There are a number of things about these IDIQ contracts that are newsworthy and downright revolutionary for the DoD. First, this is the first time that a multiple award contract model has been leveraged to deliver PLEO COMSATCOM services to the government or military, a decision that DISA claims will, “…deliver capabilities to the warfighter faster and at [a] lower cost.”

The contracts are valued at $32,000 with a $2,000 minimum guarantee to each contractor. However, the total cumulative value of the contracts is $900 million over a period of five years. The government then has the option to add an additional five-year period of performance. Effectively, this gives the services and commands within the DoD the ability to acquire up to $900 million in LEO COMSATCOM services over a period of, potentially, up to ten years.

The 16 different satellite operators and integrators chosen for these contracts include:

• SpaceX
• Capella Federal, Inc.
• BlackSky Geospatial Solutions, Inc.
• SES Space & Defense
• Hughes Network Systems, LLC
• Inmarsat Government, Inc.
• Amazon’s Kuiper Government Services (KGS) LLC
• Intelsat General Communications LLC
• OneWeb Technologies, Inc.
• ARINC, Inc.
• Artel, LLC
• PAR Government
• RiteNet Corp.
• Satcom Direct Government, Inc. (SDG)
• Trace Systems Inc.
• UltiSat, Inc.

But the structure of the contract – as a new approach to acquiring COMSATCOM services – is just one aspect or element that makes it stand apart. The awarding of these contracts for what the military is calling “Proliferated Low Earth Orbit (PLEO) Satellite-Based Services” is illustrative of two major trends that we’re seeing as it pertains to the military in the space domain.

Integrating COMSATCOM
For the better part of a decade, the military has been debating whether to continue investing in its own, exquisite, purpose-built communications satellites or pivot to utilizing those developed and operated by commercial partners. While the allure of fully owning, operating, maintaining, and securing their own satellites delayed this shift, COMSATCOM innovations ultimately made it inevitable.

As Gen. Curtis Michael Scaparrotti (Ret.), former Commander of United States European Command, once told the Government Satellite Report, “Commercial satellite providers are the engines of innovation, providing capabilities today and on the horizon that are quite promising.” It’s this innovation that has pushed commercial satellite operators to expand into new orbits – including Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) and LEO – and has led to the development of new capabilities that could effectively integrate with the existing MILSATCOM satellites.

These new PLEO IDIQ contract awards show that the military has truly embraced innovative COMSATCOM solutions and satellite services, making them readily available to the DoD as an essential tool in enabling connectivity and communications at the tactical edge. They’re also evidence that proliferation into new orbits, frequency bands, and waveforms is seen as essential in the new reality that the DoD faces in space.

Embracing multi-orbit satellite
Once seen as a benign environment where nations could operate safely without disruption, space is now universally considered an austere, warfighting domain.

As Gen. Kevin P. Chilton (Ret.) recently explained at a Mitchell Institute Schreiver Spacepower Forum, “…U.S. Space Command now operates in a domain where threats are on the rise. Adversaries like China are increasingly seeking to contest this domain…[and] their capabilities include everything from ground-based direct ascent missiles, to electronic warfare, jamming, and co-orbital rendezvous satellites.”

In this environment, it’s not enough to simply proliferate satellite resources within one orbit. For true assurance and redundancy, today’s military will need satellite communications that are both multi-band and multi-orbit.

As Ben Pigsley, the Senior Vice President of Defense Networks at SES Space & Defense, recently explained, “Today, the military is facing near-peer adversaries that have demonstrated their ability to disrupt, deny, and degrade our communications networks…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.”

Aside from the benefits to resiliency and assuredness, the introduction of commercial services at different orbits has the potential to deliver new capabilities to the DoD. LEO and MEO satellite constellations offer lower latency and the ability to deliver fiber-like connectivity to practically anywhere on the planet – making them the perfect solutions for high-bandwidth applications that may not have operated effectively over traditional satellite connectivity from Geostationary Orbit (GEO).

But now that the DoD has a contract vehicle in place to acquire these services from 16 different providers, what should they be looking for?

Integrate not just operate
Not all of the satellite providers and integrators on the list are identical or offer the same services and solutions. In fact, some of the recipients that received PLEO contracts don’t even operate their own LEO satellite constellations.

So, what should the disparate services and commands within the DoD be looking for when looking to purchase PLEO satellite services through this contract? Here are three considerations that they should keep in mind when evaluating PLEO satellite service offerings:

1) A secure, integrated space and terrestrial network
True end-to-end satellite solutions require more than just space assets – they require an integrated terrestrial and space network that is capable of getting data and information to where it’s needed from anywhere on Earth.

Often, to build a true end-to-end solution, an established terrestrial network will need to be integrated  with multiple satellite offerings. Also, without a dedicated terrestrial network, data often needs to be moved through insecure methods to its final destination – including through the Internet.

If the DoD is going to benefit from PLEO service anywhere on the globe, they need to be working with a provider that can integrate multiple satellite constellations and its own established terrestrial networks to offer true, secure global connectivity that does not require sensitive military data being directed through the public Internet.

2) EM&C capabilities
For the military to have seamless command and control of its integrated space and terrestrial architecture, it needs enterprise management and control (EM&C). As Frank Backes, Senior Vice President for Federal Space at Kratos explained, “[EM&C] allows military and commercial satellite communications systems to be tied seamlessly into the terrestrial infrastructure.”

Any provider or integrator that the DoD considers needs to offer EM&C capabilities if COMSATCOM, MILSATCOM, and terrestrial networks are going to be integrated and deliver capabilities seamlessly to warfighters on the battlefield. As Backes further explained, “Among the goals of EM&C are giving more satellite link choices, reducing resource allocation times, improving bandwidth efficiency, and providing situational awareness to SATCOM.”

3) Experience building global solutions
Building a global, integrated MILSATCOM, COMSATCOM, and terrestrial network, and providing a managed service is complicated and requires both experience and expertise.

In some instances, terminals or gateways may need to be installed to make a global solution work where needed. In other instances, frequency clearances, approvals, and landing rights may be required for a satellite service to be used in other nations.

It’s important that the DoD works to identify the providers and integrators with deep experience and knowledge in building and operating global networks. This is the only way to ensure that the personnel with the connections and expertise are available to navigate these challenges and get networks operating seamlessly.

To learn more about the PLEO contract award from DISA and U.S. Space Force, click HERE.

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To learn more about how the DoD will leverage the BPA, how it fits into the movement towards an integrated MILSATCOM and COMSATCOM space architecture, as well as how commercial partnerships played a role in delivering this global solution, the Government Satellite Report sat down with Hugh Keane, Senior BD Manager at SES Space & Defense.

GSR: This BPA – which was awarded through DISA and Space Force – essentially gives military organizations a contract vehicle to procure military X-Band COMSATCOM services. What types of organizations and services within the military do you anticipate utilizing this BPA? Why would these military organizations need access to this capability?

Hugh Keane: We see several types of organizations using this BPA. At the combatant command level, we see various use cases for X-Band as part of PACE (Primary, Alternate, Contingency, and Emergency) communications plans for main operating bases, or as a resource that they can distribute to their component users through something like a Satellite Access Request model – whether that’s for exercises or real-world missions.

For the services, some are already users of X-Band on well-established contract vehicles. We see the X-Band BPA as being able to support those users on proof-of-concept work or for short-term requirements that may lie outside the scope of their usual contracting mechanisms.

This vehicle is creating a simple path for all U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) end-users to get access to X-Band, whether that’s raw megahertz capacity or full end-to-end services. And it is the first time that such a vehicle has existed to give this type of X-Band access to the DoD and its end-users. It’s really going to facilitate rapid time-to-order and time-to-activate for those X-Band services.

Many of the organizations are equipped with hardware that will work on WGS in X-Band. So, depending on the mission of the individual end-user, they might not always have priority on WGS. The X-Band BPA will provide an avenue for them to get service without having to change out expensive equipment sets and move to Ka or Ku, for example.

There are also those missions that do require the capabilities that are either inherent to the frequency range of X-Band itself, or some of the capabilities that are inherent to those X-Band satellites.

GSR:  Why is military X-Band important? What differentiates military X-Band from commercial Ka or Ku-band satellite services? Why would this be important for the DoD?

Hugh Keane: Military X-Band is important in many ways. It’s in wide use today because of the WGS satellites and there are many X-Band terminals out there, whether they are land, maritime, or aero terminals. The nature of WGS – and with a finite set of WGS satellites – means there’s not always sufficient capacity to fulfill all user requirements. As such, X-Band on commercial satellites supplements WGS very well, allowing those lower-priority missions to have non-preemptible capacity.

It also provides a greater battle space in which the DoD can operate with enhanced resiliency, by having access to both the military and the commercial X-Band satellites. In addition to that, one of the great advantages of the X-Band frequency spectrum, itself, is that it provides highly reliable and high link availability communications in regions where Ku band and Ka band might struggle due to the high rain fade. In fact, this makes it possibly the best solution in certain parts of the world.

“All the geographic combatant commands have access to X-Band capacity within their areas of responsibility (AOR) through the BPA…” -Hugh Keane

Also, given that X-Band is reserved for military and government use, the satellites themselves tend to be equipped with greater security than purely commercial satellites. With features like highly secure TTNC encryption, anti-jamming capabilities, and – in certain cases on some of the satellites – hardening against nuclear attack. All these features combined, contribute to the resiliency and the availability of the communications links, and as such, they become a bit more desirable for ”no-fail” missions.

GSR: SES Space & Defense has called the service that it’s offering the DoD a “global satellite capacity.” Is this solution truly global? Are there any locations or geographies where the solution will not be available?

Hugh Keane: The service offers the DoD global satellite capacity. All the geographic combatant commands have access to X-Band capacity within their areas of responsibility (AOR) through the BPA and there are multiple coverage options in many locations of significant activity; apart from a small gap in coverage in the Pacific. With regard to that, we will continue to explore options and opportunities throughout the life of the BPA to provide even greater coverage and alternative coverage as the customers need.

GSR: To deliver on this contract, SES Space & Defense claims to have, “partnered with several industry-leading players, including integrators, SATCOM, and teleport operators.” What does this mean? Why was a partnership with these other industry partners necessary to deliver a global solution for the military?

Hugh Keane: SES has a great X-Band asset capability in GovSat-1. This is a relatively new satellite launched in 2018 and it provides good, flexible coverage through both fixed and steerable beams for all types of missions,  whether maritime, land, or aero missions in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East.

However, those regions demand flexibility, redundancy, and alternative solutions so we look to our trusted industry partners for additional capacity. And in part, the SES acquisition of DRS GES plays a role here, due to GES’ background as an integrator, and also as a long-term provider of end-to-end X-Band services to their customers.

Drawing on those relationships, we created partnerships to have access to all the commercially available X-Band fleets. That includes partnerships with XTAR for access to the XTAR LANT and EUR satellites, Airbus for access to Skynet, and also the future Syracuse satellites – Syracuse 4A and 4B. And with Anuvu for access to other satellites and their Holmdel teleport. On the teleport side, we have access to multiple teleports, with partners at Telespazio, Santander, MBS, and USEI that deliver services in every combatant command AOR.

“One of the great benefits of the BPA is its flexibility of the broad scope it has when it comes to the provision of X-Band and its enabling elements.” -Hugh Keane

The whole globe is covered in terms of teleport requirements. We also have a number of major antenna providers enabling access to a range of terminals, whether commercial grade terminals or a full build spec standard terminal – depending on what the customer requires.

However, not all those capabilities reside in-house, that’s why we  partnered with several industry-leading players in order to offer the government the most comprehensive solution. The BPA also provides capacity throughout the life of the vehicle to update capabilities, so we can add new beams and new teleports as they become available.

GSR: What will the DoD need to utilize this global X-Band service? Will it have to buy specialized equipment and hardware – new antenna and terminal solutions?

Hugh Keane: One of the great benefits of the BPA is its flexibility of the broad scope it has when it comes to the provision of X-Band and its enabling elements. Through the BPA, we can simply provide raw megahertz of X-Band and we can provide end-to-end X-Band services. That is the space segment, the commercial teleport, and the terrestrial transport.

We can also lease or sell X-Band terminals. Because of WGS, if the user has an X-Band terminal that they use on WGS, they can utilize said terminal. The customer doesn’t need to buy any new equipment. And we can provide them with the service through the existing assets that they have, whether that’s simply bandwidth, or perhaps they also want to use that asset and access a commercial teleport and then have terrestrial backhaul to their home enterprise if needed.

Because of the flexibility of the BPA, if the customer doesn’t have the terminal today, or if they need to supplement terminals – we can provide them the full remote equipment set from scratch, both with buy and lease options. It’s very flexible.

In the end, if the customer already has the equipment, that’s great! We can provide them the services as they need it. But if they don’t have the equipment and they need access to it, we can do that as well.

GSR: How does this BPA play a role in the movement towards adopting the integrated MILSATCOM and COMSATCOM architecture that the DoD has been talking about for the past decade?

Hugh Keane: It certainly plays a role. We need to praise the U.S. Space Force for putting this BPA in place. Before we had this BPA, we worked with various DoD partners to provide an architecture that enabled roaming between WGS and COMSATCOM X-Band and that also included the provision of commercial teleports and peripheral backhaul.

“The BPA will have a positive effect – it allows rapid access to commercial X-Band satellite capacity and its enabling elements, not to mention greatly expands the capability sets of the DoD.” -Hugh Keane

I will say, though, in establishing the BPA, Space Force has now created an avenue that never existed before and is allowing all DoD users to access that type of service and capability for the integration of those MILSATCOM and COMSATCOM architectures. This is really enabled in the BPA allowing reduced time-to-order and time-to-activation of services. Space Force has greatly facilitated this integration by putting this vehicle in place.

GSR: What effect will the addition of this commercial global X-Band satellite capacity have on the military’s satellite architecture? Will it make it more secure? More assured? Why or why not?

Hugh Keane: The BPA will have a positive effect – it allows rapid access to commercial X-Band satellite capacity and its enabling elements, not to mention greatly expands the capability sets of the DoD. They now have COMSATCOM assets along with the ground infrastructure available in every AOR that can supplement and indeed work in tandem with WGS. By having that they increase the availability and resiliency of their communications pathways through access to a greater range of satellites, and ground assets.

To learn more about the Global X-Band BPA, read the official press release HERE.

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This new BPA will give the DoD access to an X-band communications satellite network capable of delivering assured, secure satellite connectivity in support of missions being conducted in virtually any location on the globe.

To deliver a near-global solution, SES Space & Defense has partnered with several industry-leading players, including integrators, SATCOM, and teleport operators. Together, the contracted satellite operators will deliver Global X-Band satellite capacity, teleport and network services over a highly secure global terrestrial network, and other ancillary services to meet enduring and emerging DoD requirements.

To provide secure satellite communications services, one of the many satellites that SES Space & Defense will leverage is the multi-mission GovSat-1 satellite.

“SES Space & Defense believes the BPA is one of the foundation blocks in accelerating MILSATCOM-COMSATCOM integration for the space enterprise. The US Space Force established this contract as a mechanism to enable access to commercial X-band capacity globally for the DoD,” said SES Space & Defense President and CEO David Fields.

The Global X-Band BPA is the first integration services agreement awarded to SES Space & Defense since the acquisition of DRS GES by SES was finalized in August 2022. SES Space & Defense is dedicated to delivering the most trusted end-to-end global communications through a fully integrated Information and Communications Technology Ecosystem to the U.S. government and military.

“We have partnered with industry-leading X-Band owners and operators as we understand the demand for secure, non-preemptible mission-assured capacity for critical operations,” Fields explained. “By combining satellite capacity, SATCOM services can achieve the highest availability with redundant X-Band coverage and diverse gateway connectivity within sovereign space.”

To learn more about this revolutionary BPA announcement, click HERE.

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This contract, which was awarded through the Defense Information Systems Agency’s (DISA) Defense Information Technology Contracting Organization (DITCO), will provide satellite communications capabilities in support of the U.S. Army Warfighter Information Network-Tactical (WIN-T) training activities.

These capabilities will enable the U.S. Army Network Enterprise Technology Command (NETCOM) and the U.S. Army Forces Command (FORSCOM) units to train and prepare a combat-ready, globally responsive Total Force.

Leveraging SES’s global satellite fleet, the capabilities delivered by SES Space & Defense will allow the U.S. Army to continue to build and sustain combatant command readiness requirements, and enable research and development activities for testing new applications for mobile missions.

“SES Space & Defense has a longstanding relationship with the U.S. Army and has been supporting the WIN-T program’s evolving needs for over a decade,” said SES Space & Defense President and CEO, David Fields. “As the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) adopts new and more advanced information technology capabilities, it is key that we support them with the much-needed resilient and secure satellite communications in multiple orbits and bands.”

For additional information on this contract award, click HERE.

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Expected to be internally available this summer, the strategy aligns with the Space Force’s recently released vision for satellite communications (SATCOM), said Clare Grason, chief of the Commercial SATCOM Office at the Space Force. That vision paper, released in February, calls for a robust and integrated architecture encompassing both military and commercial assets.

Speaking at the Satellite ’20 conference organized by Access Intelligence, Grason said the strategy will consolidate existing contracts with industry providers and establish service level agreements with the SATCOM Office’s Department of Defense (DoD) customers.  “We believe that will enable us to have more flexibility in our commercial SATCOM procurements and have much greater readiness,” she said.

The strategy will give commanders a holistic view of available SATCOM capabilities and the ability to shift resources as requirements dynamically change, without having to negotiate new contracts, Grason said. “We would just have to modify the [service level agreements] we have with our customers, which is much easier than having to go back out to industry and do that in the form of a new contract or contract modification,” she said.

Formerly a part of the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA), the Commercial SATCOM office is responsible for procuring commercial satellite connectivity for DoD customers. Currently the procurement process is highly fragmented, with about 100 different contracts currently in place and 30 deals being negotiated at any given time, Grason said.

Nonetheless, the Commercial SATCOM Office has a clear understanding of demand across its customer base, Grason said.

“So in essence, we want to aggregate our collective buying power and do a central procurement,” she said. “And in turn, distribute that capability that we’re centrally buying the form of service level agreements with our customers.”

Some important details of the consolidation strategy are still being worked out, Grason said. These include the formulas for reapportioning both the contracts and the requirements, she said.

The forthcoming strategy is the latest development in what many experts say is the long overdue change in the DoD’s approach to commercial SATCOM procurement. It follows the transfer of the Commercial SATCOM Office from DISA to what is now the Space Force, which owns and operates satellites dedicated to military and other customers. The transfer was designed to give planners a holistic view of the DoD’s satellite communications requirements.

Grason said there will always be a need for government-owned capabilities, but that commercial systems have a critical role to play. “Customers are choosing commercial SATCOM for the superiority and efficiency it often brings to the fight,” she said.

The nascent strategy reflects a broader embrace among the Pentagon leadership of commercial capabilities.

In a keynote address at the conference, Air Force Lt. Gen. David Thompson, vice commander of the Space Force, said commercial sector has become a driver of innovation in several technology areas. “Our job is to try to keep pace and leverage to the best we can all of that innovation that’s going on in the commercial sector,” he said.

The commercial satellite communications (COMSATCOM) sector, in particular, has been a hotbed of innovation in recent years, as companies take advantage of technological advances and different orbits to deploy capabilities the government would otherwise not have available.

“We’re no longer viewed as an augmentation to government capabilities but rather as an integral part of the architecture,” said Pete Hoene, President and Chief Executive Officer of SES Space and Defense, the government services arm of satellite operator SES.  “The result will be an integrated enterprise architecture that provides increased capabilities to the warfighter improved levels of resiliency and greater cost efficiencies.”

SES operates satellites in geostationary and Medium Earth Orbit (MEO), offering a diverse blend of capabilities to government and commercial customers. The multi-orbit arrangement allows the government to tap into additional connectivity solutions beyond WGS and an additional orbit fora disaggregated and resilient COMSATCOM architecture.

During a separate panel discussion at the conference, John Klein, a professor at the George Washington University’s Space Policy Institute and an advisor to the U.S. government agencies on space policy and strategy, said commercial space capabilities play a key role in deterrence by making the overall architecture more resilient. Having a robust commercial capability can help convince potential adversaries of the futility of attacking space systems as a means of gaining military advantage, he said.

Mir H. Sadat, director of critical enablers at the White House National Space Council, said there is no doubt that relationships with the commercial space sector make an enormous contribution to overall national security. “It creates a huge, diverse and exponentially larger robust system for us” that eliminates the ability of adversaries to take out a critical U.S. capability, he said.

Feature image courtesy of Tech. Sgt. David Salanitri, United States Space Force.

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Why? Because it’s becoming abundantly clear that this is an extraordinary point in time for the satellite and space industries.

Over the past decade, we’ve seen significant changes in the way that the federal government interacts with and acquires services from their satellite partners. Now, halfway through 2019, it’s clear that this year will forever be remembered as the start of the satellite renaissance.

What do I mean by satellite renaissance? We’re entering a period of time where innovation, new technologies and a booming demand for bandwidth are aligning to create an environment where satellite once again becomes one of the hottest topics of discussion and areas of investment in the federal government.

But to truly understand the change that we’re experiencing, we first have to reflect back on where we came from.

A rocky relationship
For the better part of a decade, executives at satellite companies have been working to improve their relationship with the federal government and military. Although capable of playing an enormous role in meeting the wideband satellite and communications requirements of the government and Department of Defense (DoD), commercial satellite companies were often treated less like mission-critical partners, and more like any other vendor selling a commodity.

A big part of this came from the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA), which previously held acquisition authority for commercial satellite services and often pushed for lowest price, technically acceptable (LPTA) satellite capacity to be purchased on the spot market.

However, the provisions in the Fiscal Year (FY) 2018 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) promised to change much of that.

The FY 2018 NDAA shifted the acquisition authority for satellite services from DISA to the Commander of Air Force Space Command, giving them the authority to, “…procure commercial satellite communications for the Department of Defense.” As a result, Air Force Space Command assumed responsibility and authority for the procurement of COMSATCOM on December 12, 2018.

During this transition, Air Force Space Command has worked to ensure that the satellite industry has been heavily involved in shaping the future of satellite networks and lay the groundwork for future wideband satellite acquisition processes that make sense for both government and industry.

The subsequent FY 2019 NDAA and Defense Appropriations bill contained several additional provisions and initiatives that can benefit both the military and commercial satellite industry. Focused on the future wideband architecture and repeated concerns over the inflexibility of the current architecture for military satellite communications, appropriators directed the service secretaries to develop an integrated wideband and narrowband architecture and acquisition strategy.

Congressional leaders also directed that the architecture and acquisition strategy should include, “…government and commercial space systems,” and, “…be based on flexible operations, open standards, and commonality that has communications path diversity.”

In addition, House appropriators directed all future COMSATCOM integration funding into a newly created program element to increase oversight, while authorizing $49.5M in funding specifically for COMSATCOM efforts – a first-ever budget line item for the commercial satellite industry.

These positive steps towards improved relations between the military and commercial satellite industry have the potential to deliver incredible benefits to the DoD. This potential is only augmented by the capabilities of today’s more advanced satellites, and the increasingly large bandwidth demands of network-centric operations.

A recent renaissance in space
Over the past decade, we’ve seen the rise of multiple potentially disruptive technologies that are capable of fundamentally changing the way the federal government and military operate.

Today’s federal agencies and military branches are scrambling to implement advanced data analytics and Artificial Intelligence to help them gain actionable insights from their data. They’re integrating an enormous ecosystem of sensors into their military platforms and infrastructure. They’re rolling mobile devices out to warfighters, and they’re increasingly looking to generate real-time 4D video ISR data from UAVs to inform their mission planning.

These are just a handful of the new technologies and use cases that are spearheading the demand for a “digital transformation” within the government and military. But these technologies also have something else in common – they’re all network-enabled solutions that are powered by, and require, high-bandwidth network connectivity.

Luckily for the government, this increased bandwidth requirement comes at an exciting time for the satellite industry. A new generation of High Throughput Satellites (HTS) are being built and launched into Geostationary Orbit (GEO), as well as other orbits closer to Earth. When orbiting the Earth in the Medium Earth Orbit (MEO), these satellites are capable of delivering immense bandwidth and capacity with drastically reduced latency. This means that the same experience that government users get from terrestrial fiber networks is now available practically anywhere on Earth via satellite.

These solutions are only available to the military through commercial partners. That’s because the rapid innovation in the commercial space industry brings satellite support to the military’s doorstep quicker and more cost effectively than the traditional method of building and launching purpose-built government satellites.

Last year was a great year for the commercial satellite industry and their improving relationships with the federal government. But, thanks to the intersection of multiple government and industry trends, 2019 promises to be even more exciting.

The government’s demand for bandwidth to all corners of the globe is enormous and growing every day. The commercial satellite industry has been innovating relentlessly to develop new, higher bandwidth, lower latency solutions to meet increasing capacity requirements. And the relationship between government organizations and their satellite industry partners is improving immensely. The stage is set for a satellite renaissance. In fact, it may already be upon us.

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Communications satellites, both government and commercially operated, are subject to an growing array of jamming and even kinetic threats from near-peer U.S. adversaries, these officials said. In this environment, diversification promotes resiliency while complicating any adversary’s service disruption plans.

“We need diversity – we need a wide range of diversity,” said Kimberly Morris, satellite communications operations division head at the U.S. Naval Network Warfare Command.

Speaking June 26 here at the 4^th annual Milsatcom USA conference sponsored by the SMi Group, Morris said that diversity includes satellites operating in medium Earth orbit (MEO) and low Earth orbit (LEO) as well as in traditional geostationary orbits. Use of different frequencies also is critical, she said.

“What I’m trying to do is put our adversaries on the horns of a dilemma,” Morris said. “You go after our [military-owned] systems, I’ve got something else that I can get to. Historically, with a lot of the weapon systems that are brought to bear in the modern age, it’s not the primary system that has been a hero, it’s the secondary system, because the enemy puts so much effort into taking out that primary system.”

Peter Hoene, president and chief executive of Reston, Va.-based SES Space and Defense, the U.S. government services arm of satellite operator SES, said that just between SES and its top competitors, there are some 150 commercial satellites in geostationary orbit. This gives the military options in case signals from the U.S. Air Force’s workhorse Wideband Global Satcom satellites are jammed, thus complicating the targeting calculus of any adversary, he said.

Another benefit of satellite diversity is that missions vary widely, both among and even within the military services. Certain bandwidths and orbits are better suited to some of these missions than others.

“We have different sized-ships that have different-sized needs and different missions; they all require assured C2 (command and control),” Morris said. “We require diversity in pathways, diversity in orbits, diversity in spectrum, and we need it with a lot of agility because our missions change so often and so quickly.”

Charles Osborn, acting director of the infrastructure directorate at the U.S. Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA), said his team is designing a next-generation gateway architecture that will pull signals from satellites in all three orbits, along with terrestrial systems, into the Department of Defense Information Network. “From my perspective, those all need to be integrated together for us to have that full redundancy and resiliency that we’re looking for,” he said.

While geostationary orbit – a belt of space 36,000 kilometers above the equator – has traditionally been home to most military and commercial communications satellites, a number of companies are planning large constellations in LEO to provide fiber-quality broadband services on a global scale. While these systems are in most cases years away from full deployment, SES currently operates a 20-satellite MEO constellation dubbed O3b, with a second-generation system under construction. SES also is among the world’s largest geostationary satellite operators, with 55 satellites serving commercial and government customers.

A key advantage of LEO and MEO systems is they eliminate most of the latency, or signal lag, associated with geostationary satellites. The O3b constellation, for example, reduces latency by 75 percent, while increasing throughput, compared to geostationary satellites, supporting applications including backhaul of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance data gathered by forces in the field.

SES’s next-generation O3b mPOWER MEO satellites, under construction by Boeing and scheduled to launch in 2021, will offer 5,000 reconfigurable beams per satellite along with anti-jam capabilities geared toward military requirements, Hoene noted.

SES also is working with partners to integrate flat panel, electronically steered, antennas that can switch seamlessly between MEO and geostationary satellites, addressing a longstanding concern about forces having to carry many different terminal types to fully leverage all available military and commercial satellite capabilities. The military also has been investing in multiband terminals, a trend Hoene said bodes well for the future.

Hoene said industry and government are headed down a path that could one day lead to seamless roaming between the various commercial and government-satellites for military customers. “I’m very excited about this; I think these are huge breakthroughs,” he said.

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The plan also will address potential demonstrations, or pathfinders, that the Air Force has used in the past to prove out new procurement and utilization concepts for commercial satellite capacity, said Air Force Lt. Gen. John Thompson, commander of Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center (SMC) in Los Angeles and program executive officer for space. Traditionally, the Department of Defense (DoD) has procured commercial bandwidth under relatively short-term contracts, often on the spot market, which industry officials have long argued is inefficient and makes it difficult to plan for future military needs.

The strategy initiative follows the congressionally mandated transfer of responsibility for procuring commercial satellite capacity for military users from the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) to the Air Force. That transfer, which formally took effect in December 2018, responds to longstanding concerns about a lack of coordination between DISA and the Air Force, which buys and operates its own communications satellites.

In an April 9 keynote address at the 35^th annual Space Symposium, Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson said the transfer will enable the service to take a holistic approach to the military satellite communications enterprise. “That [transfer] will be a tremendous help, as there is very clear synergy between commercial communications satellite capabilities and those of the Defense Department,” she said.

Thompson, in an April 11 media briefing along with other Air Force space procurement leaders at the Symposium, said the strategy now in development breaks down the stovepipes that have long existed between commercial and government-owned systems.

“We are working very closely with commercial satellite providers and our traditional military satellite communication providers to make that strategy happen,” Thompson said. “I would expect a formal rollout of that strategy later this year.”

The strategy review also follows the Air Force’s long anticipated Analysis of Alternatives for wideband satellite communications, which was completed last summer. According to Air Force officials, that study concluded that the DoD will continue to rely on a mix of government and commercial assets for wideband services, which comprise the biggest chunk of the military’s satellite communications requirements.

Commercial satellite operators have long pushed for a larger piece of the overall DoD market pie, and have been deploying new capacity in different orbits to match those ambitions. Satellite operator SES, for example, on April 4 completed deployment of its first-generation O3b MEO broadband constellation with the launch of four new spacecraft aboard a Soyuz rocket operated by Europe’s Arianespace consortium.

Now consisting 20 satellites in medium Earth orbit (MEO) covering 70 percent of the world’s population, O3b provides fiber-like services with minimal latency, or lag, between signal transmission and reception, compared to geostationary orbiting satellites.  Reston, Va.-based SES Space and Defense, which provides SES satellite capacity to the U.S. government, last June signed a blanket purchase agreement with DoD for up to $516.7 million worth of high-throughput services from O3b through April 2023.

“O3b’s low-latency, high-throughput services support time-critical enterprise applications that are becoming integral to modern military operations,” said Peter Hoene, president and chief executive of SES-Government Services. “This capability is unique in the marketplace, providing a strong complement to our geostationary satellite services.”

SES will begin deploying its second-generation MEO constellation, dubbed O3b mPOWER, in 2021-2022. Those seven satellites, under construction by Boeing, will dramatically increase the capacity, flexibility and coverage of the O3b constellation, allowing for higher throughput at fiber-like latency SES also operates more than 50 satellites in higher geostationary orbit, and counts the government as a major customer for services from those spacecraft.

Thompson said the next series of pathfinder experiments are still being debated but that there is a lot of interest in terminals that are interoperable with multiple satellite systems, both military and commercial. “Right now within the Department of Defense, the numbers I’ve heard is between 130 to 160 different kinds of unique satellite communications terminals,” he said. “I think that’s an area where having a multi-capable terminal and reducing the number of different configurations is something that industry is very excited about.”

A number of companies have such equipment in development and testing.  Antenna maker ThinKom Solutions of Hawthorne, Calif., for example, is testing a phased-array antenna that the company says can switch seamlessly between individual satellite beams and from constellation-to-constellation, including MEO and geostationary systems. Some of the testing has been carried out on the O3b constellation in cooperation with SES, ThinKom has said.

Thompson said the Air Force is looking at how to take advantage of where the commercial market appears headed. As an example, he cited satellite systems with a large number of individual “soda straw-sized” beams – as opposed to beams covering much larger areas – as beneficial because transmissions over these systems are more difficult for potential adversaries to detect or disrupt.

The planned O3b mPOWER satellites dramatically increase the number of spot beams available, according to SES Space and Defense. The current O3b satellites feature 10 individual beams apiece, whereas the Future O3b mPOWER satellites will each have more than 4,000 beams, a 400% increase according to company literature.

The Air Force is reviewing a number of pathfinder proposals as part of the overarching strategy review, Thompson said.

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Today, commercial industry is the innovator in space – building and launching new and advanced satellites with exciting new technologies and even launching them into new orbits. But even as the COMSATCOM industry has evolved and matured, the way the government interacted with it and purchased services from it stayed the same.

The government and United States military has long filled gaps in satellite requirements and availability with lowest priced, technically acceptable (LPTA) COMSATCOM services and capacity that they’ve purchased on the spot market. That acquisition method remains in place – which many satellite industry experts would point out is at the detriment of the government.

However, steps are being taken that could elicit some significant change in the relationship between COMSATCOM providers and the Department of Defense (DoD). To get some additional historical perspective on the relationship between the DoD and the COMSATCOM industry, and to learn more about the steps being taken to revolutionize the ways these entities interact, we sat down with Allan Ballenger, a retired Air Force colonel and the current Corporate Vice President and Chief Commercial Officer at SES Space and Defense.

Here is what Allan had to say:

Government Satellite Report (GSR): Can you tell us a little bit about the traditional method of purchasing SATCOM capacity on the spot market? Why is that bad for the military?

Allan Ballenger: One reason that buying on the spot market is not a good idea for the US government is that it may not be there at the time and place of the government’s choosing. The commercial market is very dynamic, and if the government needs a particular type of capacity – frequency or orbital slot – it may not be available when they need it.

Instead, by working proactively with industry to help determine a more enterprise architecture approach, the government could sit down in advance and say, “here’s the type of capacity that we need and here’s how we would consider commercial as part of our overall architecture.”

We believe that this is a smarter approach for USG, and that approach seems to be gaining traction in the Air Force Space Command.

GSR: We’ve heard that there are also problems with the kinds of funds that they can buy satellite capacity with. Is that accurate?

Allan Ballenger: That’s accurate on several fronts. To the government’s credit, especially the Air Force’s Space and Missile Systems Center, it pursued various pathfinders, prototypes and pilot programs to explore different aspects of commercial satellite communications.

One of the areas where they ran into roadblocks was in how to structure a long-term commitment with industry partners when Congress allocates money for one or two years at a time. That’s one of the areas that has caused some concern – structuring a more commercial-like business deal but still being confined to the color and length of money restrictions that the US government has.

GSR: You talked about an alternative – having a better, more collaborative relationship and creating a more integrated satellite architecture. What does that relationship look like?

Allan Ballenger: The relationship is more like a partner relationship rather than a vendor relationship.  To me, a vendor relationship is like buying a new car. You may have a sense of what is important to you, but you don’t really care who you buy it from. You just want the best deal on that particular purchase. In other cases, when you make a purchase decision, you may care more about the relationship and the level of trust and confidence you have in that relationship – such as when you’re picking a doctor or having a medical procedure.

What we think would be good is to develop a sense of partnership with the US government and industry providers, where the government recognizes the contributions of commercial satellites to their overall communications architecture. I believe that that change has been taking place over recent years, which is a good thing, but there are still those elements that view the world through a narrower lens.

If you’re buying a pure commodity like tires or paper clips, you can and should purchase an LPTA solution. We believe that it’s not in the best interest of the government when it comes to complex technical solutions. That’s not to say that LPTA is always bad; we’re just saying that it’s been misapplied when it comes to commercial satellite communications.

Congress has recognized that in the past few years. We’ve seen recent solicitations steering the departments away from LPTA for complex technical solutions. We believe that will ultimately result in better pricing and better mission success.

GSR: What steps is the military taking to better integrate COMSATCOM and commercial partners into its integrated satellite architecture as trusted partners and less as a provider of a commodity?

Allan Ballenger: There have been a couple of things that have moved the ball in a positive direction. Congressional legislation in late 2017 – Section 1601 of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2018 – shifted the procurement of COMSATCOM from the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) to Air Force Space Command.

When that legislation passed, the core government staff reached out almost immediately – and multiple times – across the industry to start getting input as they transitioned to Air Force Space Command. That ultimately resulted in a strategic working group hosted by Air Force Space Command that brought together leadership elements from Space Command, the U.S. government, and key industry partners. That was a step in the right direction in establishing trust and partnership as Air Force Space Command assumed a leadership role in satellite communications procurement.

Another area that is less recent but also very important is the government’s establishment of a commercial innovation cell within the Combined Space Operations Center (C-SPOC), formerly known as the Joint Space Operations Center.

Within C-SPOC, they’ve had this Commercial Innovation Cell (CIC) for several years that brings together eight commercial companies. [Those companies] all participate in a cooperative research and development agreement. That means that there is no additional cost to the government, but there is a mutual benefit to the government and to the companies, so the government gets the benefit of direct and timely insight about what exactly is going on with commercial satellite constellations, and the companies get insight into how the government is operating and how commercial satellites can be used throughout the Department of Defense.

Through that relationship, we work day-to-day – on a confidential level – on the integration of commercial and government satellites. It gives us insight on how we can shape our future commercial capabilities to fulfill the government’s future needs.

GSR: This movement away from LPTA and the move of acquisition authority from DISA to Space Command and collaboration through C-SPOC all help make industry a more trusted government partner…but is it enough? If not, what else has to be done?

Allan Ballenger: The real challenge is crafting the integrated enterprise architecture and vision that includes both purpose-built government satellites and commercial satellites.

Historically, when planners set up military missions, they might have looked solely to purpose-built satellite communications systems. What we’re trying to help them understand is how commercial satellites are already there and capable of supporting the global architecture for satellite communications. Instead of having the military constellations over here and the commercial constellations over there – and never the twain shall meet – we should treat it as an integrated picture. Commanders at various levels should have options to use both purpose-built and commercial SATCOM.

I believe Air Force Space Command is stepping up to lead that integrated enterprise architecture, and probably later this year, we’ll see a more integrated view of how the government envisions using the best of breed [satellite services] across both purpose-built government systems and commercial systems.

GSR: What will the benefit be to the government if they have this combined pool of military and commercial satellite resources?

Allan Ballenger: For decades, the government drove innovation and investment in space, and commercial and industry was always behind. But within the past decade, that calculus has flipped. Now, commercial players are leading spending and innovation, coming up with new ways of launching and operating satellites in orbit and shrinking the size of satellites.

If the government wants to take advantage of that innovation, it’s in its best interest to leverage industry as a partner so they can take advantage of these new capabilities.

Utilizing commercial satellites also allows the government to more quickly stand up new capability. In classic government programs, the process is fairly lethargic – with a lengthy requirements process followed by a lengthy acquisition process, followed by a lengthy fielding process. It can take years – even a decade – between the inception of an idea and the fielding of an idea.

In today’s environment, the way commercial development is going, it can be a few months to a year or two to field a new idea. The ability to take advantage of commercial innovation quickly is a key advantage for the government. Having that responsive support, government missions – especially critical military missions – can depend on highly available, highly reliable communications. That can be a combination of purpose-built government satellites and commercial satellites. It doesn’t have to be limited to one or the other.

Lastly, there’s cost. As there is a standardization of satellites across the industry, the government will benefit from lower costs in the commercial SATCOM industries.

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Across the board, we’re continuing to see that militaries are in the process of reevaluating and changing how they conduct “business as usual” when it comes to space. Much of that has to do with the fact that space – itself – has changed as a domain.

Space is no longer a benign domain thanks to the reemergence on near-peer adversaries capable of challenging and denying space resources and capabilities in theater. Simultaneously, the space and satellite domain have been revolutionized by the introduction of new commercial players and massive innovation from industry partners. This innovation has come in the form of a new generation of satellites that are being launched and coming on-line in new orbits, the emergence of commercial space launch and even the advancement of on-orbit refueling and servicing.

Together, these trends have led to global militaries – including the United States military – needing to rethink how they gain access to space capabilities, how they acquire space resources and even how they fundamentally architect and build their space infrastructure. This has led to some drastic decisions and changes across governments, as well as some head scratching. All of which was on display at Global MilSatCom.

Let’s take a look at the news coming out of the show, and talk about the impact it’ll have on the industry:

Ground segment getting more attention in military space programs, U.S. leaders say
Historically, government customers have met their satellite requirements in a piecemeal fashion – leasing bandwidth on the spot market to fill gaps in coverage and availability, using a mix of MilSatCom and ComSatCom resources and purchasing ground terminals for specific requirements.

Unfortunately, this piecemeal approach has led to interoperability issues and challenges with the military’s ground infrastructure.

As this article discusses, there were multiple discussions about ground infrastructure at Global MilSatCom about the interoperability challenges and problems with aging ground terminals facing today’s military. One of the proposed solutions was a more holistic approach to satellite acquisition – taking both the space and ground segment into consideration when evaluating and implementing new satellite resources and infrastructure.

However, industry could have another solution in the form of satellite managed services. In this instance, the industry partner is hired as a service provider – effectively on the hook for all of the hardware and services needed to deliver a capability to the end customer. This means that everything from the ground terminal to the bandwidth needed would be included in the managed service. It’s a system that has become increasingly popular in the satellite industry and that could begin to make its way more into the military and government space.

That being said, it’s clear that ground terminals are and will continue to be a challenge and area of focus for global militaries, and the approach to acquiring ground terminals will most likely change. But that’s not the only change in acquisition that was a topic at this week’s show.

Air Force Space Command prepares to take over procurement of satellite communications
This is a pretty big one. The Air Force Space Command is poised and ready to take on a big responsibility that was originally owned by the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) – the acquisition of commercial satellite services for the entire Department of Defense (DoD).

The impetus for this change has a lot to do with concerns about the speed of acquisitions and if operator’s needs are being met. The feeling is that this change in acquisition authority will help make necessary ComSatCom services more readily available to the military at the speed of war.

Another change that could be precipitated by this interesting shift in acquisition authority is a move away from Lowest Price Technically Acceptable (LPTA) contracting – which bought satellite service based on its price – making it very much like a commodity. With Air Force Space Command at the helm, there is an expected shift towards more innovative acquisition models and a movement to award contracts by more criteria than just cost.

And while this change is certainly a positive step for the government, it wasn’t the only change that was floated to the acquisition process during Global MilSatCom…

Air Force satellite communications buyers would like to see commercial vendors team up into a consortium.
While the above shift is on the government side, there was also a proposed change to the industry side of the acquisition equation.

Due to concerns about vendor lock-in and terminal interoperability, militaries have been reticent to embrace the “satellite as a managed service” model that we discussed above. In an attempt to make it more palatable to the government, some speakers at Global MilSatCom came up with a somewhat interesting proposal – team up.

Tom Becht, the interim director of the military satellite communications directorate at the Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center, called for industry leaders to team up in a consortium that could offer satellite services across companies and constellations to the military as a unit.

We’re not sure how open satellite companies would be towards that kind of tag team, but it certainly is a new and innovative approach to satellite acquisitions…

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