Despite the budget buzz, the U.S. military will be purchasing their services for the foreseeable future, but according to Pawlikowski, the way the Pentagon purchases its services will be much different than they way it did during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

   “When I first entered the space procurement world in 2005, the only concerns for my superiors were capability and schedule,” said Pawlikowski. “As long as the spacecraft performed as advertised and they were launched on time, everyone was happy. Now, when it comes to communications solutions, the top word my superiors want to hear is ‘affordability’ and w are not in an environment where I can afford to start large programs.”

  In planning out to meet the Air Force’s communication need 10 to 15 years in advance, Pawlikowski said she sees several options to accomplish the task within budget – one of which is looking at how the Australian military paid the entire purchase price for one WGS satellite in exchange for one-sixth of the fleet capacity.

   “The lowest risk option for us would be simply to continue buying [Wideband Global Satcom] WGS and [Advanced Extremely High-Frequency] AEHF satellites, but those systems were designed in a different era when the United States had fewer competitors in space,” said Pawlikowski. “Space is now much more congested and contested, with about 60 nations operating satellites and 11 countries capable of launching spacecraft, which makes our spacecraft vulnerable to attack.”

   The statement could signal a turn away from the Air Force’s long-term plans, though its short-term plans are already underway in launching a series of new AEHF and WGS satellites. Pawlikowski’s Air Force Space and Missile Command Center has been invested in a potential new military satcom option in hosted payloads, for which it has opened a dedicated office.        

   “Hosted payloads are a new trend, but not a new technology,” said Pawlikowski.  “The next generation of protected communication satellites may be integrated aboard an available commercial bus. We may also be integrated these onto a commercial satellite system, but protected communication satellites hog up power and may not be a perfect fit for hosted payloads. Therefore, a smaller, dedicated spacecraft may be the preferred method as it would be more affordable than larger satellites. After all, AEHF satellites take seven years to build, and its development has suffered from cost overruns and schedule delays.”

   One of the biggest reasons the military will continue to buy capacity on commercial satellites is because of the flexibility they provide, said Pawlikowski, adding that commercial systems have shown the ability to adapt to the military’s changing needs.

   “We are going to be riding commercial satellites for a long time,” she said. “[The Defense Information Systems Agency] DISA has done a better job of signing capacity contracts that are more favorable to the military, but our leaders at the Defense Department will need to sort out how they perceive this reliance on the commercial bandwidth providers. The fundamental decision that I think the department needs to look at is whether or not we continue to view commercial satcom as a surge capability or as a baseline system like we have for our military satellites?”