Recent high-profile LEO satellite outages have highlighted the dangers and vulnerabilities military customers face when depending on a single satellite network for mission-critical connectivity and communications services. Speaking from experience as a retired Colonel of the U.S. Army, the loss of satellite communications (SATCOM) systems can be catastrophic for a mission, and these outages prove that the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) should never put all its SATCOM eggs in one basket.

When access to a primary communications system is denied, degraded, or lost during a mission, it is imperative that warfighters are equipped with a pre-determined Primary, Alternate, Contingency, and Emergency (PACE) plan that ensures an operation maintains the connectivity and communications capabilities it requires. If access to a primary radio, terminal, or satellite system is lost and the mission does not have alternate, contingency, or emergency communications options to fall back on, the operation has essentially failed, and warfighters’ lives could be at risk.

Through advancements in multi-orbit, multi-band satellite technologies, the DoD is now implementing PACE plans encompassing satellite systems across all orbits, leading to successful mission outcomes that are supported by a redundant and assured commercial satellite communications (COMSATCOM) backbone.

Satellite’s Evolving Role in PACE Plans
There was a time when the U.S. military was the leader in developing cutting-edge satellite technologies and capabilities. Twenty years ago, the DoD avoided COMSATCOM and tended to leverage military or government-built satellites for missions. But over time commercial satellite’s pace of innovation and the increased requirement for bandwidth overtook that of the military’s, and the DoD could not match industry’s speed in meeting and fulfilling the SATCOM requirements of warfighting missions.

Today, the military has undergone a sea change regarding its attitude towards COMSATCOM. Since legacy military satellite communications (MILSATCOM) satellites no longer have the capacity that most DoD missions require – combined with the fact that the commercial industry has become far superior in providing the enhanced security, greater bandwidth, higher throughputs, and lower latency military customers are seeking – COMSATCOM has become a critical component of modern warfighting.

The continued evolution of multi-orbit, multi-band COMSATCOM solutions has also reshaped the role satellite systems have played in military PACE plans. Not too long ago, SATCOM was simply a primary form of communication without a role further down the PACE plan.

Today, through the significant advancements in commercial multi-orbit and multi-band technologies, SATCOM’s role in modern warfighting has evolved to the point where the military now crafts PACE plans with multiple different forms of SATCOM connectivity acting as primary and alternative communication options.

This is due to the ability of multi-orbit and multi-band technologies to enable the DoD to seamlessly roll over a mission’s comms from one satellite, orbit, or band to another – providing redundant and uninterrupted access to mission-critical connectivity and capabilities.

Agnostic Integrators and Technological Advancement
This new reality, where COMSATCOM services and capabilities are more redundant and assured, is due to the evolution of multi-band and multi-orbit capabilities. But it’s also a result of technological advancements that make it easier to switch between satellites and satellite networks, and the emergence of agnostic integrators that help build resilient satellite networks for their DoD partners.

Satellite operators that also serve as agnostic integrators provide key advantages to military customers who want multi-orbit, multi-band COMSATCOM built into their PACE plans. Through partnerships with other satellite vendors, agnostic integrators deliver COMSATCOM services that combine satellite capabilities, spanning across orbits and bands.

This is extremely valuable in ensuring that warfighters are supplied with the redundant and assured connectivity their missions require. It is critical to note that agnostic integrators’ access to industry partners’ satellite systems allows them to not only create PACE plan redundancies across orbits, but within a single orbit as well.

Several technological advancements have played a role in enabling military PACE plans to leverage multi-orbit SATCOM capabilities. First is the proliferation of easy-to-deploy LEO satellite products. In the past, deploying satellite terminals at the tactical edge to support a battalion would require three Humvees, nine people, and three generators. Today, warfighters can deploy turn-key terminal devices that can fit in a carry-on bag and be up and running with the press of a button.

Another reason why the use of multi-orbit SATCOM in military PACE plans has exploded in the last few years is due to the technological breakthroughs of auto-PACE solutions like SES Space & Defense’s Secure Integrated Multi-Orbit Networking (SIMON™) capability. Solutions like SIMON can automatically select the best-suited satellite orbit for communications and data to traverse from point A to point B with the least interference. This ensures that any military mission will be supported with built-in redundancy and assured SATCOM.

To learn more about how SES Space & Defense’s SIMON solution is delivering auto-PACE capabilities to the warfighter, click HERE.

The post The Evolving PACE Plan: Multi-Orbit SATCOM Brings Sea Change to Military Comms appeared first on SES Space and Defense.

Al-Saleh explained that international geopolitics have been the compelling forces behind the desire of world governments to achieve sovereignty of their space systems. “There are tensions and races to figure out who can control communications and who can have access to intelligence bifurcations of the world in different political systems,” Al-Saleh explained. “It’s becoming more and more challenging to figure out how do you become sovereign.”

Defense departments around the globe are currently facing significant, not seen before challenges due to the sophistication of kinetic and cyber-attack methods that could drastically impact the availability of their satellite networks. Al-Saleh pointed to the rise of complex cyberattacks as not only a threat to space sovereignty, but also a motivating factor for governments to attain sovereignty over their systems. “It’s harder to detect, and the nature of cybersecurity now is not just about prevention,” explained Al-Saleh. “It’s about how you react to them.”

Governments are now beginning to shift their focus on how they can protect their space assets and the critical data they transmit in a way that prioritizes sovereignty. For Al-Saleh, he views sovereignty in three distinct components.

The three types of sovereignty
The first is technology sovereignty, which – according to Al-Saleh – is rooted in the idea of having a proliferation of connectivity, communications, and networking paths. Sole reliance on a single technology stream can create an incredibly easy target for adversaries to take advantage of.

If a government or military’s primary source for comms or satellite connectivity is taken out through a cyber or jamming attack, it leaves them with no alternative source to fall back on in times of emergency. Having multiple sources and redundant streams for SATCOM can make an adversary’s target radius extremely small, making it more difficult for an attack to have a widespread effect.

The second component of true communication sovereignty, underlined by Al-Saleh, is operational sovereignty. This pertains to the idea that world governments and militaries should not be fully reliant on third parties to have a functional SATCOM architecture. “How do you make sure that you’re not dependent on somebody operating your infrastructure?” asked Al-Saleh. “You have to have control, to be able to access it, and to move from one contract to the other.”

The last dimension of Al-Saleh’s vision for sovereignty is rooted in data protection. Having assurance that a government’s data is secure, protected, and doesn’t get into the hands of adversaries is a driving force behind reaching a state of sovereignty over a nation’s space assets. “Ownership and control of all the data that you need, must be protected,” said Al-Saleh. “How do you do that in this fast-changing world?”

Partner to enable sovereignty and increase resiliency
Al-Saleh pointed to the PPP model as an important enabler to governments making their space sovereignty visions a reality. He cited numerous, successful collaborations between SES and governments as a sign that sovereignty is possible and within reach.

One partnership example that he highlighted was the collaboration between SES and the Luxembourg government which resulted in GovSat being established. Al-Saleh said, “GovSat is a secure SATCOM capability that is entirely dedicated to governments and institutions. We have a satellite and secure mission operations centre delivering a dedicated service using military bands. We also have dedicated gateways and terminals.”

He underlined that this blueprint can be replicated amongst other ally governments and militaries across the globe. “It’s set up so that the satellite connectivity solutions can be shared with other nations,” said Al-Saleh. “This particular solution can be accessed by NATO and Allied nations.”

MEO Global Services (MGS) is another example that Al-Saleh cited as a successful use case enabling space sovereignty. Through MGS, Luxembourg, the United States and NATO will be able to access SES’s latest SATCOM technology O3b mPOWER for defense and security and disaster recovery. “We’re able to offer services that are of the latest technology, jam-resistant, and feature flexibility and scalability. It is a revolutionary setup .”

To make partnerships work, Al-Saleh explained there are some key enablers that must be part of the process. “One is leveraging existing infrastructure,” said Al-Saleh. “There is a tendency to wish to build something new and something dedicated. And with the examples that I just used, there are highly efficient ways to leverage existing infrastructure and deliver the sovereign solution where the government customer has full control.”

It’s also important to make sure security requirements of the participating governments are met and that roles of each party involved – whether private or government sector – are clearly defined.

“When private sector brings innovation, and government supports it with investment, we create something that’s usable for governments and for commercial purposes across the world,” he said.

Finally, speed of execution is key. Faced with the geopolitical realities of today, Al-Saleh said that parties have to move faster to come up with the right solution. “As an industry where paradigms of satellite manufacturing and operations are constantly evolving, we must all embrace these disruptions to propose the right solution for governments. And together, we have to move fast, to stay ahead of disruption.”

The post SES CEO on Achieving Sovereign Systems Quickly appeared first on SES Space and Defense.

What makes O3b mPOWER capability unique?
The launch of SES’s second-generation satellite network, O3b mPOWER, marks the company’s next step toward delivering the highest throughput, most efficient, and most flexible enterprise-grade satellite connectivity services to customers yet.  O3b mPOWER combines many key attributes typically found with geostationary satellite solutions like geographic reach per on-orbit asset, flexible ground infrastructure, and the accommodation of customer-defined User Terminals (UTs) and waveforms, along with “uncontended” capacity, which means that you get what you pay for… it’s not being statistically multiplexed and simultaneously sold to others in an orbit similar in overall latency performance to Low Earth Orbit (LEO) solutions.

The Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) is unique for its orbital resilience while also remaining in the optimal realm for real-time or cloud-originating user applications.  O3b mPOWER is particularly unique in its ability to serve enterprise-class customers… that is,  many users connected from a single point like a ship, airplane, office, or base, with high throughput, low latency throughput needs, and consistent or guaranteed performance.

Perhaps even more significant for potential users is that the O3b mPOWER constellation features an “open architecture” that allows customers to employ it for a wide variety of operational scenarios beyond basic Internet connectivity, including Command & Control uses, Protected Communications, and emerging or evolving operational use cases like LEO Relay Services, Multi-Orbit Routing, Intelligence Surveillance & Reconnaissance, Gateway-Free UT-to-UT connectivity, and other unique mission-critical applications.

On the point of security, O3b mPOWER is a constellation of High Throughput, Software Enabled Satellites placed into a non-geostationary orbit (NGSO), protected with security enhancements outlined in Committee on National Security Systems Policy 12 (CNSSP-12).  O3b mPOWER can support user-derived protected waveforms along with existing and emerging holistic network cybersecurity capabilities.   Further, since the O3b mPOWER satellites are constantly moving relative to a geographic point on Earth, and small channelized user beams are equally adapting to ever-changing user location and demand, unintentional interference is unlikely and adversarial instigation of intentional interference becomes extremely challenging.

Our O3b mPOWER High Throughput, Software Enabled Satellites allow SES to place many Gbps of low latency capacity into a single ~250km diameter geographic area if required or to spread that capacity across numerous beams in a large region and adapt it to the changing needs of our customers.  Satellites in the O3b mPOWER constellation have an estimated lifespan in excess of ten years, and the constellation itself only requires six satellites for a global equatorial to 50^o latitude coverage making our offering enduring and affordable for users.  Overall, O3b mPOWER provides superior capability to reliably address high throughput, low latency user connectivity requirements while being less susceptible to exceeding Equivalent Power Flux Density (EPFD) regulations.

How are O3b mPOWER services delivered? What does the customer need to know?
SES, or via its U.S. proxy subsidiary SES Space & Defense for U.S. government customers, offers O3b mPOWER services in two primary operational constructs, “Commercial Managed Services” and “Sovereign Services,” sometimes referred to as “Transparent Mode.”

Commercial Managed Services are full stack integrated, operated, monitored, and managed end-to-end network services using SES defined and developed User Terminals. These enable users to experience low latency enterprise-grade connectivity with the highest possible uncontended throughput and maximum overall system efficiency.  This vertically integrated hardware and software stack enables SES to adapt capacity to ever-changing user demand moment-by-moment, creating operational savings that SES passes along to its customers.

Sovereign Services provides a technological advantage for customers who desire to define their own User Terminals, employ waveforms of their choosing, operate services from any location desired, add security solutions to meet operational requirements, or incorporate a host of other important mission-specific needs into their connectivity offering.  Sovereign Services provide users maximum flexibility while delivering low latency enterprise-grade connectivity with the highest possible uncontended throughput.  SES, offers two categories of Sovereign Services to global markets:

• Sovereign Capacity Services
• Sovereign Managed Services

Sovereign Capacity Services are low latency, high throughput satellite capacity offerings.  Customers define and employ their own ground infrastructure and User Terminals, and then interface with the SES backend network architecture to realize connectivity outcomes that meet their operational goals.  As a primer for deployment of customer owned Sovereign Gateway infrastructure, we also offer the possibility for customers to utilize a part of SES’s Commercial Gateways, referred to as Hybrid Sovereign Gateways, to securely host their Sovereign Capacity Services.

Sovereign Managed Services are network services exclusively tailored to address our customers’ mission needs. They are integrated and operated by SES, specifically SES Space & Defense for U.S. government customers.  Sovereign Managed Service users benefit from the scalability of in-place common ground infrastructure that can independently support many customers, minimizing time to operation, training, and sustainment while providing significant infrastructure and operational savings to users.

What’s in it for equipment vendors? How can they take part?
Within the realm of Sovereign Services, SES is working with reliable, high-quality equipment vendor-partners to ensure maximum operational flexibility for our customers. Each partner brings a differentiated value proposition to the O3b mPOWER solution, whether it’s a Program of Record waveform like the Enhanced Digital IF Modem (EDIM) or the Protected Tactical Waveform (PTW), by providing interoperability with existing infrastructure, or through delivering new capabilities for overall service enhancements.  Some vendors have capability certifications such as DO-160 or MIL-STD 810 for unique operational environments, while others offer operational enhancements like Communication Signal Interference Removal (CSIR) or state-of-the-art simultaneous multi-beam, or even multi-frequency / multi-beam connectivity.  Sovereign Services maximize a user’s choices to enable the desired outcome.

To be a part of the O3b mPOWER vendor partner ecosystem, solution providers engage SES to receive O3b mPOWER specific Government Technology Certification (GTC) Interface Control Documents (ICDs) through which they will enhance their solutions for use with the O3b mPOWER constellation. Once completed, vendor partners receive O3b mPOWER Government Technology Certification.  SES offers O3b mPOWER as a completely open-architecture solution enabling faster adoption of NGSO services – either as a stand-alone capability or a resilient and, if needed, simultaneous augmentation to other connectivity orbit options.

The post O3b mPOWER – A First of its Kind NGSO Capability appeared first on SES Space and Defense.

It makes sense. That information is critically important for the government and military decision-makers looking to lease space on satellites or looking to purchase managed satellite services. Also, space is exciting! These spacecraft of marvels of modern technology, developed in state-of-the-art facilities and then launched into space on literal rocket ships.

But what often gets ignored or swept under the rug in discussions between COMSATCOM providers and their government customers is the other part of the satellite equation – the satellite gateways. These unsung heroes of satellite communications are essential components of a functioning satellite network, but they’re infrequently discussed in the marketing materials and sales slicks of COMSATCOM providers.

But that needs to change.

Recent satellite technology advancements and some exciting new satellite services that are about to come online are poised to give government and military users more gateway options than ever. The result will be government and military users having choices in how they want to transmit their data, and how they want to secure it.

But before we take a deeper dive into the future of the satellite gateway, we have to better understand their essential role in the larger satellite network.

Gateways 101
The gateway has a function that its rather descriptive name implies – it is the gateway for the satellite signal. The data that is in that satellite signal needs an entry point in which to enter the ground terrestrial infrastructure, which will then deliver that data to the various end users that need it. The gateway serves as that essential entry point.

Whether the data that is being transmitted via that signal is an email, a voice call, or vital satellite or ISR imagery that’s imperative to the mission, it needs to be fed back into a terrestrial network somewhere. The gateway is the connection between the users on Earth and the satellites, helping move the data around the globe.

Historically, when a government or military user has leased satellite capacity from a COMSATCOM provider or leveraged a managed satellite service, they’ve only had one viable gateway option. In that scenario, they’ve been limited to using the gateways owned and operated by that COMSATCOM provider. But this is where things are starting to change and where the government and military are starting to have more options.

One size does not fit all
There are a number of reasons why using a COMSATCOM provider’s gateway and terrestrial network infrastructure is a perfectly acceptable option for government and military users. This infrastructure has already been purchased and deployed. It can be leveraged immediately with no additional upfront cost to the customer, and there are often service level agreements (SLAs) that ensure a certain level of uptime and resiliency.

This makes using the COMSATCOM provider’s gateways and networks more rapid, economical, and hassle-free. That could be incredibly enticing to individuals who don’t really care about the network that they use, the equipment that is in the gateway, or the security of the data – they just want to get up and working quickly and at a more reasonable cost.

However, there are also valid reasons why a government or military customer might not want to use their COMSATCOM provider’s equipment and infrastructure.

For a large global military with a large amount of resources, building out a gateway might not seem that expensive or difficult. And that added cost and effort could be considered well worth it for added flexibility, mobility, control, and security. In some cases, that need for control of the equipment and the security of the data could be a roadblock that keeps some military customers from adopting COMSATCOM services altogether.

Thankfully, the advanced technologies inherent in a new generation of satellite services – including the O3b mPOWER satellite service – give military and government users incredible flexibility in their gateway options. Upon launch of O3b mPOWER, four different gateway types or configurations will be available to users. These include:

• Commercial managed service gateways: These gateways are the previously discussed gateways owned and operated by the COMSATCOM service provider. In this arrangement, the user simply purchases the satellite service and the provider – in this case, SES – provides all of the requisite satellite capacity, gateway services, and even the terminal if the customer requires. In this scenario, the gateway, equipment, and network belong to the satellite provider – the end users simply get the service.
• Sovereign gateways: These gateways are at the opposite end of the spectrum from managed service gateways. In this arrangement, the customer is the owner and operator of the network – including the gateway, equipment, and terminals. They’re responsible for the purchase, installation, management, maintenance, and security of that hardware. The COMSATCOM provider owns and operates the satellites, transmitting the signal and providing the customer with bandwidth.

• Hybrid sovereign gateways: As the name implies these gateways are a hybrid of both commercial and sovereign methodologies. In this arrangement, the customer places their hub equipment within a commercial gateway, leveraging the use of the COMSATCOM fleet owners commercial terminal to link with the satellite, but using their own equipment to connect to their network.  The COMSATCOM provider provides space within their gateway for customers to put their equipment so they don’t have to build their own gateway.

• Transportable government gateways: These gateways, often abbreviated TGG, are smaller, more mobile versions of the large 5.5-meter permanent gateways, and are designed to be transported to where they’re needed. They can be used as a temporary gateway in cases where a customer may not need a permanent version, or as a back up to a permanent gateway.  They can also be used when a customer wants to be able to move their gateway to a variety of locations for mission reasons.  The TGG is transportable on both military and commercial aircraft, and comes with its own power source and a climate controlled unit to hold hub and other rack equipment.  The TGG is a essentially a sovereign gateway, smaller in size for transportability, but capable of performing full gateway functions on a customers network.

With the emergence of advanced satellite services like O3b mPOWER, government, and military customers are no longer stuck with a single gateway option. So, when choosing a satellite provider, they need to look at more than just the constellations in orbit – they need to look at and evaluate the gateways and terrestrial network options back on Earth to ensure they meet their requirements.

A commercial managed service would be the best choice if a government customer wants to get up and running with their satellite service quickly and at a lower upfront cost.. However, if security and control are essential, sacrificing that control for ease of deployment is simply not an option, a sovereign gateway or hybrid sovereign gateway would be the best choice.

To learn more about the gateway choices available to O3b mPOWER users, click HERE to watch my lightbox video.

The post Something New for Military COMSATCOM Users – Gateway Options appeared first on SES Space and Defense.

But as military and government SATCOM requirements become more complex, satellite providers are beginning to fine-tune the capabilities they provide to their customers by leveraging the best facets of all orbits to deliver blended and resilient, multi-orbit SATCOM services optimized to meet their customers’ needs.

To learn more about each orbit’s connectivity strengths and weaknesses, how SATCOM providers leverage an all-orbit strategy to fill orbital coverage and latency gaps, and how government and military applications can benefit from an “all-orbit strategy”, the Government Satellite Report sat down with SES Space and Defense’s Vice President of Product Management, Michael Geist.

Here is what he had to say:

Government Satellite Report (GSR): For our readers who may not be familiar, can you break down the differences between LEO, MEO, and GEO?

Michael Geist: The most basic difference between these three different orbits pertains to the altitude plane in which each satellite constellation resides. LEO is situated between about 300 kilometers to about 2,000 kilometers above Earth, with MEO sitting at around 8,000 kilometers and GEO about 36,000 kilometers.

GSR: And why do those altitudes matter?

Michael Geist: They matter for a variety of reasons pertaining to application and user experience, and two critical aspects of that involve latency – the time that it takes for information to travel from Earth up to space and back down again – and coverage in terms of how many satellites are required to enable a worldwide presence.

For example, when we consider global or worldwide coverage with a LEO constellation, it takes hundreds or thousands of satellites to provide constellation objective presence. Whereas MEO only takes six satellites to provide a worldwide presence, and GEO only takes three satellites for the same.

Another difference between LEO, MEO, and GEO is the typical satellite lifespan in each of the orbits. LEO satellites typically have about a three to five-year lifespan. MEO satellite constellations have about a 10 to 12-year lifespan. And GEO has a 15 plus year lifespan.

“As SATCOM service providers, we have to take into consideration how many customers there may be for a given application – and the market acceptable Average Price per Unit and Average Revenue per User  – are required to close a business case.” – Michael Geist

Those average lifespans are important to consider from a business case perspective because we can then think about how much the asset costs. And how often do I have to replace it? How much money does it cost and how long does it take to put that constellation into space? How often do my customers have to refresh their user equipment, and other things of that nature?

When developing a business case for providing SATCOM services, you have to consider the cost of putting a constellation into space and the associated terrestrial networks on the ground to serve customers, as well as the amount of capacity those constellations may provide to support the ability to service a number of customers. As SATCOM service providers, we have to take into consideration how many customers there may be for a given application – and the market acceptable Average Price per Unit and Average Revenue per User  – are required to close a business case.

Then we should consider what we can do with that capacity, and what we can’t, while also keeping in mind how much capacity there is per on-orbit asset. And does the orbit match the different applications that we may be trying to serve?

For non-geostationary orbits, service providers also have to think about the availability of a constellation in regard to the dwell time of the individual satellites over specific geographic latitudes. And by that, I mean that for inclined plane constellations, satellite dwell time at high latitudes far exceeds dwell time around the equator. If we look at a typical large LEO constellation, there may be thousands of satellites spending a majority of them dwelling at the highest latitudes, spending their least amount of time around the equator. That has an implication on the amount of availability that customers would have in areas that have the largest populations. In order to have more capacity near the equatorial region, you’d need more satellites in your constellation.

And then when you combine that with factors like equivalent power flux density limits around the equator for non-interference operation with GEO satellites, that has another impact on how much throughput at a given frequency that providers can push through a satellite and constellation. And how many satellites they’ll need to deliver the service they’re promising.

All of these different nuanced considerations come into play and have an effect on both the service provider and the user.

GSR: How do they differ regarding the SATCOM coverage, availability, and latency they provide? And which orbits are best suited for internet traffic, enterprise traffic, and broadcast connectivity?

Michael Geist: LEO typically has an end-to-end latency of under 100 milliseconds, which includes physical layer and network latency with perhaps some congestion depending upon where and how you measure it. There’s another metric that one of our aviation partners refers to called “stick-to-glass” latency. To understand stick-to-glass latency, think in terms of flying an unmanned aerial vehicle. There’s what you see on the screen, there’s you maneuvering a stick in your hand, and then the time it takes for the UAV to react to the stick maneuver. That’s typically referred to as stick-to-glass latency. There are other metrics as well like “User Experience Latency” which is quite similar to stick-to-glass latency but can be different for different user applications, for example machine-to-machine applications or human-to-machine applications.

“SES’s O3b mPOWER constellation is specifically designed for enterprise class services, whether they’re fixed, on-the-move, on land, at sea, in the air or even in space.” – Michael Geist

If we get back to stick-to-glass latency though, you’ll find that it’s typically around 250 milliseconds for LEO. MEO has a network layer latency of about 150 milliseconds but with a stick-to-glass latency of 250 to 350 milliseconds. GEO has a network layer latency of 650 to 850 milliseconds, but a stick-to-glass latency of a little over a second. Latency ranges quite a bit between the different constellations. But that doesn’t mean that latency is the only factor of importance when determining the quality of an orbit for a given application.

When you think about coverage, LEO has a very small coverage area. MEO has a medium coverage area, and GEO has a very large coverage area. From an application standpoint, GEO makes a lot of sense for broadcast applications, because you can transmit something once and reach a lot of users simultaneously. Quite the opposite is true for LEO. In LEO, to broadcast something, you have to broadcast many hundreds or many thousands of times to hit every user within a geographic coverage area, because of the small coverage area per satellite.

MEO is in the middle of that. MEO isn’t typically thought of for wide-area broadcasts however, because it’s highly efficient and very fast for enterprise-related applications. SES’s O3b mPOWER constellation is specifically designed for enterprise class services, whether they’re fixed, on-the-move, on land, at sea, in the air or even in space. GEO is clearly the best solution for broadcast traffic. I would argue that before the emergence of LEO, GEO was also a fantastic choice for Direct-To-Home Internet traffic in areas lacking other means of broadband connectivity. Companies like ViaSat and Hughes have been the predominant GEO space-based Direct-To-Home satellite internet companies. Then with the emergence of LEO – just from a fundamental technical and not necessarily a business case financial standpoint – LEO is probably the best technical solution for home internet connectivity.

For enterprise traffic, that’s where MEO finds its strength. It’s extremely fast, ranging from many tens or hundreds of Megabits per second to Gigabits per second in speed. It’s extremely efficient in terms of the waveforms that it uses. And it has a system latency that matches well with cloud-native applications. So, I would put enterprise traffic squarely in the area of MEO and what we do with O3b mPOWER.

GSR: Since some orbits are better suited than others in terms of coverage, connectivity, and low-latency requirements, is it possible for SATCOM providers to leverage all three to fill in each other’s gaps?

Michael Geist: Yes, I would say I think that we’re soon going to find a time when simultaneous multi-orbit connectivity is more commonplace or completely commonplace. I say that because frequency is a finite resource, and as demand per user terminal exceeds the availability of the finite resource from a single orbit or a single satellite to a single use or user terminal, then this will become more than normal.

“O3b mPOWER is certainly a relevant, high-value component of a multi-orbit strategy.” – Michael Geist

We’re already seeing this in the cruise market. SES provides half of a service offering with one of our cruise partners where we – as a prime contractor – have been contracted to deliver a blended MEO/LEO service capability because neither LEO nor MEO can solely deliver the types of throughputs that are required on their own. By combining them, the cruise industry gets the best of MEO for guaranteed enterprise traffic for business operations, crew traffic, and things of that nature – combined with the best of LEO for large amounts of best-effort internet traffic. Together, they meet the total aggregate throughput capacity requirements of our cruise industry partners.

I project that perhaps in the next 10 years, we will see that pattern find its way into the aviation market as passenger capacity demand continues to increase, and perhaps in other markets as well.

GSR: How does the O3b mPOWER constellation fit into the all-orbit concept? Is it capable of leveraging all three orbits in conjunction with one another to provide maximum scalability and availability performance to government and military customers?

Michael Geist: O3b mPOWER is certainly a relevant, high-value component of a multi-orbit strategy. In particular, O3b mPOWER is best utilized as an enterprise solution – with its low latency, extremely high throughput, fantastic frequency and network efficiency, and maximum flexibility in terms of waveforms and antennas – providing an interoperable solution with other orbital solutions that exist in the marketplace today.

In other words, the best multi-orbit capabilities will be the ones that do not require the user to have to install a different antenna for every service solution that they want to use. The best multi-orbit solutions will involve the ability for a user to integrate a single-user terminal solution that allows them to operate over multiple different orbits, either independently or – at some point in the future – simultaneously.

“Any application where SATCOM is the primary tether to a remote user’s network is going to benefit from multi-orbit solutions.” – Michael Geist

GSR: What are some government and military applications and use cases that successfully leverage all three orbits? What role does multi-band resiliency play when facing threats from near-peer adversaries?

Michael Geist: Any application where SATCOM is the primary tether to a remote user’s network is going to benefit from multi-orbit solutions. Our near-peer adversaries are going to attempt to eliminate our communications options, so as long as we have resilience relative to networks and orbits, then we’ll be in a better position, especially when our warfighters are on the front line. In some cases, SATCOM is the only option they have as far as reach back goes, so resilience is critical.

Government or military applications currently leveraging multi-orbit capabilities include things like aero command and control, aero ISR, naval applications where our Navy partners desire independent command and control, MWR functionalities, and land common move applications – and the number of examples is growing.

The number of examples 10 years ago was zero, and if it wasn’t zero it might have been one. I just named five or six different applications. If you talk to me in 10 years, I think we’re going to find other sets of applications where it’s becoming more and more required. It’s definitely an exciting time to be an integrated multi-orbit service provider.

Click the video below to watch Michael Geist’s full presentation on the value of all orbits.

The post Leveraging an All-Orbit Strategy for Government and Military Applications appeared first on SES Space and Defense.

Recently, SES Space & Defense’s G RamosCarr stopped by the Government Satellite Report to pull back the curtain on how SES Space & Defense will be delivering MEO and GEO services at the edge for DoD missions, as well as explore the various DoD use cases, applications, and workloads that will benefit from infrastructure at the edge.

Government Satellite Report (GSR): What use cases exist for AWS MDC units in the DoD? Why would the DoD want to deploy these units to Denied, Disrupted, Intermittent, and Limited (DDIL) environments?

G RamosCarr: The DoD operates globally, meaning it has to maintain data sovereignty and comply with specific data classification requirements, both when deployed and at home, just to ensure that data is protected.

With the DoD’s transition from on-prem/hybrid solutions to commercial clouds that are approved for the U.S. government, the Department is going to be more reliant on remote edge computing environments in scenarios where comms aren’t as resilient as they are stateside.

Deploying in any environment where an adversary is present and negatively impacting communications – whether denying or disrupting – is a prime example of why a tool like the AWS MDC is imperative. But, even in situations where bad weather is limiting connectivity, having different architectures like MEO with a GEO fallback, a good PACE plan is critical.

“An AWS MDC unit elevates what you can move out to the edge. The compute devices can now become resident in a forward operating base or in some other kind of deployed scenario. That gives users access to the most important data, housed locally at the edge.” -G RamosCarr

In any mission, you must always be able to operate, and that’s why there is a major need for those tools that are running in the cloud. Having the ability to deploy the most important data or tools at the edge is something the AWS MDC will help achieve at scale for a larger deployment, or a unit with a higher amount of data production.

No matter what scenario they end up in, with an AWS MDC, they’re able to continue operating just like they would be stateside when they were doing training.

GSR: Are there any particular applications or workloads that you think might be driving this need for infrastructure at the edge?

G RamosCarr: Imagery analysis is a perfect example. Also, IoT is another application that drives this need, especially when you need to pull a lot of different metrics on a regular basis. It’s fantastic to be able to import a big pool of data into a data lake in the cloud, which will allow users to leverage the computing resources of full data centers across the U.S..

But in a scenario where you might be offline for an hour, or a couple of days, you’re going to want to still have access to a subset of that full data set. You’ll want to be able to take the most important data and do some processing at the edge, and be able to leverage that intel that you just developed immediately.

GSR: If the DoD is deploying these units to the tactical edge, why would they need low-latency, high throughput satellite connectivity? What benefit or advantage would the DoD gain from connecting AWS MDC units?

G RamosCarr: An AWS MDC unit elevates what you can move out to the edge. The compute devices can now become resident in a forward operating base or in some other kind of deployed scenario. That gives users access to the most important data, housed locally at the edge.

“MEO, as far as cloud operations go, can provide a high throughput and low latency connection very similar to a traditional fiber optic connection. This incredibly high bandwidth, high speed connection can enable those services.” -G RamosCarr

However, an AWS MDC on the battlefield can’t compete against the ability of a data center back in the U.S. to be able to compute or consolidate information and process it. It’s not going to be able to do it on the same level.

This is why the military would want to connect AWS MDC units through high throughput, low latency, fiber-like connectivity. MEO satellite connectivity allows these workloads and systems to operate in a much more efficient manner – with some of the work being done at the edge, and other workloads in the cloud.

MEO, as far as cloud operations go, can provide a high throughput and low latency connection very similar to a traditional fiber optic connection. This incredibly high bandwidth, high speed connection can enable those services.

Before, users would have to use some kind of edge compute because of their higher-latency GEO link, or they would have to reduce the amount of throughput and the amount of data that they were sending back, because of the reduced capability of the GEO link and the latency.

A low latency MEO connection enables a whole new world where practically anything can be transmitted quickly and with minimal latency.

GSR: It was recently announced that SES Space & Defense was chosen by AWS to provide connectivity to the AWS MDC units. Why was SES Space & Defense a good fit for this?

G RamosCarr: We’ve had a lot of great engagements and have a great working partnership with AWS, and we’ve supported them on a number of different opportunities. I think we have a differentiated offering – owning both a GEO and a MEO fleet.

“I think O3b mPOWER really opens the door for scalability on our side. We’ve been able to show a differentiated capability with 10 beams per satellite. There is also great flexibility that O3b mPOWER is going to bring to the table, and inherent security features that come with that constellation.” -G RamosCarr

Obviously, there’s a value to every satellite connection, especially when you have zero connectivity. But us being able to bring a resiliency plan to them, and it being relatively turnkey for them, has probably been the biggest differentiator. We’re able to ensure that the military has connectivity – whether it be MEO or GEO connectivity options.

Going further, what MEO enables – as far as cloud operations – is so much more advanced that what the military is going to get on other constellations. The speed, capacity, and latency are second to none. We also have the ability to provide an SLA and ensure that dedicated connectivity is up and available, when that isn’t always the case with other services.

GSR: SES’s O3b mPOWER next-generation MEO service will soon be available for the DoD. How can this service benefit the DoD? What new functionality or capabilities will it enable for the military?

G RamosCarr: I think O3b mPOWER really opens the door for scalability on our side. We’ve been able to show a differentiated capability with 10 beams per satellite. There is also great flexibility that O3b mPOWER is going to bring to the table, and inherent security features that come with that constellation.

It’s going to open the aperture as far as being able to more successfully deploy our assets to support our warfighters.

To read more about how SES Space & Defense and AWS will assist the U.S. Department of Defense, click HERE.

The post AWS and SES Partner to Enable Edge Compute and Cloud Access on the Battlefield appeared first on SES Space and Defense.

But today’s modern satellite applications would not be made possible without their ground segment counterparts. Within the space and satellite industries, ground segments can sometimes be viewed as “unsung heroes,” and without the support of terrestrial networks on the ground, the critical services that both military and civilian agencies depend on for daily business would not exist.

To learn more about terrestrial networks and ground segments, as well as the role they play in supporting government and military missions, the Government Satellite Report sat down with Nikhil Junankar, Director of Network Engineering at SES Space & Defense.

Government Satellite Report (GSR): When we discuss satellite services, we often focus on the satellites, themselves. However, there is also a terrestrial network and ground segment that plays a role in these services. What role does the ground segment play in satellite communications? What is this ground segment composed of?

Nikhil Junankar: The ground segment is an integral component that often goes overlooked in favor of focusing solely on the satellites themselves. However, understanding the role of the ground segment is crucial to comprehending the full picture of end-to-end satellite solutions.

Comprised of a diverse range of elements, the ground segment plays a pivotal role in facilitating effective and reliable global satellite communications. The ground segment consists of ground stations, control centers, and Network Operations Centers (NOCs) that are all connected by a terrestrial fiber network.

Ground stations establish bidirectional communication with the satellites, and include teleports, satellite gateways, and deployed satellite terminals. Furthermore, teleports serve as centralized hubs, managing the routing and distribution of satellite traffic, while control centers monitor and manage satellite operations, ensuring optimal functionality and coordinating activities like orbit adjustments. NOCs, on the other hand, handle network operations, traffic routing, troubleshooting, and security, maintaining the integrity of the ground segment network.

“While satellites capture a lot of attention in the media and public, the ground segment plays an indispensable role.” -Nikhil Junankar

The ground segment encompasses terrestrial fiber networks, enabling connectivity between the teleports, gateways, and the broader network ecosystem. These terrestrial networks serve as the backbone for exchanging data between other ground segment elements, that include customer points of presence, the Internet, and the cloud. They facilitate the seamless transfer of information, supporting voice, data, and video services.

While satellites capture a lot of attention in the media and public, the ground segment plays an indispensable role. It enables the delivery of services, supports satellite operations and control, and ensures the reliability, efficiency, and widespread coverage of satellite communications.

GSR: Is the ground segment and terrestrial network something that satellite customers can design and build themselves, or are they reliant on their satellite service providers for this network?

Nikhil Junankar: Unlike many of our competitors, we offer a unique approach with our sovereign service offerings. We empower our customers by providing the flexibility to design and build their own ground segment and terrestrial network within our ecosystem. At SES Space & Defense, we understand that each customer may have specific requirements and preferences when it comes to their network infrastructure.

With our open approach, customers can take an active role in designing and implementing their ground segment and tailoring it to their specific needs. While certain essential functions, such as NOC operations and satellite control, remain under SES’s purview to ensure seamless integration and overall system reliability, customers have the freedom to shape their network architecture within our framework.

This approach allows our customers to have greater control and ownership over their satellite communication infrastructure while benefiting from the expertise and support provided by SES.

GSR: What are some of the key characteristics customers should be looking for in a satellite provider’s terrestrial network and ground segment? What considerations should they keep in mind when evaluating providers?

Nikhil Junankar: When evaluating a satellite provider’s terrestrial network and ground segment, customers should consider several key characteristics to ensure they choose a reliable and robust service. One crucial aspect to prioritize is availability. In today’s digital age, the internet has become a utility, and customers should seek a provider that can deliver a consistently available connection. This includes addressing redundancy and recovery measures at every level of the ground segment.

For a highly available ground segment, aspects such as power supply to ground stations, UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) design (such as N+1 or 1:1 redundancy), on-site generators, and the frequency of generator testing should be taken into account. Adequate redundancy in these areas ensures that power failures or other disruptions do not lead to service outages.

“Overall, customers should prioritize availability, redundancy, and disaster recovery measures when evaluating a satellite provider’s terrestrial network and ground segment.” -Nikhil Junankar

Another consideration is redundancy in antenna systems. Multiple antennas with failover capabilities provide backup options in case of antenna failures, ensuring uninterrupted satellite communication. This redundancy enhances the reliability of the overall system.

In terms of the terrestrial network, diverse circuit and fiber routes are important. By utilizing multiple routes, providers can mitigate the risk of service disruption. Diverse routing helps ensure that a single point of failure does not impact the entire network.

Overall, customers should prioritize availability, redundancy, and disaster recovery measures when evaluating a satellite provider’s terrestrial network and ground segment. By considering these factors and selecting a provider that demonstrates a commitment to these key characteristics, customers can ensure a reliable and uninterrupted satellite communication service.

GSR: What is SES Space & Defense’s GCN? What separates and differentiates the GCN from other satellite services and ground segments?

Nikhil Junankar: SES Space & Defense’s Global Communications Network (GCN) connects satellite services to the various ground segment elements with its carrier-grade MPLS network. With Layer 2 and Layer 3 VPN, high-speed Internet, and seamless cloud integration, the GCN empowers customers worldwide. What sets it apart is the active Authority to Operate (ATO) and Authority to Connect (ATC) from the U.S. government, ensuring robust security and compliance. Customers benefit from the GCN’s stringent security protocols and compliance with industry best practices. Their critical data and communication channels are protected by robust security measures, ensuring confidentiality, integrity, and availability requirements are met.

The GCN is a transformative force in end-to-end satellite solutions. Its carrier-grade MPLS network, comprehensive services, and active ATO and ATC deliver secure, scalable, and reliable connectivity.

GSR: What different kinds of satellite services can customers get connected to through SES Space & Defense’s GCN? Can they only access services from SES’s satellite constellations?

Nikhil Junankar: The GCN goes beyond the SES satellite constellation by offering customers access to a variety of satellite services. As an agnostic network, the GCN provides terrestrial and backhaul connectivity from multiple operators.

We have peering arrangements with all major operators to deliver multi-orbit, multi-band solutions. Additionally, the GCN seamlessly supports SES’s upcoming O3b mPOWER satellite constellation. Customers can enjoy the flexibility to choose services that best suit their needs, leveraging the extensive reach and capabilities of the GCN.

While satellites often take centerstage, ground segments are the “unsung heroes” of government satellite ecosystems. Leveraging SES Space & Defense’s open approach and sovereign service offerings in conjunction with the GCN, enables customers to tailor their ground segments and terrestrial networks to their specific requirements while benefiting from robust security and reliable connectivity.

To view SES Space & Defense’s global network coverage, click the image below:

The post Ground segments—The unsung heroes of the satellite ecosystem appeared first on SES Space and Defense.

During a recent Mitchell Institute Schriever Spacepower Forum, Gen. Kevin P. Chilton (Ret.) pointed out to Gen. David D. Thompson, Vice Chief of Space Operations at the Space Force, that space has shifted away from being a benign domain to an extremely competitive operating environment. In response to how the force is maturing as an organization and responding to the level of activity in the domain, Gen. Thompson said, “We are very much clearly in the next chapter of the Space Force…[Now] the mission of the Space Force is to deliver on the capabilities and the promises that we’ve made as part of the establishment.”

Gen. Thompson explained that the Space Force is indeed responding to the changes in the space domain by having a combat-ready force with advanced testing, training, and the ability to deliver warfighting capabilities. Gen. Thompson attributes a lot of this forward momentum to the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Space Acquisition and Integration, Frank Calvelli, who was appointed to his position last year.

“He has brought us perspective and insight, and [has driven] a real change to how we look at space acquisition,” said Gen. Thompson. “[Calvelli is] focusing on simplifying, delivering, and meeting our promises in terms of the capabilities we deliver on time and on cost.”

Part of delivering those capabilities is the continuous development and deployment of a resilient space architecture, a key priority that Space Force leadership has been focusing on since the branch’s founding. Gen. Chilton asked Gen. Thompson about how the Space Force has been approaching the development of its architecture in a way that can withstand a possible “first-mover” strike by an adversary. Gen. Thompson explained that a proliferated architecture is where the answer resides.

“I would say distribution and proliferation in all of its elements,” said Gen. Thompson. “We certainly think about proliferated architectures in a very narrow sense, like having a large number of satellites in one orbital regime. [We must] distribute those capabilities across multiple regimes, which means that an adversary – if they’re going to attack you in space – has to have a very sophisticated and synchronized means of attack.”

Another approach that Gen. Thompson believes can eliminate strategic surprises from adversaries is to adopt a “new understanding” of space domain awareness. “[We must be] truly thinking more carefully about what it means to fully understand what’s happening in the domain, especially a direct-focused perspective on space domain awareness,” said Gen. Thompson. “As the human race continues to expand out into the solar system, the moon, and beyond, we believe our responsibility is to understand what’s happening in the domain.”

A critical component of being one step ahead of an adversary in the space domain, according to Gen. Thompson, is having a level of resiliency that will ensure that warfighters – across all services – can continue their operations in cases of degradation or denial in the space environment. “I’m not one who believes that degradation or denial of use of space will occur broadly and over a long period of time,” said Gen. Thompson. “But understanding where the reliance is, and how [the military services] might operate in that environment, is the first piece of it.”

This rapidly changing threat environment that Gen. Thompson describes is something that the industry has taken notice of and has been testing services and solutions specifically designed to promote military resiliency in the space domain.

As Gen. Thompson pointed out, there is currently a need among all military branches to have continued and uninterrupted delivery of space-based services, especially during adversarial attempts to degrade or deny space capabilities. For example, if an adversary were to successfully jam or degrade a satellite’s ability to provide connectivity to warfighters on the ground, it is imperative that the military be able to roll connectivity and services over to another satellite, in order to have uninterrupted and unaffected operations.

In March of this year, SES, Hughes, and ThinKom, came together to test space capabilities that could transform how the military strategically leverages SATCOM services. The three companies held a demonstration that effectively illustrated the ability of an end satellite user to seamlessly roam between satellite services originating in different orbits and leveraging different frequency bands. This verified capability speaks directly to the DoD’s need for the distribution of services across “multiple orbital regimes,” as Gen. Thompson described.

According to Ben Pigsley, SVP of Defense Networks at SES Space & Defense, “The military is facing near-peer adversaries that have demonstrated their ability to disrupt, deny, and degrade our communications networks. In today’s environment, government networks are both congested and contested with deliberate and directed jamming, cyberattacks, and kinetic attacks.”

When asked about SES Space & Defense’s successful multi-orbit testing and how the DoD could leverage those capabilities, he said, “Both multi-orbit and multi-band network solutions offer an elevated level of resiliency and increase availability to government customers. Higher availability is critical to the command-and-control networks operated by the DoD…The military’s industry partners are ready to support both multi-band and multi-orbit operations.”

Click the video below to watch the Spacepower Forum in its entirety.

The post Gen. Thompson: Space Force transitioning to combat-ready phase appeared first on SES Space and Defense.

One topic of discussion that received a considerable amount of buzz throughout the conference was the federal government and military’s need for connectivity at the North and South Poles.

At first glance, it may seem that having SATCOM capabilities at the Poles is unnecessary. But my conversations with government and military leaders at Space Symposium showed that there is – indeed – an undeniable need for COMSATCOM solutions and capabilities at the Poles.

Research and national defense
Even though there are very few people who live and work at the North and South Poles, the mission sets that present U.S. government and military personnel are carrying out in these areas are absolutely critical to not only national security, but to scientific research and development as well.

If we were to take a trip down to the remote South Pole, we would find scientists and researchers from the National Science Foundation (NSF), the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) making groundbreaking discoveries in the areas of astronomy, astrophysics, seismology, climate change, among many others.

Without reliable connectivity and communications capabilities, government researchers are unable to uplink the critical data back to those that will analyze and learn from it in the continental U.S. As a result, major scientific progress could be halted and left unsupported during a time when rising sea levels and record-breaking natural disasters are threatening American lives every day. It is critical that the federal government be able to provide scientists with the SATCOM capabilities they require to continue producing world-saving research.

And much like in the South Pole, the remote North Pole also supports scientific, government research that requires SATCOM solutions that can power the massive data exchanges coming to and from the area. But, unlike the South Pole, there are additional military requirements for SATCOM services at the North Pole.

Two of our largest, near-peer adversaries are located in the INDOPACOM area of responsibility (AOR). As global climate change continues to open passages on additional travel routes through the North Pole region, the need to protect newly-formed commercial trade routes from those adversaries increases. There is also an increased need to defend the U.S. and its northern allies from threats that leverage these new northern passages.

The threats U.S. adversaries pose to national security is always evolving. To secure U.S. borders from potential, incoming threats the government and military must leverage digital transformation at the North Pole, through the proliferation of military, marine, and aerospace sensors that can detect security threats that may pose risks to the homeland.

With traditional, terrestrial networks unavailable, SATCOM is necessary to get sensor data from these remote locations back to military and civilian support organizations and their decision-makers. By leveraging SATCOM to connect a new generation of advanced Internet of Things (IoT) sensors and devices, our military and civilian organizations can gain better situational awareness at the Poles, understand changing weather patterns, and be better prepared to defend our nation from pacing threats.

But what commercial satellite capabilities are available in the Poles?

Why the Poles are HOT for satellite providers
There are many rural, remote, and geographically isolated places in our country that are without access to terrestrial networks because there simply isn’t a business case for telecoms or other internet service providers (ISP) to invest in the infrastructure. And it’s easy to understand why. Since the number of residents that would pay for the service is limited, these companies simply wouldn’t make their investment back, let alone make a meaningful return on that investment.

Something similar has long hampered the launch of satellite constellations that provide service to the North and South Poles. In places where penguins and polar bears outnumber people, there is very little need for satellite services, and very little revenue to be generated from launching multiple satellites to deliver coverage to these areas.

But that is beginning to change rapidly. Increased demand from government and military users in these remote areas is driving a growing need for satellite services. In partnerships with global governments, there could now be a reasonable business case for commercial satellite service providers to expand coverage to the poles. And this is one of the reasons why so many conversations at Space Symposium focused on this topic – renewed and increased interest in the Poles from both the government and its industry partners.

For example, as a satellite operator with the only HTS satellite constellation in Medium Earth Orbit (MEO), SES Space and Defense, strategically designed second generation MEO constellation, O3b mPOWER with capabilities to operate in inclined planes and in the future extend MEO to the poles. As scientific expeditions and military operations continue to expand at the Poles, the future capabilities that MEO will provide will be paramount to mission success.

This was a sentiment shared by Steve Collar, the CEO of SES, during his recent keynote address at the SATELLITE 2023 Conference. “From an SES standpoint, we designed O3b mPOWER to be capable to also operate in inclined planes. That would be the next step for us…That means polar capability and polar coverage that allows us to add more capabilities,” Collar said. “We won’t be limited in the future to just communications. We can add more services and more missions to this incredibly strategic orbit.”

Learn how SES Space and Defense is providing satellite services to Pituffik Space Base in Greenland, HERE.

Listen to SES Space and Defense’s Vice President of Government Relations, Jon Bennett, discuss why commercial connectivity is critical for communications at the Arctic Circle, HERE.

The post Space Symposium 2023—Why COMSATCOM capabilities are needed at the North and South Poles appeared first on SES Space and Defense.

During one session at the event, SES Government Solutions’ (SES GS) Director of BD Engineering, Technologies and Solutions, Ram Rao, had the opportunity to address conference attendees on some of the next-generation solutions that are enabling greater visibility into militaries’ technology networks, and discuss how these emerging capabilities can advance U.S. Department of Defense (DoD missions and deliver critical, decision-making information and data at speed.

Network visibility at speed
In the past, the U.S. military has not had a capability to render big-picture visibility of all DoD information, communications, and technology networks. For example, if one branch of the DoD had a network of 500 end-to-end connections, there has never been a solution or means to have a high level, holistic view of all connections in one window for review. And this is a challenge that the U.S. military is looking to remedy.

There is immense value in being able to automatically drill down to individual network connections and dissect each part of an end-to-end connection. If military networks employed such automated capabilities, it would eliminate the laborious and time-consuming legwork of manually monitoring every network connection.

Instead of dedicating valuable manhours that manual monitoring requires, the DoD can employ automated solutions that constantly scan, examine, and provide feedback on all connections. These new technologies can also provide views that scale down to the individual satellite, teleport, and connection, as well as scale up to high-level, holistic vantage points of the entire network. Processes that used to take days of laborious network scanning and monitoring has now evolved into automated near real-time – if not real-time – feedback and visibility of a network and all the connections it houses.

Besting the adversary through real-time monitoring
Aside from the benefits that DoD network operators could gain from an optimized visibility solution, it’s critical that the speed at which mission goals are delivered always remains a priority. According to Rao, “When we listen to all the high-ranking officials, five-star generals – all the way down to the hands-on people – in the military, the one thing they’re talking about is ‘speed of delivery’ and real-time processing, because every second matters when we are trying to defend ourselves or offend our enemies.”

Rao went on to explain that being the first to make decisions in a time of defensive or offensive crises is of the utmost importance to the DoD. The only way high-ranking officials can be first to strike or defend depends on the data, intelligence, and communications they exchange between decisionmakers at headquarters and the warfighters on the battlefield.

“It’s about making the decision first, and who is first,” said Rao. “We don’t want to make decisions blindly. We want to hit intelligently. So, how do you intelligently do it? If every link and connection is up and running, the data is flowing from the end-users to the headquarters, where all our decisionmakers are sitting. Through automated networking monitoring solutions that ensure assured communications and connectivity, they will have real-time data available to them and can quickly make decisions.”

Network visibility and JADC2
Network performance monitoring solutions that grant wider visibility into military networks will most certainly support the DoD’s overarching Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2) project. According to the Congressional Research Service, JADC2 is a “concept to connect sensors from all of the military services—Air Force, Army, Marine Corps, Navy, and Space Force—into a single network.” DoD efforts that support network singularity, like JADC2, can give complete, high-level visibility into a conglomeration of various network capabilities that enable decisionmakers to advance missions.

Overarching network performance solutions that can drill down to individual views and subviews of a singular network connection is game-changing for a concept like JADC2. Allowing DoD decisionmakers to gain visibility into thousands of different network data points in a streamlined and consolidated interface can ensure that the U.S. military is always one step ahead of the adversary.

The soon-to-come ICT Portal
According to Rao, SES GS is hard at work on a soon-to-be-released solution that will deliver those network performance monitoring capabilities to the U.S. military. SES GS’ Information, Communications, and Technologies (ICT) Portal will do just that.

Rao describes the ICT Portal as a spokesperson for DoD networks. “The ICT Portal will be a window that will enable visibility into the network’s capabilities, how it is built, and how it is operating,” said Rao. “This will deliver complete resiliency to military networks, and support the DoD’s JADC2 initiative.”

“The platform will provide visibility on a single pane of glass to government end-users, and give a holistic view into networks from an end-to-end connectivity point of view,” said Rao.

To learn about the role other emerging technologies, such as AI/ML, will play in the future of MILSATCOM, click HERE.

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