Former CapRock CTO Philip Harlow has found a new position as Xtar’s president and COO, responsible for the growth and strategic direction of Xtar’s global X-band business as well as overseeing management, marketing and technical aspects of the company.

Harlow, a British military veteran with experience in nearly every level of the military satellite service value chain, joined Xtar June 3, following Harris Corp’s $525 million acquisition of CapRock. He joins Xtar at a dynamic time for the X-band market. With 38,000 NATO and 47,000 U.S. troops in mountainous Afghanistan and 115,000 U.S. troops in the deserts of Iraq — the military’s communication needs have been elevated. With the restrictive protocol of limited troop engagement, the need for real-time linkage on surveillance platforms and command and control structures also has been elevated. Harlow’s efforts will be focused on yielding high-power, commercial X-band communications satellites designed to meet growing commercial and military bandwidth demands.

Via Satellite News Editor Jeffrey Hill spoke with Harlow during his first week on the job about the history, as well as the future, of the growing X-band market and what role Xtar will play in its development.

Via Satellite: What is the transition like when you go from the technical leadership of being CTO to the executive leadership role of president and COO?

Harlow: Leading a company is a role I relish, and it’s a step up from being CTO, as I have more responsibility than I did before. I’m also coming on board at a time when there is a lot to do at Xtar. We have two spacecraft up, and we’re selling capacity to a market with a growing awareness of X-band capability. Xtar-Lant serves as an important point of connection back to the Unites States for forces in the Middle East. Xtar-Eur is providing high-speed connectivity to small X-band terminals in [U.S. Central Command] areas of opertation. All of our services are backwards compatible with existing X-band. The company also plays a significant role in support of the Global Information Grid (GIG), so the technology is exciting and to have responsibilties in managing these assets is just as exciting. 

Via Satellite: What attracted you to make the shift to Xtar?

Harlow: Xtar is a good for me and there are several reasons why. The first and most important being that I know a lot about the X-band market, and Xtar presents the unique challenge of serving that niche. The new job also puts me back in the satellite operator world, where I came from. It is also a good time to be getting into X-band, and I see a lot of potential as it continues to be in a growth stage. I believe that because of my experience as a customer of Xtar over the past four or five years. Xtar has a good foundation, and the company is on the cusp of doing something really special. 

Via Satellite: Besides being a former customer, what other history do you have with X-band?

Harlow: I have a military background, as I was in the British Army for almost 12 years. I operated those VSAT back in the 90s just after the Gulf War in the northern and southern no-fly zones. I was in those dusty places trying to make those X-band links work. I understand the military end-user experience of twisting knobs on the terminal. I’ve also been involved in the design of the network services and the terminals deployed in the field as well as the contract vehicles by which we get business from the government.

After entering the commercial satellite world, I found myself in a wide variety of roles at several different companies that remain strong forces in the industry today.

I was part of the PanAmSat/G2 team prior to its acquisition by Intelsat. l also was involved in in the PanAmSat acquisition and integration of Esatel Communications while I worked as Esatel’s vice president for business development. I was a North America sales director at Loral Orion and vice president of engineering and technology at DRS Technical Services, where we worked to provide satellite, terrestrial and enterprise-wide network communications services.

At CapRock, I was responsible for all aspects of engineering, IT, infrastructure development, new product management and strategic planning. My resume is pretty diverse. 

Via Satellite: Does your experiences provide you with an advantage in your new role?

Harlow: While the technology has certainly changed in the years since I served in the military, the general dynamic of the market and the importance of meeting the military’s needs remains just as crucial. In terms of my perspective in working with Xtar customers, I understand the pain that operators and customers have to go through under the government cycles. I understand the need to adapt when things change and to anticipate those changes to help the customer base get what they need.

Through the latter seven years of the DSTSG (Defense Information Systems Network Satellite Transmission Services-Global) program, I worked at PanAmSat and was part of the Intelsat acquisition. At that time, we were desperate for access to the customers. Working through integrators such as Artel, Arrowhead and Spacelink, we sometimes got to a stage where we just weren’t getting the information fast enough to respond to our customers fast enough, so I’ve been on that operator side. 

Via Satellite: Will the increasing demand for military X-band sustain?

Harlow: Commercially provided X-band is still a fairly new concept. It has taken some time to get the awareness of its capability as an augmentation to the WGS (Wideband Global Satcom) system out there to the military user. With the cyclical nature of people coming in and out of military positions, operators and service providers have to constantly educate and remind people that this capability exists, especially in the United States. X-band is already seeing wide use by other governments. The Spanish government has been using it with very small terminals for several years already, however, the growing awareness is starting to show in the United States. We’re getting more inquiries about available capacity and capabilities, with a noticeable increase in the last few months.

While nobody knows where the next conflict will be or how long we’ll have to stay in the current battle areas, the military knows that it will always need to have flexible and reliable capabilities at hand. 

Via Satellite: How has the relationship between commercial providers and military end-users developed as X-band awareness has grown?

Harlow: There have been many reports on the increased need for bandwidth all across the militaries due to the lack of C- and Ku-band capacity in critical areas of the world such as Africa and Afghanistan. The military’s relationship with X-band has developed in two significant ways. The first was the inclusion of X-band in the DSTSG and its continuing inclusion in the FCSA (Future Comsatcom Services Acquisition) procurement. The second is the inclusion of X-band in the U.S. Navy’s CBSP (Commercial Broadband Satellite Program) as a replacement for CWSP (Commercial Wideband Satcom Program). These developments show the military’s growing acknowledgement of and comfort level with commercial services.