Photo: European Defence Agency

[Via Satellite 08-23-2016] European officials are nearing a critical decision point for the future of the Governmental Satellite Communications (GovSatCom) system, a program that would provide satellite communications resources to the European Union (EU), provided that enough members are interested. First embarked on in 2013, program leaders will provide participating member states with options for the its future by the end of the year.

The EU, European Defence Agency (EDA) and European Space Agency (ESA) have been working together to gauge the need for GovSatCom, and what form it might take. Last year EDA initiated a feasibility study for GovSatCom to lay the groundwork for a future multinational government satellite program. EDA’s program manager for satellite communications, Gerard Lapierre, recently left the agency, but prior to parting, discussed with Via Satellite the progress made with GovSatCom and how decisions this year will influence the direction of the program.

“The feasibility study should end in autumn this year, and this will support our work on the demonstration to know if it is worth making GovSatCom a reality,” said Lapierre.
Lapierre said EDA has been working on two priorities, the first gaining commitment from European Ministries of Defence (MODs) to engage further in a GovSatCom demonstration, and the second on evaluating whether there is sufficient evidence for the need to have GovSatCom. To the first effort, Lapierre said two types of member states have shown interest.

“The first are the ones who don’t have satcom assets or resources. To get access through others is already a benefit for them,” he said, listing Belgium, Romania and Poland as examples of supporting nations that would benefit from having access to a shared space segment. “The second is the satcom providers, the MODs who would be in a position to provide an access to space capacity.”

To EDA’s second objective, Lapierre said the agency is developing various baseline scenarios to determine what the user requirements are, and what solution would fulfill that need.

If GovSatCom gains sufficient traction, Lapierre said there will be new milestones by the end of this year, not only for EDA, but also for ESA, which is developing GovSatCom’s technical features. Together, EDA and ESA would develop follow-up activities to ensure the delivery of satcom capabilities to all communities of users.

“We are looking for something flexible; the ability to focus and to deploy the satcom capability where we need it, when we need it,” he said.

At its current stage Lapierre said EDA has defined five possible scenarios regarding GovSatCom’s geographic coverage. Partnering MODs can voice their opinions on which scenarios best match their needs.
Currently, predominantly Western European countries in Europe that field milsatcom systems: Syracuse in France, Satcom Bw in Germany, Skynet in the U.K., Sicral in Italy and Spainsat in Spain. New milsatcom systems are developing, such as LuxGovSat — a joint venture between the Luxembourg government and commercial operator SES, but, shared milsatcom systems have encountered challenges in the past.

“Joint military satellite telecommunications efforts have been in general unsuccessful in Europe, with some relevant exceptions — such as the Franco-Italian cooperation in projects such as the Athena Fidus and Sicral 2 satellite,” Helena Correia Mendonca, consultant at Vieira de Almeida & Associados (VdA), told Via Satellite. “Countries have been in many instances unable to agree on common development schedules and cost division.”

Mendonca said sovereignty issues, national security and national industrial policy interests have capsized past consolidated network ideas with multiple participating countries. GovSatCom faces political, commercial, technical and regulatory challenges of its own, she said, such as security concerns over being dual use — the European Commission is factoring in civil uses such as disaster relief —procurement and intra-EU transfers, interoperability and frequency allocation. The U.K.’s decision to leave the EU also complicates its future, as the U.K. was a “big supporter” of the initiative, according to Lapierre.

Compared to past attempts at shared government satellite resources, however, GovSatCom may fair better. Magda Cocco, partner at VdA, said the GovSatCom program might overcome many of these constraints due to several factors.

“On one hand, GovSatComs are less-strategic and sensitive in nature, which makes initiatives in this area more feasible. In fact, governmental communications satellites are characterized by a new SatCom service-class fitting between ComSatCom services and MilSatCom services,” she said.

Cocco also noted that the lines between security and defense are blurring, while the military is experiencing growing in reliance on civilian services. She also believes that GovSatCom could benefit from allowing a more coordinated and robust approach to defense than duplicate national programs.

Moreover, recent political events in Europe are influencing security and defense spending. Cocco said military spending across Europe was on the decline, especially following 2008, but recent data indicates defense budgets have begun climbing again in most European countries.

“There has been a rise in security threats in Europe — which are increasingly highly unpredictable and diverse —, which makes investment in this area more urgent. In fact, there is a growing need for secured satellite communications to support security missions and to protect critical information. Governmental satellite communications will be, in addition, vital for the Common Security and Defense Policy (CSDP),” she added.

EDA’s Lapierre pointed to the proposed demonstration phase as a means to prove the practicality and feasibility of GovSatCom. The demonstration would be with an existing asset, he said, and not with a new satellite.

“We anticipate a demonstration phase along the years 2017 to 2019, so the next three years,” he explained, adding that EDA is operating with the anticipation that European MODs will buy a proposal at the end of the year. “Under this assumption, we anticipate three years of activity to demonstrate that GovSatCom works, and then with synergies with the EU and ESA, we can imagine a capability after 2020, because the mandate from the European Council is to prepare the next generation of governmental satellite communications in the 2020 to 2025 timeframe.”

Lapierre said GovSatCom could include commercial operators as well, though as far as national partners it would likely be a standalone system for the EU and not intended for significant international sharing like the U.S. government’s Wideband Global Satcom (WGS) system.

“As it stands now, GovSatCom is being designed for secure and guaranteed access to improve European autonomy. That means not only mastering the architecture, but also in guaranteed access … but we do not close the door,” he added.