Designing GovMilSatCom 2.0
Dec 3rd, 2015
by Brad Grady, NSR
As we close the books on 2015, Government and Military
planners are starting the process of designing next-generation
government and military satcom networks – with many questions:
how much commercial, how much jam protection & resiliency, and
fundamentally, how much do we spend... or pay for it?
Amongst all of these plans, they almost all include a role for
the satellite communications industry – be it from providing
end-to-end managed services to ‘flying the birds.’
According to NSR’s Government and Military Satellite
Communications, 12th Edition, there is a clear place for
commercially-sourced capacity with upwards of 600 transponders
of FSS capacity and 80 Gbps of HTS capacity demand across the
market projected by the end of 2024. Meanwhile, milsatcom
capacity on key systems for key countries reaches slightly under
40 Gbps under currently planned systems. Most of this
capacity will be from WGS to U.S. and partner countries.
Additionally, nearly all European milsatcom systems will require
replacement by the mid-2020s. With only France making
significant steps in determining components of their next-gen
architecture, the role of commercial industry in these next-gen
systems continues to be on the table and in discussions.
However, with all of the competing participation models within
Europe and the U.S. (the “Skynet model”, XTAR-like, the U.S.
Pathfinder programs, or the emerging LuxGovSat-style to name a
few), it is highly likely we will only see more flavors coming
into market. All said, expect more variety in the manner
or style of how governments and industry interact across the Gov
and Mil satcom industry, not less.
However, that is the “2.0” for gov’t/mil. satcom;
for “1.5”, it is the ‘flying
the birds’ outsourcing that has gained the attention
of the satellite industry. The attention has become so
great that Intelsat General has an ad running that concludes
with, “We can fly your satellites for less”; a bold statement
indeed. Yet, a recent interview by U.S. Gen. John Hyten
hinted in maybe a
slight shift in thinking in the ‘outsource-ability’
of some of these jobs as it relates to operating within a
contested RF-environment for U.S. forces. With a new focus
on training-up and redeploying experienced personnel to the
‘front line’ positions of operating the satellites, does that
throw another wrench into the commercial versus military debate?
It would seem that if these statements are taken at face value,
there is an acknowledgement that the current paradigm of (at
least) U.S satellite operations is not working.
In addition to a renewed focus on bringing experience
personnel back into operational roles, jamming and operating in
a contested RF environment is amongst the top bullet points for
next-gen system designers. During the interview with Gen.
Hyten, he said that as of today, the U.S. is its own ‘worse
enemy’ when it comes to jamming of its satellites. Solving
the training problem is far more straightforward than the
technical challenge of deploying new ground and space
infrastructure; yet it still points to a potential shift in
thinking of getting service personnel more involved, not less.
However, operating
within a contested RF-environment remains one of the ‘new
differentiators’ for
commercial capacity coming into the gov and mil markets.
Bottom Line
With the likes of Eutelsat’s Quantum
platform, or ground infrastructure developments from companies
such as Thales or Hughes coming into the market over the next
ten years (just to point out a couple of examples), commercial
capacity will be able to ‘check more boxes’ on gov and mil
planner’s list. The main question will be: “if the mindset has
changed enough to fully capture the value proposition some of
these new commercial technologies are bringing to market, are we
ready for GovMilSatCom 2.0?”