On Wednesday, September 8, SATELLITE held the “Reducing Ground Infrastructure Costs in the New Space Supply-Chain” session, where Leaf Space, IT’s U.S. Managing Director, Jai Dialani, moderated a panel discussion that included:

• Assaf Cohen, Global Vice President Sales and Marketing, SpaceBridge Inc.
• Stuart Daughtridge, Vice President, Kratos
• Paul Mattear, Principal Business Development Manager, Amazon Web Services
• Sergy A. Mummert, Senior Vice President, Business Development, Americas, SES
• Richard Schgallis, Executive Vice President, Space and Communications USA, Safran Data Systems

There is always constant speculation about the “future” of the space economy, and how it will include increased demands for satellite services and capabilities, higher speeds, and ubiquitous access. But the experts on this panel explained that these high demands already exist and will only be growing larger in the coming years. But, there is one huge roadblock standing in the way to satisfying these needs.

Over the past decade, the technological improvements that have taken place in the space layer have been monumental. According to Daughtridge, these technological advancements have equipped software defined satellites with “unbelievable capabilities.” And the wide array of missions that the space layer can support are vast. Today’s satellites have the ability to enable orbital transport, Earth observation, IoT, broadband communications, and cislunar missions.

According to Schgallis, “We are rapidly approaching this point where systems will become multi-mission capable, with higher and higher data rates, and multi-band terminals…There’s this goal to make things as widely compatible for economies of scale as possible.”

“The ground segment needs to catch up to basically enable those capabilities that have been put in the spacecraft.” – Stuart Daughtridge

The issue that is preventing the deployment of these services is that the ground segment systems meant to direct and control these satellite missions are years behind in their own development, rendering a satellite’s potential capabilities untapped and unused.

And this untapped space layer potential can translate into major losses for satellite providers. “The ground segment’s behind,” said Daughtridge. “The ground segment needs to catch up to basically enable those capabilities that have been put in the spacecraft. Because right now, it’s really hard to monetize the capabilities that those satellites have.”

In other words, it doesn’t matter how great a satellite is if the ground segment can’t support it. So what can be done to catch these ground segments up?

According to Mattear, “One of the issues that we have with ground infrastructure is a lack of standards across the board.” As the satellite industry continues to move towards utilizing more partner-developed software defined systems, there must be a standard that they can develop towards. “Otherwise, you end up with a single stovepipe system,” said Mattear. “And that stovepipe system doesn’t let you monetize.”

The consequences from the lack of interoperability spread far beyond satellite providers. The U.S. military is working to embrace a combined MILSATCOM and COMSATCOM architecture that will deliver the increased satellite bandwidth they need for today’s network-enabled operations, and give them access to the innovation of the commercial satellite industry. However, the lack of interoperability in ground networks and hardware is making this combined architecture difficult to achieve.

“One of the issues that we have with ground infrastructure is a lack of standards across the board.” – Paul Mattear

According to Frank Backes, senior vice president for Federal Space at Kratos, “Unfortunately, multiple organizations independently pursuing their own mission needs have produced a number of ground-based proprietary satellite communication solutions, which have created a lack of interoperability between different commercial services and the armed forces. Those same proprietary solutions remain roadblocks to a dynamic SATCOM infrastructure supporting communication for an evolving military theater.”

Through standardization, satellite and ground system providers would be able to implement solutions and services that would reduce ground infrastructure costs, and, according to Mattear, “allow that to be monetized by other customers, help that symbiotic chain generate revenue across the board, and more importantly, support the end customer.”

But how does that standardization happen? All the panelists agreed that virtualization and digitization, like moving towards cloud technologies, are key.

According to Mummert digitization and virtualization are not only game changers in reducing ground infrastructure costs, but they also provide opportunities for new service models. “Having more infrastructure distributed across a global network, like AWS…is really a game changer for the satellite operators.”

With the promises of being able to move a lot of the work into cloud environments, and making the access compatible, no matter where the customer is, is “opening up a lot of doors” according to Schgallis. “I’m very excited about these opportunities, and our organization is actively working in this vein with as much virtualization and cloud processing as possible.”

Virtualization also accelerates the move from purpose-built hardware to mission unique software. “In software applications, especially in a cloud environment where you can spin up service chains and things like that, you can get the resiliency and the scalability that a cloud offers,” explained Daughtridge. “It allows you to have flexibilities for multiple different missions, with the same basic generic hardware, because you can change the personality of the infrastructure.”

Implementing these service models, through virtualization, means that satellite provider customers who are used to consuming cloud resources in the terrestrial world, can now have access to them via satellite. “The model makes sense to them,” said Mummert. “The interoperability is very important to them. It just enables a whole new ecosystem and economy.”

“We want standards. We want to drive scale for the industry. I think this is the right direction, but it needs more work. But we’ll get there.” – Sergy Mummert

But this does pose a challenge for ground segment developers, such as panelist Assaf Cohen. According to Cohen, “From the ground segment perspective…we have a lot of complexities. We have to deal with many new technologies with many orbits.” He explained that the challenges lie within developing the software to cope with all of the hardware challenges.

“We have to be interoperable,” explained Cohen. “To connect all these dots and implement the standards, we are an integral part and not just the one supporting the network.” He went on to say that the challenges get even more complicated because everything must become interoperable in real time.

To remedy these challenges, several groups have popped up within the industry to support a standardization dialogue. And Mummert happens to be on one of them. “We want standards,” said Mummert. “We want to drive scale for the industry. I think this is the right direction, but it needs more work. But we’ll get there.”

In the end, all of the issues of standardization and virtualization comes down to the partner ecosystem coming together to solve these immense challenges. According to Mummert, when industry partners cross-collaborate, “You open up these doors and create interoperability and opportunities for things to be created on your platform.”

The post How ground segment systems are rendering innovative satellite capabilities useless appeared first on SES Space and Defense.

One of the overarching themes at this year’s event was technological “disruption”. The theme wasn’t negative, as in satellite disruption from jamming or interference – although that was discussed at length – but rather optimistic in evaluating disruptive technologies that are going to shake up the industry and impact how the satellite industry operates.

High-throughput satellites (HTS) were atop the list of disruptive technologies discussed.

Every major satellite operator either has launched – or is in the process of launching – HTS satellite constellations. This new generation of satellites has the potential to deliver incredible capabilities and benefits to government agencies, military services and other users simply due to its incredible increase in bandwidth resulting from its ability to take advantage of frequency reuse. This means that each individual satellite can deliver exponentially more data at incredibly higher throughputs than traditional, wideband satellites.

This is extremely essential for military and civilian government organizations, whose demand for reliable connectivity extends beyond the reach of terrestrial networks and out into the field where SATCOM connectivity is the most viable option. HTS enables a high-speed, high-bandwidth experience that is accessible in even the most austere environments. HTS also enables many of the advanced capabilities the military needs in the field, including the delivery of high-quality, real-time intelligence data.

This need was echoed in the remarks of Aneal Krishman, who not only serves as a Principal at Veritas Capital, but also served in Iraq as an infantryman with the U.S. Army Reserve. During a panel discussion titled, “Disruptions and Opportunities: MilSatCom and ComSatCom in Both Space and Ground Segments,” Aneal said, “In Iraq, most of the bandwidth we were using and the technology that was set up, was over commercial networks that were dedicated to the government….for example, the drone program…”

But why is HTS considered disruptive? The answer lies in the cumulative launch of HTS satellites across the industry and the government’s corresponding ability to leverage the advanced capabilities. In some cases, one single HTS satellite can deliver the same capacity as an entire constellation of traditional, wide-band GEO satellites. The result will be the government’s ability to acquire more satellite bandwidth, capacity and capabilities without having to increase spending.

That disruption is important to the evolution of our national space architecture, especially today. Discretionary government funding for social programs, military modernization and homeland security priorities has proven to be limited, leaving many to cut back their spending and reprioritize where they’re putting scarce budget dollars.  Leaders on the various panels at Satellite 2016 certainly recognized fiscal realities and were actively engaged in discussions on how best to leverage the commercial market.

Cost efficiencies and budgets aside, there are other benefits to leveraging commercial HTS constellations. One of which is the ability to utilize this technology sooner.

COMSATCOM providers actively replenish their respective satellite fleets. This means that they’re constantly ordering, provisioning and launching new satellites with exciting new capabilities and innovative new technologies. This includes new HTS constellations that are now either launched or will be launched in the very near future.

The same innovative HTS technologies are available to the government through the satellite manufacturers, such as Lockheed Martin, Northrup Grumman and SSL. However, by the time they allocate budget dollars, compete contracts, select vendors, build satellites, schedule launch and bring that satellite online, years could have passed.

In those years in which the government was, “building it themselves,” there was most likely a similar satellite being built and launched – or already operated – by a COMSATCOM company. Simply put, integrating COMSATCOM into a wider architecture will facilitate technology insertion at commercial industry’s pace and deliver HTS technology to the military – and the advanced capabilities it delivers to the warfighter – much sooner.

This isn’t just sentiment or verbiage espoused solely by the COMSATCOM industry and service providers. Military decision makers have openly acknowledged their inability to keep pace with the COMSATCOM industry. In fact, Doug Loverro, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Space Policy at the Department of Defense (DoD) was quoted as saying, “In order to keep pace with the ever-expanding user need. And the users are incorporating new technologies – video, Internet, streaming services and more we haven’t thought of yet – as fast as the commercial world produces them on the ground. We can’t go ahead and maintain that pace of change in space. The only people that can maintain that rate of change in space is the commercial world.”

Mr. Loverro went on to identify many of the aforementioned economic and process challenges as contributing factors to this disparity between government and industry, citing the WGS satellite constellation as an example. “[The DoD] defined WGS in the 1996 budget that we submitted to the President. That system was defined twenty years ago. The systems that are being launched by the commercial world today were defined two years ago…three years ago. They’re not subject to the bureaucratic process and – quite frankly – the economic process that drive DoD decision makers. And that’s critical because it allows new technology to be ingested.”

The commercial satellite industry has proven quick to integrate leading edge technology into their fleets without significant delay.  The coming disruption of HTS will enable a broader range of COMSATCOM services and solutions to the government – all available at competitive price points.

My time at SATELLITE 2016 reinforced that this truly is an exciting time for the use of COMSATCOM across the military and federal government. The emergence of HTS technology and the launch of next generation HTS constellations not only will provide the bandwidth necessary for truly revolutionary IT services and capabilities in the field, but do so at a drastically reduced cost. The pace at which industry moves will expedite the availability of bandwidth, capacity and advanced capabilities to end users – delivering the connectivity of the future to the tip of the spear today.

To learn more about High Throughput Satellites, click on the resources below:

• High Throughput Satellites for U.S. Government Applications
• The Big Beam Boom (High Throughput Satellites)

The post The capacity is coming, the capacity is coming! Why now is the time for COMSATCOM in the federal government appeared first on SES Space and Defense.