In our personal lives, mobile connectivity is ubiquitous. Using laptops and mobile devices, we can access applications for communication, such as email, phone and video teleconference. That high-quality, remote connectivity we are accustomed to in our personal lives is possible on airplanes and cruise ships thanks to SATCOM.

The government and military’s senior leadership expects the same capabilities and conveniences as your average consumer. They want to be connected all of the time. They want to have access to all of the services and applications available to them on the go as they have access to in their office.

Most importantly, they don’t want major decisions to have to wait until they’re reconnected on the other end of a long flight, and they don’t want to have to major important decisions without all necessary information because it’s simply not available to them.

This is why the Department of Defense (DoD) and Air Force operate the Senior Leader Command, Control, and Communications System – Airborne (SLC3S-A) network.

According to the Air Force, the SLC3S-A, “…Provides executive airborne communications supporting world-wide command and control capabilities to US government senior leaders (i.e., the President of the United States (POTUS); Vice President of the United States (VPOTUS); Secretary of Defense (SECDEF); Secretary of State (SECSTATE); Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff (CJCS); Unified Combatant Commanders (COCOMs); and their staff as well as other government senior leaders).”

Effectively, the SLC3S-A delivers secure and non-secure voice, data, and video connectivity to senior leaders en route so that they can carry out their duties and responsibilities.

As with most similar inflight and nautical networks, the SLC3S-A relies heavily on SATCOM to connect these senior leaders to the capabilities and information they require. But the existing SLC3S-A infrastructure is relatively proprietary and built on older technology that not only gives the government less flexibility, but also makes the system very expensive to operate. For this reason, the Air Force is looking to modernize SLC3S-A in the coming year.

More open means more flexibility, more bandwidth and more savings
In the coming year, the Air Force will be releasing an RFP for a new SLC3S-A. Although the RFP is not yet public, the general understanding across the satellite industry is that this version of the SLC3S-A is to be built on open standards that will allow the Air Force to utilize a range of different modems and bandwidth providers.

This new, more open, SLC3S-A will utilize a modern satellite modem that gives the Air Force the ability to utilize both wideband satellite signals and HTS signals. This is key, since – as we’ve discussed in previous posts – HTS is truly the future of satellite.

Today’s advanced HTS utilizes smaller spot beams instead of the wider beams found on traditional geosynchronous satellites. These spot beams offer higher bandwidths and throughputs, making it possible to transmit more data, faster, and at lower cost to the end user.

By enabling the SLC3S-A to utilize HTS signals, the Air Force will enable even more high bandwidth capabilities to senior leaders on the move, and also cut costs for the military in the long run. To accomplish this, the new modems used in the SLC3S-A will need to be able to transition from beam to beam, since the circumference of each beam will be smaller in HTS environments than in wideband use. However, an open source modem capable of accomplishing this is currently in the works, and is expected to be a vital part of SLC3S-A in the future.

Building a more open, better SLC3S-A
By reevaluating SLC3S-A, embracing open standards and working to ensure that SLC3S-A can work with tomorrow’s advanced HTS signals, the Air Force is taking huge strides to ensure that senior leaders can have command and control en route. But there are some decisions that are still to be made that could drastically impact just how flexible and powerful the SLC3S-A network is in the future.

Here are a few considerations for the Air Force to keep in mind if they’re going to ensure that the SLC3S-A is everything that it can be, and more:

1. Evaluate COMSATCOM providers on bandwidth and throughput – not all COMSATCOM providers are built the same. In fact, some satellite constellations are capable of delivering more bandwidth and higher throughputs per HTS spot beam than others.If the purpose of refreshing the SLC3S-A to be more open and feature higher bandwidth for more demanding applications, it would be counterproductive to embrace a COMSATCOM provider that offers lower bandwidth and lower throughputs via its satellites. This becomes even more important if senior leaders are traveling in areas with high satellite use. These lower bandwidth and lower throughput satellite beams will become stressed more easily, and both accessibility and performance will be hindered – leaving senior leaders with lower than optimal performance or no service when needed. 

2. Stay flexible with satellite bands – Aside from decreasing cost and increasing bandwidth, the SLC3S-A is being reevaluated to increase flexibility. That means it would once again be counterproductive to tie the SLC3S-A to one satellite band. It’s essential that the SLC3S-A work with both Ka and Ku band if the Air Force wants the most flexibility, as well as the best return on their investment.There isn’t anything significantly different or special about Ka band. In fact, it was mostly utilized because providers didn’t have access to Ku. What is different about Ka is its relatively higher cost equipment, and other engineering challenges that it creates – including a need to worry about and handle higher heat dissipation. If flexibility really is a driving force for reevaluating SLC3S-A, then it is not recommended for the Air Force simply stick to just using Ka band.

SLC3S-A is essential for keeping senior government and military leaders connected regardless of their location. Reevaluating and reworking SLC3S-A to make it more open and enable it to work with advanced HTS signals is essential for enabling senior leaders to use the most bandwidth-hungry capabilities and applications en route. By ensuring that the COMSATCOM provider they choose offers the most bandwidth per beam and by not tying their hands with just Ka band, the Air Force can ensure they get the most flexibility, bandwidth and cost savings from the new SLC3S-A.

For additional information on HTS and using COMSATCOM for communications and bandwidth en route, click on the following resources:

• White Paper: The Big Beam Boom (High Throughput Satellites)
• White Paper: Satellite Evolution Sparks a Service Revolution
• High Throughput Satellites for U.S. Government Applications

The post Air Force explores a higher bandwidth, less expensive way to connect senior leaders en route appeared first on SES Space and Defense.

The delivery of television and radio programming to United States military personnel stationed at home and abroad is part of the mission of the American Forces Radio and Television Service (AFRTS). Whether it’s the delivery of a speech by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, or the latest episode of the Voice, getting essential transmissions to the warfighter is the job of the AFRTS.

Since the existence of terrestrial networks can be tenuous and spotty at best around the globe, the AFRTS relies heavily on COMSATCOM solutions to accomplish their mission.

To learn more about the role of the AFRTS, the work that they do for America’s men and women in arms and how they use COMSATCOM to bring an essential service to the troops we sat down with George Smith, the Chief of Affiliate Relations at the AFRTS.

Here is what George had to say:

GovSatReport: What is the American Forces Radio and Television Service, and what is its mission?

Mr. Smith: AFRTS is the American Forces Radio and Television Service. It is part of the Department of Defense, and is headquartered at Fort George Meade, Maryland. The AFRTS mission is to communicate Department of Defense policies, priorities, programs, goals and initiatives. AFRTS provides stateside radio and television programming, “a touch of home,” to U.S. service men and women, DoD civilians, and their families serving outside the continental United States.

AFRTS includes 25 local manned radio and TV stations around the world, a regional function in Germany and Japan, the AFN Broadcast Center and the Radio and Television Production Office (RTPO).

The AFRTS mission is to provide U.S. radio and television news, information, and entertainment programming to Active, Guard, and Reserve Military Service members, DoD civilians and contract employees, and their families overseas, on board Navy ships, and other authorized users. We communicate messages and themes from senior DoD leaders (Secretary of Defense, Secretaries of the Military Departments, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Military Service Chiefs of Staff, Combatant Commanders), as well as other leaders in the chain-of-command, in order to support and improve quality of life and morale, promote situational awareness, provide timely and immediate force protection information, and sustain readiness.

GovSatReport: What different services does the AFRTS provide to America’s military personnel?

Mr. Smith: The AFN Broadcast Center (BC) programs nine full-time television services, all originating from the Broadcast Center in Riverside California.

The primary television service is known as AFN|prime. There are two AFN|prime services with basically the same programs time-shifted for the two major time zones (AFN|prime Atlantic and AFN|prime Pacific). Additional television programming is available on the AFN|news, AFN|sports, AFN|sports2, AFN|movie, AFN|family and AFN|spectrum.

Navy ships equipped with satellite dishes receive the AFN television services via a satellite distribution network known as Direct-To-Sailor, or DTS.

The AFN BC originates 12 different 24/7 satellite radio services and eight streaming Internet radio services (Legacy, Country, Joe Radio, Power Talk, The Voice, Freedom, Gravity and Hot Adult Contemporary).  You may only receive AFN 360 Internet Radio in countries where AFN has terrestrial radio transmitters.

GovSatReport: Why is the mission of the AFRTS so essential?

Mr. Smith: AFRTS stations keep American military personnel and their families informed and entertained around the clock, on duty or off. It’s a huge morale builder to deliver critical military news, information and force protection messages impacting their life and career, live American news and sporting events, and top TV entertainment shows they see in the States.

AFN has given Americans living overseas real time help and information with many natural disasters, emergencies and force protection threats over the years, from volcanic eruptions in Italy, flooding in Italy and Portugal, the earthquake in Japan or typhoons in the Pacific.  AFN stations served an exceptionally vital role in the aftermath of 9/11, providing the military audience with round-the-clock English language force protection updates that they couldn’t get anywhere else.
Every day AFN stations around the world give American military personnel and their families real time updates on school bus closings and delays, road closures, missing person reports and localized force protection advice.

GovSatReport: What role do satellite communications play in the delivery of this content? Why are terrestrial networks not enough? Why is satellite essential to AFRTS accomplishing its mission?

Mr. Smith: AFRTS distributes about 90% of the top television news, sports and entertainment shows you see on commercial and cable television. That content originates from the AFN Broadcast Center in Riverside, California, where it is delivered around the globe via satellite.

AFN stations are located around the world.  We need satellites to get the signal to all of them. Since our programming and information comes from the States, we need a satellite network to compensate for the curvature of the earth and the signal to everyone.

GovSatReport: How do you see the mission and capabilities of the AFRTS evolving in the coming years? Will additional services and programming be made available to the warfighter? Will other entertainment and communication services be extended to the tip of the spear? What technology changes will need to be addressed to enable this?

Mr. Smith: AFRTS will continue to evolve as U.S. entertainment and distribution capabilities evolve.  Even though our audiences are overseas, the service members come from the United States.

We are always exploring new technologies to try and give our audiences the same capabilities they have at home.  Of course, budget and logistics play a role in AFN capabilities, but we are always moving forward to include video on demand and streaming.

The post How the AFRTS uses COMSATCOM to improve military communication and morale appeared first on SES Space and Defense.