There are very few satellite executives that have worked as intimately with the U.S. military and government sectors as Intelsat General President Kay Sears, who has spent the past several years promoting cooperation between commercial and military satellite communications as a viable solution to Pentagon communications needs.

The U.S. military’s concerns over security for sensitive data and information has been a considerable challenge for commercial providers, however, with the cancellation of the U.S. Air Force’s Transformational Communications Satellite (TSAT) program and a tightening defense budget, new ideas for commercial’s role in the military architecture are being put on the table, she says.

Sears discusses the behind-the-scenes developments that have taken place since TSAT’s cancellation and where she believes the discussion on military and commercial satellite communications networks is headed.

VIA SATELLITE: Has the conversation between commercial providers and the Pentagon over security concerns advanced?

SEARS: The conversation is advancing towards a certainty that military and commercial satcom networks are going to coexist and share applications. I think what we have seen recently is a real effort from the military to conceive an architecture that incorporates commercial. They clearly have decided that there is a role for commercial and we would like to see that defined a little more specifically. Security, of course, is a crucial component of that architecture. The military has to have some protected communications, but they also need a lot of unprotected communications.

One type of architecture I think is worth noting since the cancellation of TSAT relates to a distributed architecture. It would function much like the Internet, having multiple nodes or platforms or hosted payloads spread across many different satellites around the globe. This is now being discussed as a real alternative to building these huge TSAT-type satellites that cost a lot of money with a lot of advanced capabilities concentrated on one big satellite. Distributed architecture is a great place for commercial to play and to be a solution provider because we are able to place the military on a variety of our satellites spread throughout the world. This has been the dominant type of architecture discussed since the cancellation of TSAT — a situation where there would be all different levels of security on these satellites with the military being able to set that security.

VIA SATELLITE: Does this distributed network architecture solve security issues?

SEARS: Just by distributing your protected and unprotected communications through multiple systems throughout the world, you are actually enhancing the security of the whole system. Essentially, the military wouldn’t even have to add the security features on all of those satellites, as the architecture itself is more secure by definition. After TSAT was canceled, the military went back to the drawing board and asked itself some questions about that particular system. One of those questions did involve the vulnerability of a single satellite. What if they had put all of their capabilities on one big satellite and it was taken out or experienced a system failure? They would have lost all of that capability. The security benefits of a distributed network architecture is a fresh perspective that has been gaining momentum over the past few months.

VIA SATELLITE: If the Pentagon were to request transponder exclusivity and separation from commercial transponders, would Intelsat be prepared to do that?

SEARS: Yes. Transponder exclusivity is available on many commercial systems and in many cases, the government is the only user on those certain transponders. The military can purchase an entire transponder that they can manage themselves within their capacity. This is often how the military buys — in full transponder increments.

At the same time, I think that it is important moving forward that both sides discuss how the government and military can utilize commercially provided managed services where they might be intermingled with other commercial customers. This situation does not necessarily mean that the military would not get the bandwidth, security or quality of service that they need. There are a lot of great technologies out there that allow you to incorporate bandwidth-on-demand services that share capacity. The user experience is still very good and has very high quality.

VIA SATELLITE: Will commercial satellites ever be able to provide the exact security protection the military desires?

SEARS: One of the main differentiators that we look at relates to security. The military has said that they need some of their communications to go over a fully protected system, and we agree with them. And by fully protected, I mean specifically that there are varying levels of protection in place, with that system will have the highest level of protection. Currently, the military has a protected system, Milstar, which is now being replaced by Advanced EHF. That is for their most secure communications requirements going over a protected satellite. In comparison, the Intelsat system has a certified NSA type-1 encrypted command and control link. Intelsat, like other commercial operators, protect their systems to an extent, but we do not go as far on the protection as the Advanced EHF systems will go. That is truly a protected satellite. It’s protected from jamming, nuclear explosions and several other dangers, but these protections add serious costs to the satellite itself. The military also has the WGS system. Although it does have some security features on it, it is not what you would call a fully protected system. It is much more like the commercial satellites that Intelsat flies.

VIA SATELLITE: Is this view of how military and commercial systems compare understood by the military?

SEARS: Yes, and we are moving forward in dialog now with the military to lay out their needs and find out what they would pay for on truly commercial satellites. Right now, we have the command and control link encrypted. As far as building secure satellite, it is not that Intelsat is unable to build more secure satellites, we just need to know what, specifically, the military wants to see on them. I think both sides of the table clearly understand this.

VIA SATELLITE: Has the weakened economy and tightened defense budget helped motivate this move?

SEARS: I think it has. The TSAT cancellation, in particular, forced the military to revalidate their requirements. They didn’t necessarily have to start from scratch, but they had to make sure they had an accurate picture of their requirements and had accounted for what changes took place in their needs since they defined them for TSAT. It’s not that those requirements changed much. What has changed is the way the military can satisfy those needs. Overall, the military’s thinking is clearly changing and we’re seeing much more involvement on the commercial side. The military has even asked us to submit information into its analysis of alternatives reports, and for our input — which includes everything from what we’ve done for them up until today to what we can do for them in the future. We now present a wide range of ideas and alternatives to buying these huge satellites, where the programs are too expensive and over budget and take 10 years to finish. The military knows that they cannot afford those types of programs or to make the same mistakes they’ve made in the past.

VIA SATELLITE: Do you agree with U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) criticism that the military acquisition process has been too risky?

SEARS: Yes, I do. The process needs a complete overhaul and needs to resemble the process that commercial use to approach new projects. When I look at this problem from Intelsat’s perspective, I can say that we are conservative in the way we buy our satellites. We are always looking for proven technology. We’re willing to take measured risk on new technology. However, we do want to evolve our satellites and have the latest and greatest technology. I think what was happening to the military was that they were leaning so far forward on risk that these programs, like TSAT, were just out of control. These programs have to balance new technology and low risk.

When you really pull back the covers on some of these military projects, what you find is the Air Force trying to meet the constantly changing requirements for all of the different military branches, and as soon as those requirements are defined and in black and white, they change. I think that what everyone is starting to say is that the military was also leaning too far forward with their requirements and trying to solve 110 percent of their problems instead of looking at some of the off-the-shelf solutions and evolving technology over time. They don’t have to do everything in one project. They can justify an 80 percent solution if its delivered on time and within budget, and they can make small changes to it over time to evolve the system.

VIA SATELLITE: What is the responsibility of the military satcom manufacturers in this situation?

SEARS: I think that the manufacturers have been put in an extremely difficult situation because a lot of what they’re being asked to do is developmental in nature. When the military goes to a manufacturer and has a bunch of pieces of a system that are in the research and development phase, the manufacturers struggle to bid and stick to a schedule. The reason is that they don’t know how long it is going to take them to build these capabilities, and they cannot accurately account for all the sorts of problems they will encounter along the way. On top of that problem, the military constantly changes its requirements. This costs the military a lot of money, as the manufacturers get paid very well to cover their developmental risk, which they can’t estimate on. They don’t know if it’s going to take six months or six years. That’s a wide window you have to cover, and that is why these programs go over budget.

It is much different on the commercial side. When Intelsat buys a satellite from a manufacturer, we are essentially buying something that is off the shelf. We’re using components that have multiple suppliers and the manufacturer is able to give us a satellite that is relatively low-risk. That is why their cost and schedule estimates are usually on target for us. They know how to build these satellites.

VIA SATELLITE: How is this process going to change for the military?

SEARS: You are going to see more prototypes in the military acquisition process. You’re also going to see companies being contracted to develop certain parts of systems as a specific research and development program instead of building one big system all together.

VIA SATELLITE: Has the new U.S. presidential administration affected your interactions with your government customers?

SEARS: It has been very positive. The Obama administration is very concerned with information security over fiber and very supportive of developments with unmanned aerial vehicles, point-to-point and point-to-command communications. We are fortunate that Defense Secretary Robert Gates has continued on in his post. He has a very good grasp on the communication technology needs of today’s military. With increased activity in Afghanistan, which is a very difficult territory to wage a campaign, it has become more even important for the military to have the satcoms they need, and the new administration is well aware of that.

VIA SATELLITE: Will the military ever be able to meet its own technological needs or will its reliance on commercial become a long-term reality?

SEARS: I definitely think the military’s reliance on commercial systems will be a long-term scenario. I think its going to continue being a part of the architecture and consistently defined and refined in terms of what role we’re going to play from the present into the future.

I do not, however, think the reliance on us is purely a result of any one thing, whether it be the acquisition process or cost overruns. I think it has to do with the applications and the ability of those applications to utilize commercial satellites. What the military is doing in terms of voice, video and data is very similar to what we support in the commercial world, it’s just that they have strict security requirements and unique locations where they have to do this type of communicating from. If you look at the Predator and Global Hawk airplanes, we’re doing a lot of their communication support. It is basically video coming off the plane utilizing sensors and data collectors. We support a lot of the same video requirements through our broadcast community. Some of them are using the same types of standards. Predator and Global Hawk are also migrating to high definition, much like our broadcasters. The applications are very similar.