This BPA effectively gives the DoD a contract vehicle in which to purchase satellite communications services via the O3b MEO constellation – opening the door for the military to increasingly incorporate this advanced high-throughput satellite constellation into its larger satellite infrastructure.

Although the O3b MEO satellite constellation is relatively new to space by satellite industry standards, its use by the federal government and DoD is not. SES Space and Defense has made multiple announcements about seemingly ever-increasing use of their constellation by the DoD.

To learn more about what this new BPA means for the DoD we sat down with Mike Blefko, the Vice President of Business Development at SES Space and Defense. During our discussion, we talked about the unique capabilities that MEO satellite delivers to the military, the advantages of acquiring satellite as a managed service and how this BPA will open the door to increased connectivity at the tip of the spear.

This is what Mike had to say:

Government Satellite Report (GSR): What does this BPA enable the military to purchase? Which organizations can utilize this BPA, and what services can they purchase through it?

Mike Blefko: The BPA will give the entire DoD access to end-to-end O3b MEO managed services. These managed services can deliver bandwidth in three month periods and in increments of 100 Mbps to an entire beam’s worth of capacity.

Since it’s an end-to-end managed service, military users will also receive the requisite terminals, including .85m, 2.4m, 4m+ terminals. They also get access to Field Service Representative (FSR) support, installation services, leased terrestrial backhaul, training, HNA support, shipping and ODC support.

Any DoD organization can utilize this BPA. And the BPA will give them access to literally everything they need to start using our O3b MEO constellation.

GSR: What can MEO satellite constellations deliver that the WGS and other military satellite constellations can’t? Why is this important in today’s military?

Mike Blefko: MEO is a great solution for today’s military in that it provides fiber-like connectivity via satellite at a price that is 30-50 percent less than typical geosynchronous (GEO) satellite managed services.

MEO satellite connections are low latency, making the user experience more real time.  Files transfer faster, videos are transmitted in real time with no buffering, web pages load with no pixilation or buffering, and terabyte size files transfer in hours and not days.

There is a reason why 4G LTE service providers use O3b as backhaul for data AND voice networks.

GSR: SES Space and Defense has announced that this BPA covers managed services. What is a satellite managed service? How is it different from how satellite bandwidth is traditionally purchased? Why are satellite managed services attractive for the DoD today?

Mike Blefko: A managed service in its simplest terms delivers an Ethernet port at both sides of a customer link.  What occurs in between with respect to satellite bandwidth, terrestrial connectivity, antenna terminals, and field support is transparent to the user for these services.

This differs from traditional purchased products in the satellite industry. In that model, satellite communications providers and hardware providers supplied all the elements of the service individually to the government. The government customer then performed the integration.

In a managed service environment, there’s a single “managed service” contract that takes the place of a contract for throughput, a terrestrial backhaul contract, an FSR contract, and a satellite terminal contract which were all individually bid and awarded. That’s attractive to the DoD because it’s simpler and enables them to have a single Service Level Agreement (SLA) that specifies a percent availability in which to measure the performance of the service provider.

In the case of SES Space and Defense and its MEO managed service, the typical SLA we provide to our government customers is at or above 99.5 percent availability.

Ultimately, traditional acquisition models diffuse the responsibility from the ultimate goal, reliably delivering ‘1s and 0s’ end-to-end for mission critical applications.  By having a managed service provider that is responsible for the terminal, space segment, and terrestrial backhaul segment the DoD has one point of contact that handles and is responsible for everything.

GSR: The DoD is understandably risk adverse when it comes to rolling out new services and solutions. Has the DoD been testing MEO satellites for military communications prior to the release of this BPA? How have those initial MEO implementations impacted this contract?

Mike Blefko: When the lives of warfighters are on the line, it’s completely understandable why they’d be somewhat hesitant to just roll out new technologies and services without testing them extensively first. In fact, that’s exactly what they’ve done with SES Space and Defense MEO satellite services.

The DoD has been testing the company’s MEO services since 2014 – in demonstrations and with smaller contracts. SES Space and Defense has done demonstrations for virtually every branch of the military, every command and every disparate organization within the DoD over the past four years. As we’ve announced in the past, the DoD has leased MEO beams, as well.

In all of those demonstrations and in our past performance on contracts, the DoD has grown comfortable with our ability to deliver on what we promise – reliable, fiber-like connectivity from space.

For additional information on the new DoD BPA, click HERE to access the official press release from SES Space and Defense. For additional information on MEO satellite constellations and the capabilities they can deliver to government agencies, download the following resources:

• White Paper: High Throughput on the High Seas
• MEO White Paper: A New Era of Connectivity
• VIDEO – MEO Satellites: Knowing makes all the difference

The post Landmark DoD contract to make MEO satellite service available to the entire military appeared first on SES Space and Defense.

This article was originally published in SpaceNews.

Was the Commercial Satellite Communications (COMSATCOM) Pathfinder One a success or failure?*

A little over a year ago, this was the question posed to senior U.S. Government leadership at a U.S. Strategic Command hosted event and the answers varied widely. However, since contract award, the initiative has matured and now can be categorized as an overwhelming success.  Pathfinder One demonstrated the feasibility of a new and innovative satellite communications (SATCOM) acquisition approach and is supporting critical Department of Defense (DoD) missions – all at a price and timeline beneficial to the government.  Further, Pathfinder One is a great example of how the government can leverage the COMSATCOM industry to rapidly and affordably provide critical SATCOM capabilities to our warfighters.

Pathfinder One changed the way the DoD purchased COMSATCOM capabilities by procuring transponders on a commercial satellite versus the traditional model of leasing bandwidth on the spot market.  While COMSATCOM is normally leased using Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) or Operations and Maintenance funding, Pathfinder One was executed using procurement dollars.  For the first time, the government purchased COMSATCOM as vital infrastructure instead of a service.

SES Space and Defense was able to engineer a cost-effective, customized Pathfinder One solution that fully satisfied the United States Africa Command (AFRICOM) operational requirements and could support evolving requirements as well.   This solution included the utilization of inclined satellite capacity which allowed the government to pay significantly less than traditional station-kept bandwidth.  Since remotely piloted aircraft (RPAs) have antennas capable of tracking inclined satellites, AFRICOM can use Pathfinder One capacity to support MQ-1 (Predator), MQ-9 (Reaper), and RQ-4 (Global Hawk) operations. In fact, AFRICOM approved the use of inclined capacity on these platforms and is currently using the available Pathfinder One bandwidth to command and control their critical RQ-4 Global Hawk Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance missions – a significant achievement for operational COMSATCOM integration.

By working closely with the end user, SES Space and Defense was able to flexibly adapt the Pathfinder One solution to meet evolving requirements without any loss in service or availability. In fact, the service is so reliable that the U.S. Government’s Regional SATCOM Support Center Europe recently stated that they are managing the COMSATCOM Pathfinder One bandwidth in exactly the same way, and from the very same office that manages the available wideband military satellite communications bandwidth – another COMSATCOM integration success.

In summary, COMSATCOM is a critical national security enabler and Pathfinder One has helped shape how the U.S. Government can flexibly and affordably acquire these capabilities. Pathfinder One is, in fact, an unequivocal success and has produced ground-breaking lessons-learned.   SES Space and Defense applauds the DoD for their innovative vision and we look forward to leveraging the Pathfinder One lessons learned for future Pathfinder efforts.

The post Lessons Learned from Pathfinder One appeared first on SES Space and Defense.