That is one of the overarching conclusions of the DoD’s just-completed Analysis of Alternatives (AoA) for wideband satellite communications, whose findings and recommendations are expected to shape the U.S. military satellite communications (MILSATCOM) architecture in the years ahead. The long-awaited study, completed by government and industry teams over an 18-month period, was delivered to the secretary of defense near the end of June.

Although the details of the AoA have yet to be released, DoD officials offered a glimpse of its broad outlines June 27 and 28 at the MilSatCom USA conference organized by SMi Group of London.

“Hybrid rules,” said Operations Research Analyst with the Office of the Secretary of Defense, Norman Yarbrough, during a presentation on the AoA June 27. “We found in the analysis … that there are needs for purpose-built [satellites] and there are opportunities to expand our use of commercial [satellites].”

Since being ordered by Congress in the National Defense Authorization Act of 2016, the AoA has loomed large over the long running debate over the future of the wideband component of the U.S. MILSATCOM architecture. At issue has been the right mix of Air Force and commercial satellites to meet the DoD’s ever-expanding appetite for connectivity.

Currently a combination of Air Force Wideband Global Satcom (WGS) and commercial satellites serve as the backbone of the DoD’s satellite communications fleet. Brig. Gen. Tim Lawson, deputy commanding general for operations at the U.S. Army’s Space and Missile Systems Center, said some 70 percent of all MILSATCOM is carried via the wideband network.

Commercial satellite operators have long argued for a larger share of the wideband pie, and some expressed heartburn with the recent decision by Congress to fund two additional WGS satellites, increasing the size of the overall Air Force fleet from 10 to 12, ahead of the release of the AoA.

Yarbrough, whose presentation focused primarily on the AoA process, said the additional WGS satellites, the first of which is slated to launch in 2022, shifted the focus of the analysis slightly. But the funding decision, driven by congressional concerns about future gaps in the MILSATCOM architecture, did not change the overall picture or the opportunities ahead for DoD to leverage the commercial sector, he said.

A major factor in the AoA, as with other debates in the military space sector, is a new threat environment in which the space domain has become, in a refrain commonly repeated by DoD officials, increasingly congested, competitive and contested. Communications satellites in particular, face any number of threats ranging from jamming – both incidental and deliberate – and cyber attacks to direct kinetic attacks.

Deanna Ryals, chief of international MILSATCOM at Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center, which is responsible for procuring military space capabilities including the WGS satellites, said the set of MILSATCOM users that do not require some degree of jamming protection is much smaller today than just five or 10 years ago. “The major growth area that we see is the protected tactical community,” she said. “Many, many, many, many users out there have to have higher levels of protection.”

Meeting that need for increased security requires a mix of military and commercially owned satellites, Ryals said.

Communications via commercial satellites will become more secure with the advent of the Protected Tactical Waveform (PTW), developed by the Air Force and now undergoing field demonstrations, Ryals said. The PTW is compatible with WGS as well as commercial satellites.

Yarbrough raised the possibility that if satellite operators field the full range of protection capabilities required by the DoD now and in the future, the military could rely almost entirely on commercial systems for its wideband needs. “But we’re not sure that’s consistent with the commercial business case,” he cautioned.

Another significant takeaway from the AoA exercise, Yarbrough said, is the degree to which the existing base of user terminals affected the various options explored and how they fared. “It’s about the terminals,” he said, noting that there are some 17,000 terminals deployed by the military today.

Typically these terminals are configured to operate with one satellite system or another, and modifying or replacing them to take advantage of emerging capabilities in the space segment is a costly and time consuming exercise. Indeed, this limitation of the existing terminal base was a major theme at the conference.

Brian Teeple, acting DoD Chief Information Officer for Command, Control, Communications and Computers, said he would like to see industry come up with a terminal able to switch seamlessly between satellite systems and frequencies with minimal to no modifications. “One terminal that I could use across multiple satellite providers in a roaming-type manner,” he said.

This capability is analogous to modern cellphones, which automatically switch to whatever network is available at a given location, Teeples and others said.

“When the iPhone came out in 2007 it had five radios on it,” said Maj. Gen. Garrett Yee, Acting Deputy Chief Information Officer, G6, in the Army. “That was 11 years ago. We ought to be able to provide something to our warfighters that in a handheld device has more than a single option.”

“Industry is working toward a solution,” said Allan Ballenger, Corporate Vice President and Chief Commercial Officer of SES Space and Defense, a subsidiary of satellite operator SES that sells services to the DoD and other government customers. “SES Space and Defense is moving from being simply a bandwidth provider to a managed solutions provider, a model that requires a holistic approach that includes terminals.”

Stay tuned for more coverage on the SMI MilSatCom Conference in the coming weeks on The Government Satellite Report.

The post AoA validates expanding commercial role in MILSATCOM architecture appeared first on SES Space and Defense.

Much like in previous years, SATELLITE 2018 also featured a government track, with a handful of government-focused panel discussions and keynote addresses about the current state of satellite across the federal government and United States military, and some of the ways satellite use and acquisition across the federal government is changing.

These government-focused sessions covered a wide range of topics from the use of satellite in emergency response to the evolution of on-orbit servicing. However, there was one common theme that ran across all of them – regardless of topic or speaker. That theme was “Change.”

The Recapitalization of Satellite Resources
Right now – in 2018 – we’re seeing the confluence of multiple trends in space and satellite that have the potential to redefine the industry, introduce immense new capability to the user, and revolutionize how the satellite industry and federal government partner to overcome communications and connectivity challenges.

However, that could potentially be squandered away should the industry and the government not take essential steps towards changing how they interact and do business.

This sentiment was echoed during a panel discussion featuring multiple industry executives and Norman Yarbrough, an Operations Research Analyst within the Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense (DASD) for C3, Cyber, and Business Systems at the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD). During this panel discussion, which was entitled, “Adapting the Government-Commercial Satcom Relationship for the 21st Century,” the speakers each shared how the industry is at an interesting place with tremendous potential for change and exciting new partnerships between industry and the government.

Each of the industry panelists echoed the fact that the military is currently facing a recapitalization of their satellite resources – a result of multiple satellite constellations coming up on their end of life. They each discussed how a wideband analysis of alternatives (AoA) in the works within the United States Air Force which puts the military in a position to make several important satellite decisions.

Chief among these decisions is the role that commercial satellite services will play in military satellite infrastructures moving forward.

Looking to Industry for Innovation
The satellite industry has made it clear over the past few years that their services could and should become a larger part of the military’s satellite networks and infrastructures moving forward. Their reasoning is both clear and valid – industry is now the innovator in space, and a greater reliance on satellite communication providers could help the military overcome some of the largest satellite challenges that they’re currently facing – including a need to better secure and protect satellites and satellite communications, and a need to meet ever-increasing bandwidth demands and requirements.

The role of commercial satellite providers as innovators is ultimately a result of the requirements of their business and the speed at which they operate. While military satellite programs can take decades to plan, design, build and launch satellites, industry needs to move faster. New commercial satellites are being built and launched constantly, and this rhythm means that new satellite technologies will invariably be available onboard commercial satellites well before purpose-built government satellites.

This was further reflected in the comments from Mr. Yarbrough, who said, “We look to industry to be our mission partner. To provide the goods and services that we need to meet national security requirements. We look to them for the innovation of the future to help us better meet those needs.”

As the industry leaders on this panel noted, advancements in commercial satellites – including the launch of High Throughput Satellites (HTS) – and the introduction of new commercial satellite constellations at lower orbits – including MEO – means that higher bandwidth and lower latency connections to practically anywhere on the globe are becoming increasingly available.

At a time when the DoD is looking to establish a path forward with its satellite infrastructure – industry is evolving and bringing previously unheard-of capabilities to market. The stage seems set for industry and military to come together to bring these advanced capabilities to bear for the warfighter but concerns and challenges remain.

Improving the Mission While Providing Better Protection
Commercial satellites can also deliver benefits to the military in many ways. The proliferation and disaggregation of military satellite communications across multiple commercial satellites and networks – and across multiple orbits – can only help increase their resilience and assurance. Many of these satellites also feature built-in protections against attempts to disrupt them – including defenses against jamming.

This need for increased resilience and more assured communications was also reflected by Mr. Yarbrough, who claimed that, “I’m always going to come back to the warfighter. That’s what everything we want to do is about. We want to deliver them the benefits that we’re talking about…the ability to have assured communications…”

Enabling the warfighter is the ultimate focus for the DoD – ensuring that they have access to the solutions that they need, the tools they require to accomplish the mission and the services that are going to improve mission success – while improving their own survivability.

Both industry and government panelists agreed that increased testing, communication and information sharing will ease the way for increased collaboration into the future. Both sides also seemed confident that many of these challenges can be overcome, and that a new generation of warfighter will soon go into battle with a new generation of IT enabled devices, connected via the most advanced satellite communications services.

If there was one overarching theme at SATELLITE 2018, it was change. A shift and evolution in how the military approaches satellite seems imminent, and the role of COMSATCOM providers in military networks seems poised to increase.

MEO and HTS constellations are the latest commercial innovations being embraced by the federal government, capable of delivering fiber-like bandwidth to practically anywhere on the planet. For additional information of these solutions, download the following resources:

• High Throughput on the High Seas
• White Paper: Satellite Evolution Sparks a Service Revolution
• High Throughput Satellites for U.S. Government Applications
• White Paper On O3b “Fiber Like” Satellite Communications for U.S. Government Applications

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