and military satellite architecture could have for our nation’s multi-domain operations in the future. If we’re going to truly win the battle for space and utilize satellites as part of a military response that will, “produce multiple dilemmas for our adversaries in a way that will overwhelm them,” then commercial satellite needs to be an integral part of the Air Force’s plans now and into the future.

Featured image courtesy of the Air Force Association.

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What is the Air Force transitioning from? Over the course of the previous decade or two, the entire Department of Defense has been geared towards a fight against adversaries around the world that weren’t as technologically advanced or sophisticated as our military. That’s no longer the case.

According to Deputy Defense Secretary, Patrick Shanahan, “We live in an era of great power competition. That’s a muscle we haven’t used in a while. In contrast, our great power adversaries have studied our way of war for thirty years and have built systems and doctrine to thwart it.”

Today’s threats are from increasingly sophisticated, near-peer adversaries that are capable of challenging the United States military in practically every domain. These adversaries have historically proven capable of challenging our country’s superiority in the traditional warfighting domains of air, land and sea. More recently, they’ve proven capable of sophisticated attacks in cyberspace, and they’ve turned space from a benign environment into a warfighting domain.

This sentiment was reflected in comments by Gen. John Raymond, the Commander of the Air Force Space Command, when he said, “There’s great alignment in our nation today that space is a warfighting domain, just like air, land and sea…and that’s really the focus of Air Force Space Command today…[we’re] at a strategic inflection point and that’s a point where we used to operate in a benign domain, but today we’re operating in a contested domain.”

Innovate or fall behind
This new, more sophisticated threat has created new pressures on the Air Force, which now finds itself in need of developing unified and comprehensive deterrents and responses to aggression across all domains. What’s more, the Air Force finds itself in a position where it must innovate and evolve at the same pace – if not faster – than adversaries that are investing heavily into technology and military capabilities.

It was this topic of innovation that dominated many of the panel discussions and side sessions at this year’s conference. It was also one of the topics that dominated the keynote Q&A session and discussion with the AFA’s extremely impressive guest – billionaire Amazon and Blue Origin Founder, Jeff Bezos.

Innovation was just one of the topics that was repeated throughout the conference. Another involved funding and investment.

A narrow opening in the funding window
Many of the week’s side sessions and panel discussions ended with time for a Q&A. During these Q&A sessions, the Air Force personnel and industry representatives in attendance were given the opportunity to submit questions. Repeatedly, those questions involved investment in Air Force bases and infrastructure.

Based on the questions posed to senior Air Force leaders – and their subsequent answers – it’s apparent that Air Force bases and infrastructure are in need of long-awaited repairs and renovations. It also became apparent that investment in those areas is forthcoming.

According to Air Force Vice Chief of Staff, General Stephen Wilson, “[Our team has] mapped out our bases and infrastructure and we can tell you where areas we need improvements are down to every building on every installation across the Air Force. Then we’ve got to stop just looking at it and doing something about it, so we’ve prioritized the investment in our infrastructure…and boosted the funding considerably this past year and made it priority that we’ll fundamentally fund our base infrastructure…”

The timing for this strategic investment works out. There is an open window of increased funding available to the military thanks in large part to the current administration’s desire to recapitalize and rejuvenate America’s military. However, even with the window open, there’s only so many things that fit through it before it closes.

Strict program budgets are forcing the Air Force to make difficult decisions and prioritize initiatives and acquisitions, while still working to effectively build a combat-ready force capable of defending the nation against an increasingly sophisticated threat.

To accomplish this, many of the senior leaders and speakers at the conference proposed turning to partners – especially industry partners.

An eye on industry
If both funding and innovation are problems facing the Air Force, they have an ally in private industry – both as a means of driving innovation and cutting costs.

Private companies are constantly challenging their employees and working to foster a culture that encourages innovation in an attempt to find better, more efficient ways to accomplish tasks and – subsequently – generate more and higher profits. They foster these innovative environments by giving employees the freedom to create, the opportunities to share ideas with upper management and the freedom to fail – and fail quickly – with little fear of repercussion.

Needless to say, there are significant cultural shifts and changes that are needed within the military to foster a similar approach to innovation. To the credit of the Air Force and other military branches, current leadership appears poised and prepared to make some of the necessary changes to foster innovation, but it may not come quickly and easily.

In the meantime, many speakers at the AFA Conference discussed how the military can benefit from the innovation that’s happening in private industry by learning from it, ripping it off and purchasing it.

Many of the challenges facing the Air Force are similar or in line with the challenges facing certain industries. For example, commercial airlines and delivery companies face many of the same challenges keeping their fleets maintained and operational. Many large, global retailers, including Amazon, face similar logistical challenges as branches of the military.

By comparing and benchmarking the military’s solutions and operations to those in use in the private industry, innovative techniques and processes can be assessed and – if proven more effective – be implemented to make the Air Force more efficient.

Then, there’s the idea of purchasing commercial solutions as an alternative to buying or building bespoke, purpose-built solutions for the military. This is an alternative that can help the military solve both of the major challenges outlined at the AFA Conference – innovation and budget constraints.

Deputy Defense Secretary, Patrick Shanahan, urged listeners to, “…embrace enterprise solutions and speed,” while claiming that, “Many of the…systems that industry has deployed over the past decade are ripe for our adoption. It’s what I call R&D – rip off and deploy. A custom, federated approach is a trap.”

This sentiment was shared by Jeff Bezos, who accurately stated that, “It’s so important for the DoD and the Air Force, when they can, to use commercial solutions.” That’s because custom built solutions often require more time, forcing the military to wait for the benefits and capabilities they will deliver. Custom-built solutions also tend to cost more, and can stifle innovation because they’re built to the specifications of groups or individuals who may not know all that’s possible or available.

This was also explained by Jeff Bezos when he said, “When the requirements [for custom solutions] are written, they’re not written taking [commercially available solutions] into account. So, when they get something, they’re getting something custom built instead of something that is a commercial system that may not have met those requirements, but may have serviced the military in a better way for what was required.”

The benefits of utilizing commercial solutions over custom built solutions are even more apparent in space.

Commercial space for innovation, cost savings and defense
The commercial space industry has seen a massive wave of innovation and advancement in the past three to five years. From developments in lower latency, higher bandwidth satellite constellations to advancements in less expensive commercial space flight operations, to the announcement of in-orbit servicing and refueling programs, commercial companies are opening the door to a level of space capability that was previously only dreamt of.

It’s now on the Air Force and broader military to begin embracing these commercial solutions to their benefit. As General Raymond stated, “We’re working to strengthen the relationships with industry. It’s a bad word to use in the space business, but there’s an explosion of things happening in the space industry. We want to capitalize on that.”

Innovation aside, commercial capabilities and solutions can also be a less expensive option for the military. Utilizing hosted payloads – placing military payloads on commercial spacecraft – is just one of many ways the Air Force could take advantage of industry services to not only save money, but also get access to new space capabilities more rapidly. Also, utilizing managed satellite services from industry partners is a more cost-effective way to get satellite communications capabilities, in contrast to building and launching satellites, and purchasing necessary ground infrastructure.

Then there’s the issue of protecting military satellite capabilities. As we’ve established, space is now a warfighting domain. With many military satellite constellations built for what was a benign environment, they’re simply unprepared to defend themselves. As General Raymond said, “The constellations that we have on orbit today aren’t all that defensible. They’ve been described by some as the slow kids in gym class that can’t run that fast.”

This is another area where commercial satellite can pay dividends for the military. By utilizing commercial satellites, the Air Force and the rest of the DoD can effectively distribute their satellite communications and satellite capabilities across multiple constellations, making them harder to target by our adversaries. Also, with commercial operators constantly innovating, the military would gain access to new waveforms and satellite technologies that are inherently harder to jam.

This year’s AFA Air, Space and Cyber Conference painted a very interesting picture of an Air Force in transition and with significant challenges. Today’s Air Force needs to retool and reinvest to prepare for a near-peer adversary with capabilities unlike any adversary that we’ve faced in the past two decades. The only way that the Air Force can make the changes it needs to make, improve its infrastructure and increase its readiness is with innovation. Leaning on industry partners – especially those in the commercial space industry – is one of the more surefire ways that the Air Force can accomplish its goals and be best prepared to accomplish its mission.

Feature image: U.S. Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class Zoe M. Wockenfuss.

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