In its efforts to deliver modern satcom capabilities to the warfighter, the Pentagon has historically struggled to synchronize the launch of next-generation satellites with ground-based infrastructure. Terminal program managers on both the military and the commercial side are preparing for their programs to be affected now that budgets are scrutinized more than ever, however, most have not yet seen a major impact on key programs.

The issue of synchronization — aligning the space and groundside so the satellites once in orbit have terminals to connect with them — continues to be a major challenge. The Government Accounting Office (GAO) cited a 2009 report in testimony last year before the Senate Armed Services Committee’s subcommittee on strategic forces, which found that none of the five space systems in development requiring user terminals were aligned with the launch of the satellites.

The delays and cost overruns in the space segment are well documented. The Navy’s postponed launch of its next-generation Mobile User Objective System Satellite (MUOS) communications satellite has created a push to develop other options to diminish a pending gap in critical tactical mobile communications. The Navy has faced a nearly 50 percent jump in contractor costs for the $6 billion system, and originally had expected to launch the first of MUOS’ 10 satellites in 2008.

Advanced EHF (AEHF), the next-generation of global, highly secure, survivable communications systems for warfighters within all services that will provide 10 times greater total capacity and offer channel data rates six times higher than that of Milstar II communications satellites, was five years behind schedule when the first satellite was launched in 2010, according to GAO reports. The $5.6 billion program when it began in 2001, ended up costing nearly twice that much and yielding one less satellite, the GAO reported.

FAB-T, the largest Air Force protected satcom terminal program designed to provide protected wideband satellite communications in support of command and control of U.S. nuclear forces, begins final qualification testing in 2012 and fielding in 2013. However, the FAB-T program milestones come after years of slipped schedules (original production was for 2007 and later was set for 2010), and after the Air Force stated its interest in seeking a second prime contractor for the program.

GAO has described both AEHF and FAB-T programs as examples of space programs in need of schedule synchronization between satellite construction and development of user equipment and software. It calculated that just 2 percent of the FAB-T terminals will be ready when AEHF is declared operationally capable, which is defined as two satellites operating in orbit. After the August 2010 launch of AEHF, the Air Force plans to launch two more AEHFs through 2012.

Christina Chaplain, director of acquisition and sourcing management in GAO, told lawmakers in March 2010, “A long-standing problem in DoD space acquisitions is that program and unit costs tend to go up significantly from initial cost estimates, while in some cases, the capability that was to be produced declines. This problem persists.”

Jerry Goodwin, vice president of government business development for ViaSat, says that the U.S. government has always bought the ground and space segment separately, and notes that it is a typical problem that was evident with MUOS, Advanced EHF and even TSAT before the program was cancelled. “It’s the way the government buys things; it’s a structural problem and I don’t see much evidence of it changing,” he says.

Chris Quilty, senior vice president at financial analyst firm Raymond James, agrees, contending that the government’s costly satellite and terminal alignment challenges are due to the programs’ disparate structure and the way programs are managed. “It’s the fact that there are entirely different program offices, budget categories and management structures that drive those silos. It’s the failure of administration and management to properly coordinate,” he says.

It is difficult to dispute that the Pentagon has a tough job prioritizing and coordinating development programs across services that often have a unique set of end-user requirements. The Air Force Milsatcom Systems Directorate oversees the DoD and the military’s $2.4 billion annual budget for space-based global communications. Col. David Goldstein, deputy director, Milsatcom Systems Directorate, explained that aligning Milsatcom terminal segments to their corresponding space segments has remained “fairly constant for the past several years.” The directorate compares the projected fielding of terminals with the projected availability of satellites at their Initial Operational Capability (IOC) and Full Operational Capability (FOC) program milestones.

“Despite the challenges posed by synchronizing terminals development, platform installations and satellites availability, the Milsatcom community has shown remarkable resilience in sustaining warfighter communications over the years while delivering new capabilities to meet ever increasing demands for satcom,” Goldstein says.

He notes that by the time the full constellation of AEHF satellites launches, there will be significant numbers of AEHF-capable terminals fielded, such as the Army’s Secure, Mobile Anti-Jam, Reliable Tactical-Terminal (SMART-T), the Navy Multi-band Terminal (NMT), FAB-T programs and other EHF-capable terminals.

Commercial Technology

The DoD’s economic realities are already affecting new program starts with very few new production jobs, while key established programs are being protected from cuts, according to industry officials.

“We don’t see a lot of real big programs coming in the future — we see it more as the military filling in the gaps, ” says Tim Shroyer, CTO, General Dynamics SATCOM Technologies. Shroyer notes that the commercial sector is a lot faster at deploying satellite and ground systems compared with the military, and he attributes a significant part of the military’s lag time in getting programs launched on scheduling challenges caused by budget cuts.

Shroyer points to another key trend as an issue, the military’s growing use of commercial terminals. “Military customers are embracing the things that are happening in the commercial world like switching the architecture inside the terminals to L-band IF frequency. It just makes the terminals cheaper to build — the commercial world adopted this architecture a few years before the military did. General Dynamics currently is switching to that architecture for all military terminals, including the big terminal programs and small tactical terminals.”

Linking Warfighters

The Army’s Warfighter Information Network – Tactical (WIN-T) program, designed to provide over-the-horizon satcom-based communications during various operational stages, is a successful example of a military terminal program’s leveraging of COTS technology. About 85 percent of WIN-T Increment One terminals are comprised of COTS technology, notes Col. William Hoppe, a project manager for WIN-T, who in August, became military deputy for the U.S. Army’s Communications-Electronics Research, Development and Engineering Center (CERDEC).

The Army, when the initial war broke out in Iraq in 2001, was facing an urgent need to link warfighters on the tactical ground units with commanders and the Global Information Grid. “The Army needed equipment so they went out and defined a system with existing commercial equipment, which became the Joint Network Node (JNN) Program and was later renamed WIN-T,” says Mark Dale, vice president of product management for Comtech EF Data, which has modem and RF equipment in most major tactical ground terminals, including WIN-T and the SWAN, the Marine Corps’ version of WIN-T.

As of spring 2011, the Army had successfully fielded 90 percent of the 216 units for Increment One, and as of July, was completing production qualification tests for Increment Two at the Army Aberdeen Proving Grounds in preparation for the first field test unit to be deployed next spring. The Army has just begun fielding units for WIN-T Increment Two, which will add on-the-move waveforms to both the terrestrial and satcom components.

General Dynamics, the prime contractor for WIN-T, has responded to military requirements for Ka-band, developing higher power military terminals, which are needed for the WGS constellation as the satellites come online.

Shroyer says there are also increased requirements for transportability. “That’s driven by the fact that satellites today have much higher power and much better sensitivity than they used to so we can transmit much higher data rates on smaller sized antennas than were possible in the past, and the military is certainly leveraging that.”

The WIN-T terminals can operate in the 10 of megabits range; it used to be government satcom terminals could only support those kinds of rates with very big antennas. “We really have taken over what had been a big antenna mission in the past with much smaller apertures,” he says.

WIN-T isn’t the only military terminal program embracing commercial technology. The Navy’s new generation of shipboard satellite terminals will boost the bandwidth ships at sea use by as much as 10 times to transmit voice, video and data faster. Through its Commercial Broadband Satellite Program (CBSP), the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command (SPAWAR) plans to install terminals on about 200 ships. Three types of terminals will be deployed, with the size of the ship determining how large a terminal is installed.

Harris Corp. has been working on two of the three terminal variants — the unit and force level — since being awarded the contract in 2007..

Allen Lindsay, vice president, mobile wideband networks, Harris’ Government Communication Systems Division (GCSD), adds that the timetable to bring the terminals to market was aggressive. “It was probably unprecedented in terms of military satcom programs, especially for the Navy. From start to delivery, it was about a six-month (development) program.”

In addition to the move toward COTS, military terminal customers are pushing for more standardized hardware at the component level to lower costs, increase competition and speed development. Dale says there is an effort to move toward open standards, citing the Air Force interest in the DVB-S2 and MIL-STD-188-165A open standard waveforms for the HDR-AT next-generation airborne terminal. “However, aligning terminal requirements is still a work in progress. There is still a considerable tendency by different government groups to define requirements and pursue acquisitions independently,” he says.

The next stage for terminal developments, according to Dale, will include making terminals more “IP centric” by eliminating the legacy serial interfaces and moving toward using Ethernet interfaces exclusively. He also expects the government to add new capabilities such as “Carrier-in-Carrier” (CnC) to terminals. This technology, widely used in the commercial world, enables more efficient use of satellite bandwidth. Dale says using CnC could save the U.S. government more than a $100 million a year in satellite leasing costs.

IP-based Modem Standards

Another key focus area is standardizing modems. According to Bruce Bennett, program executive officer for communications in the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA), DoD, is embracing two modem standards — Enhanced Bandwidth Efficient Modem (EBEM) and the Joint Internet Protocol Modem (JIPM). JIPM is based on the DVB-RCS standard, but modified to include TRANSEC. Ethernet connectivity supported by these modems allows users to converge terrestrial and satellite links, by enabling satellite networks to seamlessly connect to terrestrial networks.

“Between the two of them, they can cover any mission and any user,” says Bennett, noting that JIPM, which is based on MFTMA, is ideal for small, mobile terminals, while EBEM, based on FDMA protocols, works best on large, fixed terminals. JIPM promises to deliver 10 times more bandwidth for half the price of current modem technology, Bennett says.

DISA is nearing completion of all JIPM testing and will deploy the JIPM modem before the end of this year. One of the first customers for the modem will be the Global Broadcasting System and the Teleport program.

“We’ll have about 1,500 of these modems out sometime in the third quarter of 2012 and we’ll have approximately 10 hubs located across the world at various teleport test sites,” Bennett says.

Both JIPM and EBEM represent a major change away from telephony-based satcom to more Internet-centric, bandwidth-efficient and bandwidth-on-demand products. “It’s a major paradigm shift and cultural shift. Some military users see the value based on the efficiencies recognized by the Army (and its early adoption of JIPM on WIN-T),” Bennett explains. He estimates that the government may have delayed the modem’s market entry by six months at most in an effort to ensure that “the right equipment was built.”

Ka-band Opportunities

With the WGS constellation coming online, several terminal and component vendors say they are developing Ka-band terminals in anticipation of growing market demand. Just as Ku-band capacity proved significantly cheaper than L-band, Ka-band is much lower cost to operate than Ku, while the terminals will be smaller and more portable. A downside of the spectrum is that it is more prone to interference from rain and smoke, but those limitations have not curbed enthusiasm for the Ka-band terminal market.

As key military terminal programs continue to deploy in a fiscally tough environment, synchronizing the rollout of the ground piece will remain a critical challenge. Commercial terminal, antenna and modem manufacturers are proving invaluable resources to government as they leverage COTS, open standards and other technology to bring affordable and quickly deployable solutions forward to connect warfighters in theater.