When you consider the mission-critical services that military satellites provide – and the essential capabilities and communications they deliver to – it becomes abundantly clear why this topic dominates so many military space discussions.

Compromising or neutralizing a military satellite now means that Americans have to go without essential communications connectivity, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) data and mission-critical network applications and tools. These type of mission degradations would have immediate and negative impacts on lethality, and on the survivability of American troops.

Defending a Contested Space Domain

It comes as no surprise that defending satellites was once again the hot topic of discussion during a Defense One-organized, “Cocktails and Conversations,” event that was held just steps away from the Walter E. Washington Convention Center during one of the evenings of SATELLITE 2018 – one of the year’s largest satellite-focused conferences.

This event included a number of military satellite decision makers and thought leaders, each with incredible depth of experience and knowledge into the military’s satellite challenges and requirements. Present on the panel were:

• Douglas Loverro: President of Loverro Consulting, LLC and Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Space Policy
• Colonel George R. Nagy: Chief of the Space Support to Operations Division at the Pentagon
• Deanna Ryals: Chief of the International Programs Division within The MilSatCom Systems Directorate at the Space and Missile Systems Center, Air Force Space Command
• Dr. Brian Weeden: Director of Program Planning at the Secure World Foundation

The conversation began with basic overviews about DoD satellite strategy and the ongoing wideband analysis of alternatives (AOA) before shifting to the topic of resiliency. As it turns out, resiliency and mission assurance aren’t new issues, which was well illustrated by this anecdote from Dr. Weeden, “I was looking at some documents from the end of the Ford Administration, they were worried about threats to U.S. space systems from a growing adversary counter-space problem and the fact that their systems were not designed to be able to defend themselves or be survivable in the face of an attack.”

That administration ended more than 40 years ago.

No simple solution for satellite resiliency

Although this is clearly an old challenge, there has yet to be a perfect solution implemented across the DoD – most likely because there is no one, simple solution. As Mr. Loverro elaborated, “You can’t just build a bunch of satellites and say you’re resilient. You can’t just go ahead and put armor on your satellite and say you’re resilient. You can’t just go ahead and say just use commercial, or do responsive launch and say you’re resilient.” Instead, he challenged the military to, “…look at your mission, look at your architecture and the tools available and think about what makes it difficult – if not impossible – for someone to take that apart.”

Ultimately, multiple panel participants agreed that it’s going to be a combination of disparate solutions – a “basket of solutions” as Mr.

Weeden referred to it – that can be combined to better protect military satellite infrastructures and architectures. That “basket of solutions” was further defined by Mr. Loverro when he said, “It’s going to be a combination of proliferation, disaggregation, diversity, distribution, protection, proliferation and deception. Those factors can combine for any space capability that we know about to make them resilient, and – quite frankly – it doesn’t cost a lot of money if you combine them correctly.”

Although the panel all agreed that resiliency in satellite networks was of paramount importance for the DoD, they did disagree when it came to identifying exactly which threat was the largest one facing military satellites. Two of the panelists were concerned about cyber attacks and cyber threats impacting military satellites. Mr. Loverro was more concerned about a somewhat less sophisticated, albeit equally effective, threat to satellites – jamming.

According to Mr. Loverro, “Cyber attack against a variety of communications networks is a difficult challenge. But the far simpler thing that Russia can do. That North Korea can do. That Iran can do. That Botswana can do. That some guy in the middle of a field with a TV truck can do…is jamming. Jamming is very hard to protect against, unless you have the right equipment.”

And that’s an area where commercial satellite can help.

Getting down to the jam

When making the decision about which orbit to place their military satellites will take, the DoD chose GEO because fewer satellites could provide coverage for much of the Earth’s surface. Fewer satellites meant less money. But, as Mr. Loverro noted, “What is good for economics isn’t good for the military.”

Jamming a satellite’s signal requires being within the satellite’s beam – or coverage area. This is much easier with GEO satellites, because their coverage areas are so large. By launching military satellites into GEO, the coverage the military wanted came at a lower price tag, but with an increased risk of jamming. As Mr. Loverro explained, “GEO was cheap to launch, but harder to defend.”

But there are commercial solutions that can help protect military communications from jamming.

Today’s commercially-available High Throughput Satellites (HTS) utilize steerable spot beams that provide incredible throughput, but cover smaller areas. Some of these satellites are currently operating in MEO orbits, meaning they combine high throughput with low latency, and are naturally more prolific and harder to jam. By embracing these commercial HTS and MEO satellite constellations, the military can essential get anti-jamming capabilities baked in.

Luckily, the door could be opening for an increased role for commercial partners in the military’s space architecture – making these HTS and MEO constellations more readily available for military users. As part of the wideband satellite AoA, the DoD is exploring new ways to approach the construction of their satellite architecture, and is looking seriously at a more integrated network of commercial and military-owned satellites.

By building a combined architecture that embraces a combination of purpose-built, military-owned satellites and commercial capabilities, the military can better take advantage of the innovative new solutions that commercial providers are bringing to market. Based on statements from Mrs. Ryals, that could very well be in the cards:

“There’s a big push to expand and increase our partnerships for resiliency and national defense – to build capabilities together. I think that expands not just to allied partners, but also commercial partners. With the amount of commercial capability that’s out there and available today, we have to find ways to change the way that we procure SATCOM capabilities. We have to look through the AoA and look at how we’re approaching that balance of military vs commercial. But we recognize that the commercial industry is one of our biggest partners that we have not yet tapped to help us build this architecture and build this infrastructure.”

By tapping this previously under-utilized resource, the military can better protect its satellite capabilities from jamming and ensure that the warfighter never has to go without essential services again.

MEO and HTS constellations are the latest commercial innovations being embraced by the federal government, capable of securely 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

The post Overcoming the largest threats to military satellites and increasing resiliency 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

The post SATELLITE 2018 provides window to satellite industry and government at a time of transition appeared first on SES Space and Defense.