As inevitable budget cuts have become the key factor in developing U.S. military communications strategies, the Pentagon has been searching for ways to improve the performance of its network infrastructure at a lower cost without sacrificing the geographic reach of its operations. The ability of the satellite communications sector to meet new technological and performance requirements without sacrificing bandwidth puts the sector in an advantageous position following Congress’ approval of the U.S. Department of Defense’s Joint Space Communications Layer Plan for improving communications through space. “This Joint Space Communications Layer recognized that there are certain exquisite communications capabilities, which were developed and owned by the U.S. military, that should be designed and transmitted over commercial satellites,” says Rebecca Cowen-Hirsch, president of Inmarsat Government Services. “Capabilities such as highly protected nuclear and command-and-control communications were acknowledged as suitable for the satellite platform. Overall, the document showed receptiveness to the idea of making greater use of commercial satellite capacity and communications architecture as part of the military’s future budget planning,” she says.

The U.S. National Security Space Strategy, which serves as the military segment of President Barack Obama’s National Space Policy released in February, set the plan in motion by establishing a foundation for military communications network developments. Aerospace Industries Association CEO Marion Blakey says that while the plan re-energized military and commercial satellite strategies from a macroeconomics approach, it still lacked a microeconomic view from the ground for the end user. “At the time, there was a serious risk that compatibility between military communications equipment and commercial satellites would not have been incorporated as quickly as they needed to be. The more user equipment that must be upgraded later, the less efficient the military’s new communications architecture will be. That was simply not an option in the new budget environment.”

The military began its integration of commercial capacity to complement the Wideband Global Satcom (WGS) constellation since the launch of WGS-1 in 2007. The constellation, which provides wideband communications to ships, soldiers and manned and unmanned aircraft users, has help cover the gap between ever-increasing bandwidth demands and available capacity. WGS’ role has increased significantly in the post-Transformational Satellite program (TSAT) world, as highly protected, jam-resistant communications do not provide enough throughput for modern military communication requirements and more and more encrypted communications continue to be sent across its channels.

WGS, however, is not a long-term safety net, as acknowledged in the Defense Department’s own projections that the constellation will not be able to fulfill the military’s communications demand on its own. To meet requirements while cutting costs and allowing some breathing room for future budgets, the Pentagon supplemented WGS and its legacy Defense Satellite Communications System by buying commercial C-, Ku- and X-band capacity on an ad hoc basis. “The current budget profile simply did not have sufficient room to buy the number of WGS satellites originally intended to meet the full requirement for wideband communications,” says U.S. Army Col. Patrick Rayermann, director of the Communications Functional Integration Office for the National Security Space Office. “You had to go by history, where satellite acquisition programs were not responsive enough for the needs of the warfighter and the ratio of military satcom capability provided by commercial satellites continued to increase well beyond 80 percent. Now we do have an opportunity to complement WGS, and the underlying questions are starting to come in over whether or not more WGS satellites are necessary. How will the military plan and program for essential mission capabilities, and what will be combination of military and commercial capability? You can answer the big questions by answering the ones for the end user first. Satellite-receiving terminal programs, for example, must be aligned to offer flexible and adaptive use of available satellites to personnel on the ground. We now have to make some tough decisions about which programs to continue and how to adjust others to best leverage commercial satcom,” he says.

Designing to Meet Military Needs

During the past year, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has been leading efforts to move the military away from ad hoc capacity purchases and determine the best method and rate of integration in bringing more commercial services into the military architecture. Whether those efforts are judicious or properly coordinated remains to be seen, says Cowen-Hirsch. “Our industry has been keen to understand and help the government describe the steps it plans to take to make use of the commercial Ka-band satellites now in development.”

The next generation of commercial satellites are designed with military capabilities as a response to the military’s future transition strategy, says Cowen-Hirsh. Inmarsat’s Global Xpress service satellites, like WGS, are being constructed on Boeing 702 satellite frames and will be launched into geosynchronous orbit starting in 2013. The first Global Xpress satellite, Inmarsat-5, will be placed above the Indian Ocean to provide service for Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Southwest Asia, including Afghanistan. Inmarsat hopes to achieve worldwide coverage for the system with another pair of satellites scheduled to reach orbit in 2014. “Nobody expects demand for military communications to diminish, even as the U.S. brings troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan. The United States is a global power, not only with the responsibilities of managing these battle theaters, but also with training our allies, leading peacekeeping missions and military contingencies. Demand will remain high, but the military must also focus on flexibility. It’s a no-brainer that capacity will need to be increased dramatically and rapidly over regional hot spots. Commercial Ka-band services can help the military do that,” she says.

Blakey agrees that the military’s shift from more boots on the ground to more reliance on space has helped drive the demand of satellite support for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance operations and bandwidth-intensive UAV missions. “The military plans to transition many of its unmanned aircraft links to Ka-band communications. These links are attractive because they are higher frequency and higher bandwidth, and they require smaller satellite dishes.”

The U.S. Air Force’s unmanned Predator vehicle uses commercial Ku-band satellites to route video to ground control and intelligence stations. The UAV also transmits video to commercial satellites, which then relay the data to gateways on the ground. Those gateways then route the video to the correct users via the military’s Global Information Grid, a network of fiber-optic cables. But the biggest challenge in planning future operations with higher-frequency communications is interference created by rain fade.

Cowen-Hirsch says the commercial satellite sector, like the military, has taken a wide-ranging technical approach to coping with rain fade. “As the military shifts to Ka-band communications, my company and others are taking steps to ensure our Ka-band systems can be used by the military. This can become a reality only if the military takes tangible steps to prepare for these commercial services,” she says. “If the Defense Department is to utilize commercial Ka-band satellites, soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines must be able to tune their communications terminals seamlessly between WGS and the commercial Ka-band services. While developments are underway, there is, unfortunately, no program of record that is exploring that capability at this time,” she says.

International Efforts

In Europe, cost-cutting measures for future military budget planning require a bit more cooperation between governments. Major military space players such as France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom, while pursuing individual programs, are combining efforts to save on costs. France, Germany and Italy have data-sharing agreements for their current reconnaissance satellites. France and Italy are collaborating on a new Syracuse 3 military communications satellite. These agreements likely will continue and expand with next-generation satellites, says Teal Group analyst and director of space studies Marco Caceres.

In the next 10 years, the United States will account for 77 percent of global military satellite sales, with Europe second at 9.3 percent. Countries such as Russia, China and Israel are increasing their military space spending, and, by the end of a 10-year forecast period, Asian countries will outpace Europe with 12.5 percent of the market, he says. “The reason you will see these numbers continue to increase over the long-term is that paying commercial satellite operators to host government payloads is much cheaper than deploying a dedicated satellite or spacecraft network and it gives the government flexibility to deploy a single payload where it is needed most on a satellite close to launch. And it provides an extra revenue stream for the commercial satellite operator.”

While the commercial sector has been using hosted payloads for years, they have been limited to government use, however, the National Space Policy cites shared and hosted space capabilities as a desired cost-saving goal for future satellite missions. Hosted payloads have become increasingly flexible with military equipment on the ground as well. U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Deputy Assistant Charles Baker says NOAA’s future space missions may take advantage of hosted payloads to save costs. “Satellites, especially those with military and scientific applications, are expensive to develop and operate. One way to avoid the high-costs of a dedicated spacecraft is to put a payload, such as a scientific sensor package, on another satellite. In theory, a number of different payloads could be carried, or hosted, on a large satellite.”

Baker says government-owned payloads work well in NOAA’s plans because of the agency’s preference for unrestricted data redistribution rights. “The real challenge is funding. One of the benefits of hosted payloads is that they allow programs to go forward. Otherwise, the cost of a dedicated satellite is too high for many civilian agencies to bear. Civilian agencies have even tighter budgets than the Defense Department. We’re in trouble, so the chances of beginning something new are pretty slim,” he says.