[Satellite Today – 6-19-08] The United States is using capacity on the United Kingdom’s military Skynet 5 satellites and further deals could be struck later this year. Paradigm, an EADS company, which operates the satellites is targeting further deals outside of the U.K. for capacity on the Skynet 5A, 5B, 5C satellites. In terms of deals with the United States, Paul Millington, VP business development, Astrium Services, told Satellite News, “We have recently won an order in the U.S., which is aimed to delivering very large capacity throughput. We are delivering 155 Mbps links from Iraq. We hope to expand those services with Skynet 5C. This has great coverage of Iraq all the way back to the East Coast of the United States. This encompasses the whole of Africa. That is pretty, attractive and scarce coverage.
    He continued, “In the second half of the year, we hope to get more orders under the contracts we already have. We hope to get more framework contracts. Obviously, the main agency for capacity contracts in the U.S. is the Defence Information Systems Agency (DISA). But, we also hope to do other direct contracts with the U.S. military. We haven’t announced a U.S. contract, but we are working with them right now.”

Capacity Available

Third party deals are vital as the Skynet 5 programme has to justify a huge multi-billion dollar investment. While the capacity needs of the United Kingdom’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) will come first, there is plenty of excess capacity available on the satellites for other nations and government agencies to take advantage of. Millington said, “More than half of the capacity is available to third party providers. At the moment we have two satellites up there fully operational. We have spare capacity on both of those satellites. Our own MoD are using more than they expected. There are some very sought after resources on our current constellation and these are already fully utilised.”
    Malcolm Peto, managing director, Paradigm, added, “We want to announce something in the U.S. again this year. There are also a couple of European opportunities. I would certainly think we could bring in one from the U.S. and certainly one or two in Europe as well. Because we are there, our current customers are tending to come to us for more. We are on and slightly ahead of expectations in terms of third party deals. We have launched three satellites in 18 months. People went from you could not do it, because you are giving communications away that belong to troops, to you could not do it because it has not been done before to Oh my god, you have done it.”

What is Skynet 5?

The Skynet 5 Programme will provide the U.K. Ministry of Defence (MoD) with the next generation of military satellite communications, linking fixed defence networks with naval, air and land forces deployed in overseas theatres. It will provide the U.K. MoD with military satellite communication services until 2018, during which time Paradigm will be responsible for provisioning services, maintaining the network and keeping services modern and efficient. The Skynet 5 program has been funded through a Private Finance Initiative (PFI) signed by the U.K. MoD. This was one of the most innovative deals done in the European military satellite communications space in recent times.

Power of the New Satellites

The Skynet 5C was successfully launched earlier this month and in essence completes the network along with the Skynet 5A and 5B satellites.. Peto believes the power of the new satellites is already being felt in places such as Afghanistan and Iraq, where British troops are present. He said, “It is already having an impact because Skynet 4 was a lot less powerful, so the communications improvement and full IP network capability is now readily available. It is bringing a lot better and greatly improved communication. In particular, you would have seen about our Information Dissemination Service (IDS), which is part of a managed service provided by Skynet 5. That is already being used to bring back intelligence, imagery, logistics support, troop information, weather information, operational command and control etc. The Paradigm managed services approach is already impacting operational activity in both those areas. There is much improved communications for our troops on the ground.”

Benefits of PFI Approach

With the U.K. MoD not owning the satellites, there is a more fluid process for adding capabilities and services and making them available to British troops. Peto said, “What you can hang off it, because it is network and IP based is a lot more capability. Every time, we turn around, there is increased capabilities in terms of video conferencing, increased capabilities in terms of data dissemination. All of those things are being planned within Paradigm now, because being a PFI, and being able to sell our services, there is no MoD approval route. For example, if the MoD wanted the IDS system which is now being used on ‘Reaper’ they would have to get the necessary approvals. Because we did that on our own dollar, it was available and they were able to buy the managed services.”
    Peto is proud of what the program has achieved so far. He said, “Europe scoffed at this a few years ago. French Generals turned up at Conferences saying this would never be allowed or this would never happen. Now, actually we are doing it. We are providing technologies and capabilities faster than anyone else.”
Millington added, “One of the lessons learnt is if you do the PFI properly, it can actually align the objectives of the military and the private sector. What was the most important thing for us? To deliver on time, because we borrowed a lot of money and people expected to be paid back. That is also the most important thing for the military, to get these capabilities up on time.”
    With the program proving to be a success story, Paradigm is set for a busy year now that the 5C satellite has been launched. In terms of the challenges for the year ahead, Peto said, “The coming year for us is about consolidating and exploiting our network with other third parties. We will continue to deliver what we are contracted to by the U.K. MoD. You have seen the U.K. MoD talk about increases in personnel in Afghanistan. Clearly, that is in parallel with things we have to do. We have to support our indigenous MoD and the increase in deployed forces in Afghanistan. But, now that we have delivered this system and the majority of this infrastructure, it is clearly about making the network and the capabilities of Paradigm available to other customers. We are already delivering to third parties in Netherlands, Australia, France, Germany, Portugal, Canada and NATO. We believe the opportunity there is to expand.”