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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The need for multi-band and multi-orbit satellite communications solutions is a requirement that has largely resulted from changes in the kind of adversaries that the U.S. military and its coalition partners are facing. After two decades of fighting an asynchronous war against less advanced adversaries, today’s military find’s itself facing a near-peer, pacing threat that not only recognizes the advantage that satellite delivers, but has the means to deny that advantage.

Being able to rapidly and seamlessly transition between satellite services in different bands and different orbits gives the military assurance for its mission-critical communications. Should an adversary deny one satellite solution, the military could seamlessly transition to another with little or no impact on mission success.

This is why demonstrations like those conducted by SES, Hughes, and ThinKom are so important – they’re effectively demonstrating a capability that will deliver resiliency and assuredness in the communications backbone that powers so many of the advanced battlefield technologies of tomorrow.

To learn more about this exciting demonstration, the technologies that were used, and why the military needs multi-orbit, multi-band satellite solutions, we sat down with the CTO and Co-Founder of ThinKom, Bill Milroy.

Government Satellite Report (GSR): Can you tell our readers a bit about this demonstration? What did it involve, and what was it looking to demonstrate for government satellite users?

Bill Milroy: SES, ThinKom, and Hughes demonstrated high-performance multi-orbit, multi-constellation service capable of supporting Joint All Domain Command and Control (JADC2) requirements for government missions.

The open architecture ThinKom ThinAir® Ka2517 airborne satcom terminal was demonstrated on SES’s MEO and GEO satellite networks. The testing also validated the latest ThinAir software release, which integrates the Hughes HM400 modem for MEO and GEO operations.

GSR: Why is this ability to roam between satellites in different orbits revolutionary? Is this not a capability that the military has had before? Or were military satellite users previously limited to roaming within a single orbit?

Bill Milroy: Many SATCOM systems are proprietary and optimized to work on a specific network. In fact, some prefer this so that their equipment cannot be used on competing networks. This makes it hard to roam between satellite networks, unless controlled by one satellite operator.

“Airborne platforms are unique in that the system quickly moves in and out of coverage areas, so the antenna needs to be able to quickly transition from beam to beam.” – Bill Milroy

The military is pushing for multi-orbit, multi-constellation capability much stronger now to provide added network resiliency to the warfighter, and the integrators – and ThinKom – are making the accommodation to support the multi-constellation capability.

GSR: Why is this capability exciting for the military? What trends are we seeing in military requirements and the threats that we’re facing that make multi-orbit operations essential?

Bill Milroy: There is growing concern that LEO networks can be more easily denied through kinetic attack by adversaries given their closer proximity and related cyber-access vulnerabilities. Having the ability to dynamically roam to other orbital constellations and networks mitigates the threat.

GSR: This particular test was designed to demonstrate airborne capabilities. What restrictions or challenges does the air domain place on satellite services and solutions? What special considerations in regard to terminals and hardware are unique to the air domain?

Bill Milroy: Airborne platforms are unique in that the system quickly moves in and out of coverage areas, so the antenna needs to be able to quickly transition from beam to beam.

Aircraft also travel to very high latitudes. This means that antennas for airborne platforms need to be able to handle aircraft dynamics – such as buffeting and banking away from the satellite.

“The military is pushing for multi-orbit, multi-constellation capability much stronger now to provide added network resiliency to the warfighter…” – Bill Milroy

This also means that the antenna needs to operate very efficiently, down to very low elevation angles – such as 10 degrees above the horizon.

GSR: What technologies and hardware were used in this demonstration? Are these solutions that are currently in use across the military? Why are these solutions a good fit for military airborne missions?

Bill Milroy: ThinKom’s Ka2517 is a phased array antenna based on the Variable Inclination Continuous Transverse Stub (VICTS) technology. It has a low profile, which helps reduce drag and extended time on station. It’s highly efficient, even down to low elevation angles. It offers high throughput, low prime power / thermal dissipation and has proven to be extremely reliable, highly agile, and multi-orbit compatible.

The Ka2517 antenna is an upgraded variant of the those that have been flying on the U.S. Air Force’s E-4B mobile command post aircraft fleet since 2018.

GSR: We recently saw the launch of the first few O3b mPOWER MEO satellites by SES – one of the three companies involved in this demonstration. Will this hardware and this ability to roam across satellites at different orbits also work with mPOWER?

Bill Milroy: Absolutely. The software is compatible with SES and other GEO constellations (including WGS) and with both the O3b CLASSIC and O3b mPOWER MEO as well as other NGSO services.

“Many SATCOM systems are proprietary and optimized to work on a specific network. In fact, some prefer this so that their equipment cannot be used on competing networks. This makes it hard to roam between satellite networks, unless controlled by one satellite operator.” – Bill Milroy

GSR: Why would the military want to utilize O3b mPOWER for airborne missions? What capabilities and benefits does it enable in contrast to other satellite services?

Bill Milroy: O3b mPOWER is extremely capable and delivers ubiquitous, high-speed connectivity services up to multiple gigabits per second to a single location, with less than 150 milliseconds of roundtrip latency.

The initial constellation is comprised of 11 satellites, each equipped with more than 5,000 digitally formed reconfigurable beams that enable government users to carry out their critical missions, securely.

GSR: Are these technologies – the hardware and terminals – that were involved in the demonstration available to the military today?

Bill Milroy:  Absolutely. ThinKom is delivering this hardware today and our customers have equipped ISR aircraft, such as Bombardier’s Challenger 650 and Global 6000 Series aircraft.  We also have a smaller, lighter-weight variant called the Ka1717 intended for even smaller business jet class platforms.

To learn more about the recent demonstration conducted by ThinKom, SES, and Hughes, click HERE.

The post Industry Demonstrations Show Multi-Orbit, Multi-Band Satellite Comms Within Reach for the U.S. Military appeared first on SES Space and Defense.

As part of the announcement of the deal closing, SES also revealed that David Fields would become the new President and CEO of SES Space and Defense. The thirty-year veteran of the satellite and IT industries would be taking over for Brigadier General Pete Hoene, who would be retiring.

The Government Satellite Report recently had the opportunity to sit down with Fields to discuss the acquisition, what it means for DRS GES and SES Space and Defense customers, and what his first priorities are as President and CEO.

Government Satellite Report (GSR): What kind of business was DRS Global Enterprise Solutions (GES)? What solutions and services did the organization offer? Which government agencies and organizations were among GES’ customers?

David Fields: The DRS GES was in space integration. They were not a satellite operator like SES.

As an integrator, DRS GES would work with government agencies to understand their customers’ satellite and communications needs and requirements. They would then connect those government customers with the best satellite solutions to fit their needs.

We will continue to bring the best of the industry together to meet the demanding mission requirements of agencies across the US Government.” -David Fields

DRS GES was always vendor agnostic – leveraging relationships across the satellite communications industry to get the best, most effective solutions for their government customers. That is something that will not change despite now being a part of SES Space and Defense. We will continue to bring the best of the industry together to meet the demanding mission requirements of agencies across the US Government.

GSR: Why was the acquisition of DRS GES the right decision for SES? How does the addition of the DRS GES business synergize with the company’s existing offerings and capabilities?

David Fields: DRS GES and SES have incredibly complementary capabilities. We’re effectively pulling together portfolios from two successful companies and creating an entity with the combined capabilities to meet even the largest and most critical government satellite requirements.

The integration of the two organizations brings together incredible capability and expertise in  end-to-end network management and multi-band and multi-orbit satellite communications. We’re combining an organization that manages over 10,000 terminals across government networks with a satellite provider that has deep expertise in offering best-in-class satellite communications from multiple orbits.

GSR: Why is DRS GES being organized under SES Space and Defense? Why does this make the most sense for both organizations?

David Fields: Even though the organizations’ offerings didn’t directly overlap – with DRS GES being an integrator and SES Space and Defense being a satellite operator, we did have common U.S. government customers.

While GES did have some non-government customers, they represented a small part of the business. So, it makes sense to bring together two organizations with a long history of servicing the government, deep knowledge about the unique challenges that government customers face, and the importance of their missions.

DRS GES’ terrestrial network has a Risk Management Framework (RMF) authorization from the U.S. Government and is completely approved to connect to government networks.” -David Fields

Bottom line is that both business units have trusted partnerships that have a strong record of enabling many of the most demanding, mission-critical applications required by the US government. With this experience—and now with the organizational scale, technology assets, and technical competencies from the GES acquisition—SES Space and Defense is poised to deepen these customer relationships and deliver long-term value that sustains market leadership.

GSR: What will the addition of  DRS GES mean for SES Space and Defense customers? What new capabilities or services will this make available to them?

David Fields:  DRS GES brings a very significant terrestrial network to the table, as well as a teleport and network operations capability. DRS GES’ terrestrial network has a Risk Management Framework (RMF) authorization from the U.S. Government and is completely approved to connect to government networks. That cyber posture will be a huge advantage for SES Space and Defense customers moving forward.

Also, early on, we’ll be looking to integrate DRS GES’ Information & Communications Technology (ICT) portal and SES Space and Defense capabilities for network management. Doing so, will provide SES Space and Defense’s customers with a transparent, single-pane view of the network. We’ve already begun rolling it out for DRS GES customers, and we’re looking forward to offering that capability to SES Space and Defense customers, as well.

GSR: What does this acquisition mean for DRS GES customers? What can they expect now that DRS GES is a part of SES Space and Defense?

David Fields: DRS GES has been satellite agnostic throughout its entire existence and takes pride in bringing the best satellite services and solutions to their customers based on their unique needs and requirements.

O3b mPOWER is revolutionary in capacity, flexibility, latency, and automation and will open the door for advanced capabilities for our US government and DoD customers.” -David Fields

But now, DRS GES customers will also have immediate access to a fleet of satellites in multiple orbits – GEO and MEO — and multiple frequency bands enabling them to meet surge capacity requirements in a timely manner.

Our DRS GES customers will also have access to SES’ upcoming next-generation Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) satellite constellation, O3b mPOWER. O3b mPOWER is revolutionary in capacity, flexibility, latency, and automation and will open the door for advanced capabilities for our US government and DoD customers.

GSR: As the new President and CEO of SES Space and Defense, how has your career to date and past experiences positioned you to succeed in this role?

David Fields: My career has spanned more than 30 years, working with large government contractors and small companies, alike. I’ve worked with satellite operators, integrators, and in the IT industry – I’ve even started and sold two of my own startup companies.

We’re seeing massive innovation across the industry and a shift from constellations in a single orbit to satellite fleets spanning multiple orbits, particularly non-geostationary orbits (NGSO).” -David Fields

I believe my experience across all these complementary industries will benefit SES Space and Defense following the acquisition of DRS GES. I particularly think my startup experience will be beneficial. While neither SES Space and Defense nor DRS GES is a startup company, the resulting company will look very different following the acquisition.

GSR: What are your top priorities in this new role as CEO of SES Space and Defense? What can SES Space and Defense customers expect?

David Fields: My highest priority and our largest responsibility are delivering continued, consistent operations for our customers. Regardless of how we organize the company, how we combine its capabilities together, or the resulting corporate structure – the process needs to be seamless and transparent to our customers, and there can be no effect on operations.

GSR: Why is now such an exciting time to be at the helm of a satellite company? What industry trends and government trends make this point in time so important in the space and satellite industries?

David Fields: The industry is completely changing. We’re seeing massive innovation across the industry and a shift from constellations in a single orbit to satellite fleets spanning multiple orbits, particularly non-geostationary orbits (NGSO).

The fact is that today’s modern government systems and applications have increased throughput demands and required the industry to change the paradigm of satellite communications. In doing so, the industry has responded with the evolution of satellite constellations at MEO and Lower Earth Orbit (LEO). It’s exciting and driving a new wave of innovation and change that is unprecedented in the industry.

It’s unlike anything that I’ve witnessed in my thirty-year career.

To learn more about the acquisition of DRS GES by SES, click HERE.

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