This week, we conclude our conversation with Jon, as he examines whether or not the military will shift away from the military’s own WGS satellites and commercially-operated GEO satellite services in favor of NGSO solutions, as well as give an update on the highly anticipated, official DoD report on the use of NGSO satellites.

Here is what he had to say:

GSR: Congress appears to be pretty focused on NGSO satellite right now, but do you anticipate the military moving away from WGS and commercial GEO solutions in the immediate future? Is there a need for GEO satellite in a world with LEO and MEO satellites?

Jon Bennett: I think there is a need for GEO, and that goes back to the “Fighting SATCOM” effort. COMSATCOM integration – which is an appropriate mix of military satellite communications and commercial satellite communications capabilities – is something that the U.S. Space Force has talked about and worked hard to implement. Fully recognizing and achieving that goal will take time, but there is hope that the Department will get there eventually. That said, I believe there is still a need for GEO birds and I don’t think we’ll ever get away from WGS.

For example, if a special operations team needs MILSAT to communicate at the tactical edge, they have direct access to WGS capabilities as those operations are heavily prioritized. Whereas with COMSATCOM, you’ll need to have an identified demand signal, a contract vehicle in place, and the ability to onboard that capability with the necessary ground segment and networking infrastructure. Integrating commercial capabilities into the DoD enterprise architecture would give the warfighters the ability to leverage next generation and forward leaning innovative assets across the board.

If you just look at WGS, Father Time is clearly coming into the picture and limiting that constellation’s shelf life. Bottom line, those satellites are getting old. So, ask yourself, “What’s the cost associated with replacing a WGS satellite?” We, the commercial sector, already have assets that are paid for, flying, and delivering to U.S. government agencies right now. The capacity is available. So, if the military constellation of WGS satellites is starting to wane and its shelf life is diminishing, the DoD needs to hop over to commercial. That’s going to be imperative when it pertains to military dollars associated with the government’s demanding requirements.

Congress’ directive is really an assessment of the vulnerabilities and the overall resiliency of space access to national security missions across the board.” -Jon Bennett

Congress cares and wants to be good stewards of taxpayer dollars. And it is an extremely smart investment for them to leverage commercial capabilities, especially when you have commercial solutions that are close to providing the level of security features that you see in WGS satellites.

That, to me, is why it would behoove the military to leverage their WGS assets, but also integrate commercial capabilities into their enterprise architecture. The Hill remains well aware of the opportunities presented by integrated SATCOM capabilities at GEO, MEO, and LEO for delivering robust, flexible, and manageable enterprise solutions for the DoD.

GSR: We know that the NDAA instructed the DoD to author a report about its use of NGSO satellite. What is the current status of that? Has it been submitted?

Jon Bennett: Though we haven’t seen the report yet, the DoD has been hard at work on that effort. Congress is continuing to hold the department’s feet to the fire with that NDAA language.

Congress’ directive is really an assessment of the vulnerabilities and the overall resiliency of space access to national security missions across the board. If you look at not just last year’s NDAA, but this year’s also, there are additional requirements being levied by members of the Armed Services Committee.

They are requiring knowing how the acquisition process has been impacted. They also want to know what the contracts with commercial providers look like. And the Hill wants to understand, at the current state of play, if the use of commercial capabilities can accommodate unforeseen demand signals.

For example, if the INDOPACOM were to pop, and there is a conflict between China and Taiwan, does the DoD have enough capability from a MILSATCOM or a COMSATCOM perspective to address that demand signal? To us, the answer is no. We are not seeing the Department scheme for potential surge requirements. So, how do you improve the plan for commercial satellite communications across the military departments? They must plan accordingly, right? The Department needs to address and build out the requirement for NGSO satellite integration. Congress must be willing to support a long-term sustainable budget that enables the Department to leverage the necessary capabilities in defense of our national and economic security interests. The NDAA is getting after this issue but we are not where we need to be, yet.

Modernizing DoD’s decision-making processes for combat operations is paramount, and the Hill understands that leveraging commercial and its next generation end-to-end SATCOM solutions will only enhance ABMS.” -Jon Bennett

The report that was put in the FY22 NDAA is really holding the department accountable on multiple fronts. Congress is hungry to understand how the department is going to leverage COMSATCOM capabilities. This year, next year, and certainly for the long-term future. The Hill is well aware of the increasing importance of delivering resilient global SATCOM for the joint warfighter. Congress wants to see a long-term investment strategy on integrating commercial NGSO satellite capabilities in support of a secure, resilient and disaggregated multi-band/multi-orbit enterprise architecture.

GSR: Based on what you heard at these demonstrations for lawmakers, and what we’re hearing from the military, how far away are we from NGSO satellite seeing wide use across the DoD? What would need to happen for that to become a reality?

Jon Bennett: The reality is that the military has been using non-GEO satellites in their services since 2016. When SES launched their O3b MEO capabilities, LEO players hadn’t even bent metal. And in 2016, the COCOMs saw the benefits of the original NGSO COMSATCOM capability in MEO. O3b offered very high-throughput, low latency capabilities that really enabled the Pentagon decision makers the ability to act on intelligence in real-time. We’ve been doing that since 2016, so it’s been a reality for six years already.

Based on the demonstrations with lawmakers and what we heard from them several weeks back, they are extremely interested in the security features. The threat landscape is evolving for the worse. We’re seeing more and more threats posed to our national security interests, without question. So, understandably, you have Members of Congress and their staff wanting to understand how these SATCOM assets are built to an inherently resilient, robust, and secure capability set that mitigates the threats posed.

We walked them through that and other areas of interest. We talked about the advanced battle management system (ABMS), and how it allows commanders and warfighters to share more and better information faster. Modernizing DoD’s decision-making processes for combat operations is paramount, and the Hill understands that leveraging commercial and its next generation end-to-end SATCOM solutions will only enhance ABMS.

Congress wants to see the Department work towards identifying the necessary tools and acquisition models to integrate COMSATCOM systems more effectively and efficiently into architecture.” -Jon Bennett

So, how is SATCOM an enabler to ABMS? The members of Congress were certainly interested in that question. As we provide Capitol Hill with further information as to the roles and responsibilities that SATCOM providers have on the Department’s Enterprise Network Architecture, Congress is going to fully appreciate that SATCOM is the backbone to any theater operation in support of the warfighters.

GSR: Should funding be made available, and should the DoD decide to invest that funding in commercial NGSO satellite services, what would be needed from a hardware standpoint? How long would it take to get these services rolled out to the warfighter in a meaningful way?

Jon Bennett: On the heels of this NDAA, the Hill continues to be supportive of integrating COMSATCOM capabilities into the national security space communications architecture. Congress wants to see the Department work towards identifying the necessary tools and acquisition models to integrate COMSATCOM systems more effectively and efficiently into architecture.

When it comes to the hardware, one of the things that we were able to demonstrate during our Congressional visit a few weeks back, was showcasing the Army’s bread and butter terminal, the Phoenix E-Model terminal. The Army assessed the potential Phoenix E-Model MEO capability during the Project Convergence 21 network modernization exercise last fall. Since Project Convergence, the Army has been able to “MEO-ize” their Phoenix terminal. We call it MEO-ization. Think about upgrading and modernizing legacy equipment and what that means from a dollar standpoint.

When military services couldn’t leverage their current terminals, they’d have to buy new terminals. And the costs associated with those terminals are astronomical.

We were able to work with the Army and help them convert their terminals so they could talk to our MEO satellites. Think about that. We were able to reconfigure an older and heavily leveraged piece of equipment so that it could now talk to multiple assets in multiple orbits at multiple frequencies. The ability to leverage those capabilities at the tactical edge into the fight is incredible. Think about the dollars saved! That’s awesome.

Commercial strongly encourages the Department to clearly articulate and prioritize these critical commercial satellite communication integration efforts in the next budget request.” -Jon Bennett

When it comes to rolling these services out to the warfighters, there was a concern back in 2016 when CENTCOM didn’t want to pay for the service. But that was okay because the commercial industry can lease these terminals to them. They don’t have to buy them. It just becomes a fully end-to-end managed service, which enables capabilities to be rolled out to the warfighter in a meaningful way. We can do that easily at a high level of efficiency. It’s something that we’ve done before. It’s something that we continue to do.

As we work with the different military services, and their respective hardware requirements, it’s only going to get better, especially when O3b mPOWER comes on board. We are launching later this year and will be operational next year. And the military services fully understand that O3b mPOWER is a game-changing capability. They want to get their hands on it.

I will end with this though…as the Department works to implement a new strategy for comprehensive satellite communications capabilities, to what extent will the Department leverage multi-orbit capabilities and commercial partnerships to achieve cost efficiency and enhance resiliency?

Commercial strongly encourages the Department to clearly articulate and prioritize these critical commercial satellite communication integration efforts in the next budget request. I believe, as does Congress, the Department’s approach to resiliency, flexibility, and security, must include plans to secure multi-orbit and multi-band capabilities. But once again, the support to investment in commercial needs to be there.

To read part one of our conversation with Jon Bennett, click HERE.

The post Will the U.S. military shift away from WGS satellite in favor of NGSO solutions? appeared first on SES Space and Defense.

In an effort to help Congress better understand the different use cases, services, and emerging solutions that NGSO satellites can provide to all military domains, as well as highlight the intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) benefits that NGSOs can deliver to the U.S. government, SES Space and Defense recently conducted a series of congressional NGSO demonstrations on Capitol Hill.

To learn more about why now is the time for the U.S. government to take advantage of NGSO capabilities, and to get an update on what NGSO technologies and military use cases the company demonstrated to Congress, the Government Satellite Report was able to catch up with SES Space and Defense’s Vice President of Government Affairs, Marketing, Corporate Communications, Jon Bennett.

Here is what he had to say:

Government Satellite Report (GSR): A few weeks ago, SES Space and Defense held demonstrations of its NGSO satellite solutions for lawmakers in Congress. What was the company demonstrating? What capabilities were you looking to show these Congresspeople?

Jon Bennett: Whenever we are in front of Congress, especially when we work with the Armed Services Committee or other Committees of Jurisdiction, we want to highlight the game changing impact satellite solutions have on U.S. national security.

When we held that demonstration, our first and foremost priority was to showcase what we’re doing for each of the combatant commands and their respective areas of responsibility (AOR). For example, what has SES Space and Defense done from a SATCOM perspective to support Navy equities for the Indo-Pacific Command (INDOPACOM)? Well, that’s pretty easy.

We discussed our roll-on/roll-off Morale, Welfare, and Recreation (MWR) solution, what we call Navy MEO Wi-Fi. We showcased to our congressional stakeholders on the impacts SATCOM is having on the soldiers, sailors, and marines that have been in port, especially during the pandemic where COVID restrictions really limited our warfighters during port.

We showcased how we have been able to allow those folks – who have not been able to disembark their respective ships – to FaceTime with family, access online banking services, attend online schooling, etc. These are all things that we on the mainland take advantage of. So, we were able to demonstrate those connectivity strides and improved quality of life measures to Congress.

It all boils down to helping Congress understand why they should care about satellite communications, because communications is the critical backbone of any military operation.

GSR: Why was it important for legislators to see these capabilities?

Jon Bennett: Without communication capabilities being delivered warfighters would be going into theatre, blind. Tactical brigades would be severely hampered with operations potentially limited. The bottom line is that satellite communications offer real-time, highly accurate information to those that need to consume information and deliver actionable intelligence. We can’t deploy Stryker brigades without having the communication network, because those teams won’t be tethered to the decision makers, which leaves the warfighters uninformed. That can be disastrous, especially in the heat of battle.

If the U.S. doesn’t leverage SATCOM, we are certainly putting ourselves at an extreme disadvantage to our adversaries.” -Jon Bennett

We simply needed to express to our Hill stakeholders the need to provide resilient and diverse satellite communications is critical to meeting Department of Defense SATCOM requirements. At the end of the day, our demonstrations were dedicated to emphasizing how comms is the backbone to military operations. That’s what we wanted Congress to walk away with when we were finished.

GSR: Congress recently included some language about NGSO satellite in this year’s NDAA. Why is Congress so interested in NGSO satellite right now? Why would lawmakers be interested in the type of satellite solutions that the military is utilizing?

Jon Bennett: We always emphasize how space is an essential variable to the national security equation. I just mentioned how communications is the backbone to military operations, right? If the U.S. doesn’t leverage SATCOM, we are certainly putting ourselves at an extreme disadvantage to our adversaries.

When discussing why Congress is interested in NGSO, it goes back to General Raymond’s Fighting SATCOM initiative, which requires multi-band satellite communications – Ka, Ku, C-band etc. It also requires multi-orbit comms, such as geosynchronous (GEO), medium Earth orbit (MEO), and then low Earth orbit (LEO). What Fighting SATCOM does is that it allows the military to seamlessly transition from one orbital asset – the LEO, MEO, or GEO satellites – and at different frequencies to another.

That capability effectively complicates the enemy’s targeting calculus. For example, if adversaries like China, Russia, or North Korea degrades one of our assets from a MILSAT perspective, the military can then transition seamlessly to commercial capabilities at those various orbits and those various frequencies. That is why Congress cares about NGSO. Because for many, many years, GEO satellites are just sitting there. They’re big, fat, juicy targets, right? So, it is a lot easier to degrade those assets.

Whereas with your MEO assets – like O3b MEO and our soon-to-be-launched O3b mPOWER constellation – those satellites move equatorially. They’re constantly moving, which is a critical attribute to have for resilient SATCOM. Creating a highly secure and resilient asset that belongs in the space SATCOM ecosystem is just one aspect of why Congress has been showing interest in NGSO capabilities.

For us, the medium Earth orbit is our absolute sweet spot, because it’s uncontested and uncongested.” -Jon Bennett

From a security perspective, it allows the ability to mitigate threats through that resiliency, security, and redundancy. It all ties back to Fighting SATCOM and the ability to protect space assets, improve space situational awareness, and create missile warning and tracking capabilities, to name a few. If you have satellites in all three orbits able to track them in a scenario where an inbound missile is coming at high velocity and speed, we absolutely need that low latency at all layers to be able to track said missile threat. Congress is keenly interested in that, especially in the early rapid advancements you’re seeing with our adversarial nations. This is another reason lawmakers are interested in deploying the appropriate mix of military and commercial satellite solutions within the DoD Enterprise Architecture.

GSR: From a mission assurance and security standpoint, how does the military benefit from leveraging commercial NGSO satellite services?

Jon Bennett: First, let me explain what NGSO means. NGSO or Non-geostationary satellites occupy a range of orbital positions (LEO satellites are located between 700km-1,500km from the Earth, MEO satellites are located at 10,000km from the Earth), and do not maintain a stationary position, but instead move in relation to the Earth’s surface. For us, the medium Earth orbit is our absolute sweet spot, because it’s uncontested and uncongested. There isn’t any other commercial entity out there that has MEO assets, like we have in O3b and the soon-to-be O3b mPOWER. We have been operating and servicing the U.S. government in MEO since 2016.

The ability to operate in MEO is a lot cleaner, whereas with LEO there is a concern that it is going to be extremely congested. There are thousands of satellites moving at rapid speeds. And in order to get into space, you have to go into and through LEO, which raises a great amount of concern. I’m not saying there aren’t benefits from LEO, the Fighting SATCOM vision calls for assets in all three orbits. But there is a slight concern when it comes to space debris and having to go through LEO to get into MEO and GEO.

Another benefit of leveraging commercial, especially with NGSO, is the security, resiliency, and redundancy it provides. When you’re able to complicate an enemy’s targeting calculus, that ensures that the built-in security features of your assets can mitigate threats at the highest level.

To us, the greatest capability that we offer to the warfighter in all domains, whether it be in air, land, sea, or cyber, is what we call fiber-like latency.” -Jon Bennett

So how did we do that? When Boeing was designing and building our O3b mPOWER MEO capabilities, we leveraged reports, at the classified level, to help us understand and hone in on the security vulnerabilities that our satellites and space assets are currently facing. When we were building our next-gen capability in O3b mPOWER, we developed features that were built into the design phase, thus making O3b mPOWER inherently resilient and secure.

GSR: What new services, tools, and capabilities could these satellite solutions enable for the warfighter across the different warfighting domains?

Jon Bennett: Inherent security and flexibility are going to be key aspects. Those aspects are the heart of the new service tools and capabilities that O3b mPOWER is going to bring to the fight.

Simply put, O3b mPOWER has inherent security and flexibility through NSA CNSSP-12, and allows for command uplink decryption and telemetry downlink encryption while designed to meet ODNI stringent cybersecurity requirements

To us, the greatest capability that we offer to the warfighter in all domains, whether it be in air, land, sea, or cyber, is what we call fiber-like latency. We enable less than 150 millisecond round trip latency. It’s essentially fiber in the sky, and that’s what our MEO satellites offer.

There is a need for GEO, MEO, and LEO, because you need to have all three orbits to truly complicate an enemy’s attack and targeting calculus.” -Jon Bennett

Another emerging capability that we are offering is secure beam steering. We have 5,000 steerable beams at our disposal on these assets. That aspect is a definite gamechanger. Having thousands of customer beams per satellite has been previously unheard of. And if the DoD were to need it, we can also lump the beams together to get more throughput for the military.

GSR: When we say NGSO we’re effectively talking about LEO and MEO. Are there any particular advantages to these different orbits for the military? Why would the military want to choose services in one orbit over the other?

Jon Bennett: It all goes back to Fighting SATCOM. There is a need for GEO, MEO, and LEO, because you need to have all three orbits to truly complicate an enemy’s attack and targeting calculus.

Where you don’t have to rely on MILSAT at WGS, you can rely on COMSAT and seamlessly transition from one orbit to the another. And the standout advantages are the high throughput and low latency it provides. The closer you are to the to the Earth’s surface, the lower the latency will be. But the issue there is the lack of security on LEO assets. Look at what happened to the assets that were leveraged in Ukraine and how quickly Russia was able to degrade them.

With our MEO capabilities, the level of ability for the enemy to degrade is certainly not going to be the same. And there isn’t going to be a whole lot of packet loss. What that does is enable the U.S. government and its military to knowingly leverage a secure asset that has virtually the same level of latency as LEO. That to us is extremely important.

The ability for a Pentagon decision maker to act on intelligence in near real time from a tactical brigade unit, in theater and in the fight via ISR efforts is very impactful. For example, during the early days of Afghanistan, if you came across a treasure trove hardware with critical information on them, you used to have to rip out the hard drives, fly them back via a CH-47 Chinook, attempt to exfiltrate the information, and then days later you’ll be able to have some actionable intelligence.

We’re providing the ability to act on intelligence in near real time based on the fact that we offer low latency and high-throughput within those two orbital slots. That is why the military views LEO and MEO as particular advantages over GEO.

To learn more about NGSO and what to look for when selecting a satellite solution, click HERE.

The post SES Space and Defense demonstrates emerging NGSO satellite solutions to Congress appeared first on SES Space and Defense.

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.

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.”

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