SES-17’s coverage area makes it an important satellite for delivering mission-critical connectivity for the military. According to Amit Katti, Director of Systems Engineering at SES Space and Defense, “The satellite will…provide coverage…over the Americas, the Caribbean and the Atlantic Ocean…[as well as] an area that is of incredible importance to the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), delivering services to parts of the Arctic Circle.”

But there is more to SES-17 than its important coverage area.

The SES-17 satellite is a significant development in satellite technology, featuring a fully digital payload powered by the most powerful digital transponder processor in orbit, and nearly 200 user beams capable of delivering incredible throughputs and bandwidth to users. But the launch of SES-17 also illustrates how the commercial satellite industry has evolved its solutions to meet the unique challenges facing our modern military.

More resiliency and assuredness through multi-orbit communications
Today’s military no longer has the massive technological advantage that it used to hold in space. Our near-peer adversaries have made significant headways into the space domain and turned what was once a benign domain into an austere, warfighting domain. Some of our adversaries have even actively demonstrated the ability to leverage kinetic attacks against satellites in orbit in an effort to deny or degrade the satellite networks that have long given America’s warfighters an edge on the battlefield.

“Having a diversity of satellites allows for optimizing the best solution set while making the network more robust.” – Rick Lober, Hughes Defense

“Our ability to integrate space assets and our force capabilities at speed is a distinct advantage we have today. China and Russia recognize this and have designed means to deny us these capabilities,” explained General Curtis Michael “Mike” Scaparrotti, a retired United States Army four-star general who last served as the Commander of United States European Command, in a recent interview with the Government Satellite Report. “…we know they have developed abilities to deny operations for periods of time by electronic jamming or cyber-attacks, and that they have tested both terrestrial and space systems to destroy satellites.”

In this new environment, it’s increasingly essential that the military has the means and ability to rapidly and seamlessly transition mission-critical data from a satellite that is being denied to another that is capable of delivering essential communications.

Being able to seamlessly roll communications from a satellite in one orbit to another satellite in a different orbit can help to further complicate an adversary’s targeting calculus and make it even harder to deny or degrade our military’s communications. This is also essential should missions requirements change, and should the military need either the higher throughputs and lower latency of satellites in medium Earth orbit (MEO), or the larger coverage area of satellites in GEO.

As Hughes Defense’s Rick Lober recently told the Government Satellite Report, “Having a diversity of satellites allows for optimizing the best solution set while making the network more robust.”

And this isn’t just an idea being pushed by the commercial satellite industry. It’s the current goal of the DoD. As U.S. Space Force Chief of Space Operations, Gen. John W. “Jay” Raymond, explained to attendees at a recent Mitchell Spacepower Forum, “We have got to shift the space architecture from a handful of exquisite capabilities that are very hard to defend to a more robust, more resilient architecture by design.”

But what does this need for a multi-orbit, resilient, and robust satellite network architecture have to do with SES-17?

“With a managed service model for satellite services, the government would always have the latest commercial technologies and solutions available to them. With systems like ARC in place, they’ll also have the added resiliency and capability of being able to leverage a multi-orbit constellation.” – Rashid Neighbors, SES Space and Defense

SES-17 is the first step in the integration of SES’s multi-orbit network. The spacecraft’s digital payload is supported by the Adaptive Resource Control (ARC) software, making it interoperable with SES’s second-generation O3b mPOWER satellite communications system in MEO, which is set to launch in the coming months.

The ARC software opens the door to more seamlessly transitioning satellite communications from the SES constellation of HTS satellites at GEO – including SES-17 – to the next-generation MEO satellite communications system, O3b mPOWER. This means that – should the bandwidth and latency requirements of the mission change, or in the unlikely event that a satellite service is denied by an adversary – SES could quickly and seamlessly switch between satellite services from GEO and MEO to meet the military’s requirement.

“Ultimately, our intent is to provide the U.S. Government with highly resilient, multi-orbit hybrid satellite solutions,” explained Rashid Neighbors, Vice President, Mobility and Integrated Solutions at SES Space and Defense. “While the spacecraft technology in SES-17 and the O3b mPOWER satellites is fundamentally different, the ground system will be integrated through…ARC. This allows our government customers to focus on their mission and applications and let SES Space and Defense worry about how the transport works.”

SES-17, and its support of the ARC system, make the dream of an integrated, multi-orbit satellite network architecture a reality. But it also enables another important shift – allowing the military to evolve away from the archaic and inefficient way that it has traditionally acquired satellite commercial satellite capacity.

A satellite “built for managed services”
In this new satellite reality, where multi-orbit commercial satellite services join military satellite communications (MILSATCOM) resources to build an integrated architecture, the traditional method of leasing satellite capacity on the spot market is no longer effective.

In this new reality – where military communications may need to be moved from a MILSATCOM satellite in GEO to commercial satellite service from MEO or LEO at a moment’s notice to meet mission requirements or provide mission assurance – the traditional methods of leasing satellite capacity are simply too slow.

The ARC system, and other technologies that make SES-17 more “software-enabled,” have ushered in a new generation of satellite that is, as Katti coined, “Built for managed services.” Meaning that the military and government can acquire satellite communications as a service from commercial providers, who, in turn, deliver an end-to-end solution when and where the military requires it.

“Our ability to integrate space assets and our force capabilities at speed is a distinct advantage we have today. China and Russia recognize this and have designed means to deny us these capabilities.” – General Scaparrotti, U.S. Army

Acquiring commercial satellite as a managed service ensures that the government and military are always leveraging the latest satellite technologies, and always have the requisite hardware and terrestrial infrastructure necessary to utilize it.

“With a managed service model for satellite services, the government would always have the latest commercial technologies and solutions available to them,” explained Neighbors. “With systems like ARC in place, they’ll also have the added resiliency and capability of being able to leverage a multi-orbit constellation.”

While the news of SES-17 becoming fully operational is certainly exciting, it’s not nearly as exciting as what SES-17 and other future satellites signify for our government and military. SES-17, the O3b mPOWER service, and other next-generation satellite solutions illustrate a clear solution to the challenge of a more austere space domain. They also signify a path forward towards a more integrated MILSATCOM and COMSATCOM satellite architecture that will be more assured, robust, and resilient to meet the needs of our future force.

To learn more about SES-17, click HERE.

Featured image courtesy of Thales Alenia Space.

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While the Department of Defense (DoD) and industry have made solid progress toward that long-sought goal in recent years, there is still a ways to go, these officials said. One thing the government can do in this regard is provide a steady source of dedicated funding in annual defense budgets for commercial satellite services and integration activities, they said.

Pete Hoene, president and chief executive officer of SES Space and Defense, a subsidiary of satellite owner-operator SES, noted that Congress has established a budgetary line item that purpose but suggested the money has yet to start flowing.

“That’s going to make a huge difference, because once it’s funded it’s real,” Hoene said during a luncheon panel discussion on the topic hosted by the Washington Space Business Roundtable.

Traditionally the U.S. military has procured commercial satellite capacity using emergency wartime, or Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO), funds, rather than through a dedicated account item in the regular DoD budget. As a result, the industry has had difficulty predicting funding levels for any given year, complicating satellite fleet planning and investment.

“Ultimately we have to get out of the OCO budget and into procurement” and research and development dollars, said Skot Butler, president of Intelsat General, the government services arm of satellite operator Intelsat.

Addressing the audience prior to the panel discussion, Lt. Gen. David Thompson, vice commander of Air Force Space Command, said work is nearly complete on a strategic plan for military satellite communications that takes into account government and commercial capabilities.

“While we haven’t put it out in a glossy brochure, the strategy itself is done, and the broad area announcement we put out this summer actually begins the process of an implementation plan to get after the most important elements of the strategy,” Thompson said.

A broad area announcement (BAA) is a notice from the government requesting scientific or research proposals from industry in specific areas of interest. Thompson did not elaborate in detail, but may have been referring to the recent Small Business Innovation Research announcement 19.2, which called for proposals in a number of technical areas, including satellite communications, that have commercial potential.

But Thompson conceded there remains a gap between the Air Force’s traditional military satellite communications culture, which is acquisition and platform focused, and the more service-oriented commercial satellite communications industry. “Bringing those together has been a little bit slower than we had hoped but it is still progressing greatly,” he said.

For example, Thompson said, both sides have identified integration priorities including multiband satellite terminals and an “enterprise management” command and control architecture compatible with both military and commercial satellites.  The Air Force’s Pathfinder series of commercial capability demonstrations as well as the BAA include work in those areas, he said.

Thompson also said the newly established U.S. Space Command, led by Air Force Gen. John ”Jay” Raymond, will be taking a major role in ushering in the integrated satellite communications architecture.

During the panel discussion, industry leaders noted recent promising developments in the ongoing relationship between the military and commercial sector. Prominent among these, particularly from the standpoint of an integrated architecture, was the 2018 transfer of procurement responsibility for commercial satellite bandwidth from Defense Information Systems Agency to the Air Force.

Hoene said the Air Force has a different approach, giving greater weight to the overall value of an industry bid, as opposed to favoring those that meet the minimum requirement at the lowest cost. That shift is long overdue and elevates industry to partner status in the military satellite communications enterprise, he said.

“I would hope on the commercial side it allows commercial to be part of the solution and not an afterthought,” said Rick Lober, vice president and general manager of defense and intelligence systems at Hughes Network Systems, a provider of satellite broadband services and ground equipment. “On the military side I hope it helps on the architecture side so we can think through the space segment, the ground segment, and the terminal segment in a more uniform, timely manner.”

For its part, the commercial sector is working on the technologies to help make it all happen. In addition to flexible terminals that are compatible with different satellites and bandwidths, companies are bringing new space capabilities that will benefit the military, the panelists said.

For example, SES, which already provides low-latency services from its O3b constellation in medium Earth orbit, will soon begin launching a next-generation, Boeing-built system called O3b mPOWER with electronically reconfigurable antennas, Hoene noted. This will allow SES to respond quickly to changing military requirements, he said.

The endgame, from industry’s prospective, is a single architecture in which military users can switch seamlessly between government and different commercial satellites, regardless of ownership, the panelists said.

Hoene noted that between the Air Force, with its 10-satellite Wideband Global Satcom constellation, and the world’s leading commercial operators, there are more than 160 satellites in geostationary orbit. Having all those satellites together in an integrated architecture would make life extremely difficult for adversaries intent on disrupting military operations via satellite signal jamming, he said.

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Much like in years past, SATELLITE 2019 featured a government track, with side sessions and panel discussions that ranged in their focus from selling to government buyers, to the role of government investment and partnership in driving satellite industry growth. One particular panel, entitled, “Updating Government Satellite Service Models,” truly stood out. That’s because much of what was discussed during that session involved a monumental and fundamental shift in the way that the federal government – specifically the military – approaches its communications architecture and interacts with the satellite industry.

For decades, the military has purchased satellite capacity on the spot market and treated satellite connectivity as a commodity. This was an arrangement that has been much maligned by satellite executives and wholly inefficient for the government and taxpayers, since that acquisition model is often the most expensive.

As panelists, Frank Backes of KRATOS, David Bair of Eutelsat, Pete Hoene of SES Space and Defense and Rick Lober of Hughes Network Systems, were excited to point out – that could all change.

As last year’s Wideband Analysis of Alternatives identified, and as industry partners have been saying for years, the military can benefit greatly from evolving its relationship with industry into more of a strategic partnership. They can also greatly increase the resiliency and assurance of their satellite networks by making commercial satellites part of a distributed, disaggregated satellite architecture.

This is an idea that Ken Peterman, the President of Government Systems at Viasat and the panel’s moderator, claimed is gaining traction within the military. According to Mr. Peterman, “I think, within government circles, support continues to build for a DOD, hybrid, multi-network adaptive enterprise so that the DoD has the improved resiliency, improved mobility and improved flexibility to take full advantage of commercial innovation.”

So, why the seismic shift? It ultimately comes down to the benefits that the military can gain from integrating commercial satellite communications (COMSATCOM) services into their architecture – which are becoming too numerous to ignore.

More assured and more innovative
As today’s military platforms and vehicles become increasingly network-centric and network-enabled, it’s becoming incredibly important that network connectivity be available anytime, anywhere. In this environment, network assurance is essential, and the addition of COMSATCOM services and solutions into the military’s combined satellite architecture could play a massive role in making network connectivity more assured.

Part of that increased mission assurance is the ability to send communications over commercial satellite networks when military satellites are jammed or otherwise denied. This benefit was explained by Mr. Hoene, who said, “You have more than 150 [commercial] satellites available to take advantage of. If you make [those satellites] part of a disaggregated architecture…when WGS gets jammed, you can seamlessly transition to one of the commercial satellite systems.”

But relying on commercial satellites to fill the gap created by denied military satellites is just one way that this combined, disaggregated infrastructure increases resiliency. As Mr. Hoene pointed out, it can also help to protect satellites and mitigate threats in the first place.

“The enemy will not be able to determine which satellites to jam or deny if the military is utilizing a combination of WGS and the 150-plus commercial GEO satellites,” Mr. Hoene said. “That distributed, disaggregated architecture complicates their calculus.”

This increased mission assurance and resiliency is one benefit of a comprehensive satellite architecture that utilizes both military and commercial satellite services and resources, but there is another enormous benefit – innovation. That’s because the satellite industry is constantly building and launching new satellites, and constantly looking to embrace newer and better technologies to make their services more attractive to customers.

Mr. Peterman illustrated the satellite industry’s new role as an innovator when he said, “I think a DoD acquisition process and culture that is predicated on inventing technology for the warfighter now needs to acknowledge that leadership in technology sectors – such as satellite communications – has moved to the private sector.”

By embracing an architecture that combines military and commercial satellites and resources, the military would effectively gain access to the advanced technologies being implemented across commercial owner/operators without having to develop, build and launch them itself.

By increasingly embracing commercial satellite services and offerings, the military could gain access to any number of new innovations being implemented across the satellite industry. This includes High-Throughput Satellites (HTS) at both GEO and MEO orbits capable of delivering fiber-like connectivity from space today, and not years down the road.

As Mr. Hoene explained, “The government needs to lean forward and give much of the work to industry so that industry can bring the innovation that we’re known for to the table. We develop the next generation GEO satellite and in two or three years, we launch. While the government would be looking [to launch in] ten years or twelve years.”

For additional information about the benefits of high-throughput, low-latency satellite connectivity for the military, click HERE.

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The members of this star-studded panel included:

• Warren Ferster: Editor-in-Chief of Space News (moderator)
• Winston Beauchamp: Deputy Under Secretary of the Air Force for Space, and the Director, Principal DoD Space Advisor Staff
• Peter F. Hoene: President & CEO, SES Space and Defense
• Rick Lober: VP and GM of the Defense & Intelligence Systems Division at Hughes Network Systems
• Kay Sears: President, Intelsat General
• Leonor Tomero: Professional Staff Member, House Committee on Armed Services
• Joe Vanderpoorten: Space & Missile Systems Center Pathfinder Program Office

Together, these satellite experts explored the difficult situation that the Air Force and the rest of the United States military is facing; namely, the rapidly approaching end of the Wideband Global SATCOM system (WGS) fleet program.

The WGS satellite constellation is comprised of ten disparate spacecraft that were scheduled for launch over the course of a decade. The final WGS satellite – WGS-10 – is slated to launch in FY18. The WGS system is a replacement for the aging Defense Satellite Communications System (DCSC), which had limited capacity compared to WGS and commercial satellites.

At a time of budget uncertainty and cost-cutting within the federal government, the exorbitant price tag on each of the WGS satellites seems unsustainable in both the near and distant future. This has the military looking at less expensive alternatives for satellite communications requirements following the launch of WGS-10. One of the alternatives being discussed across the space segment is the deliberate integration of commercial satellite communications (COMSATCOM) services into the National Security Space architecture.

The reasons to look to COMSATCOM as a key national security enabler were presented by Leonor Tomero, who identified, “new threats, fiscal constraints, [and a] need for resilience,” as drivers for this renewed interest in COMSATCOM services. Ultimately, Ms. Tomero noted that, “Relying more on commercial capability…may be more advantageous for the tax payer…“

Can COMSATCOM answer the call for satellite bandwidth following WGS-10? According to Pete Hoene of SES Space and Defense, “I think the answer to that is, “Yes,” and we are encouraged by…how the industry brings innovative solutions to the table.”

Despite assurances from the COMSTCOM industry that they can handle the bandwidth demands from the military, there are some concerns from the government about using COMSATCOM in this capacity. Many of these concerns circle around the Extremely High Frequency (EHF) wavelength, which has been utilized exclusively in the government satellites due to a lack of business cases to embrace it within the COMSATCOM industry.

This sentiment was echoed by Winston Beauchamp when he stated that the Department of Defense, “Historically [has] not seen a business case for commercial bandwidth in the EHF band.” Despite the DoD being, “committed to close partnerships and collaborations in the industry as we plan our next generation satellite architecture,” Mr. Beauchamp reiterated that, “While DoD is looking for services available commercially, that band is not commercially available.”

Discussion around the EHF and security of satellite communications is at a fever pitch thanks in large part to something that we heard extensively at this year’s SATCON Conference in New York, NY – space is an increasingly contested environment. Our adversaries know the military’s reliance on SATCOM for information sharing, intelligence gathering and remotely piloted aircraft operations, and have made significant strides towards intercepting, jamming, disabling and destruction of satellites and satellite communications.

The lack of EHF capacity on existing COMSATCOM spacecraft doesn’t mean that industry can’t support the military when it comes to providing secure communications.

First, there’s the opportunity to launch EHF payloads as hosted payloads aboard COMSATCOM satellites. In this situation, the military would place their mission-critical EHF payloads on commercial satellites that are slated to be launched in space. The COMSATCOM provider and military would then share the cost of launch and satellite operation, effectively slashing the total cost of launching the payload.

Mr. Beauchamp validated the potential to launch EHF payloads and systems as hosted payloads when he said, “Certainly for protected tactical systems you would want to see options that include hosted payloads.”

But launching EHF systems as hosted payloads is just one way that COMSATCOM services can help protect military satellites and communications. As Mr. Beauchamp explained, “I wouldn’t say that just because COMSATCOM systems don’t have the protections that MILSATCOM has that they are in any way less contributing to a resiliency. In fact, the diversity of these systems in itself contribute to resiliency.”

This increase in resiliency is an end result of deception and distribution. Distributing military communications through COMSATCOM satellites makes it extremely difficult to pinpoint exactly which satellite is carrying mission-critical communications for the U.S. military, making it harder for our adversaries to target a particular spacecraft. Mr. Beauchamp illustrated this point when he explained how COMSATCOM, “provide[s a] very complex environment to adversaries [and]… make[s] it as difficult as possible for them to really understand what it would take to hold our capabilities at risk.”

But deception is just one resiliency benefit of COMSATCOM. The distribution of military communications across multiple satellites – including COMSATCOM satellites – ensures that there is no one single point of failure, and that the compromise of one satellite doesn’t impact communications as a whole.

Despite the promise of secure military communications across COMSATCOM, and the ability to drastically reduce the cost of satellite bandwidth and capabilities across the military, there are still questions about how best to acquire and pay for satellite services. To gauge the effectiveness of different COMSATCOM services and their cost benefits, the Air Force launched a series of programs called, “Pathfinders.” These Pathfinder programs utilize acquisition dollars to purchase transponders that are then turned over to COMSATCOM providers to operate and service for a multiyear period.

When discussing the first Pathfinder program, panelist Peter Hoene of SES Space and Defense said, “[Pathfinder One] is a really key initiative and…broke a lot new ground. The idea of the government buying…a transponder and allowing the COMSATCOM owner/operator to operate that for their needs is really a breakthrough.”

The benefits of the Pathfinder program were extolled by Joe Vanderpoorten of the Air Force Space & Missile Systems Center, who claimed that the Pathfinder One program has been successful in delivering bandwidth to the customer, while also being, “successful economically.”

With the WGS program coming to a quick and abrupt end, the DoD and Congress need to identify how they’re going to bring new satellite capabilities on line following the launch of WGS-10. The panel discussion showed that COMSATCOM can provide the new technologies, increased flexibility and cost savings that are essential to the military today. By continuing to aggregate COMSATCOM purchasing under the authority of a single entity, finding new and innovative ways to purchase COMSATCOM services and working to integrate COMSATCOM services into a single network with military satellite capabilities, the DoD can be sure that they have a secure, resilient satellite network capable of delivering information when and where needed, in all situations and theaters.

Additional Resources:

• Sign up for upcoming WSBR events here
• Overview: SES Space and Defense Support for Pathfinder I
• U.S. Air Force Signs trailblazing Lease for SES Satellite Capacity – Space News

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