WASHINGTON: Gen. Jay Raymond, double-hatted as head of the Space Force and Space Command, has signed the long-awaited Vision for Enterprise Satellite Communications (SATCOM) that may change how DoD buys and uses satellite communications.

The plan is designed to create a seamless network of military and commercial comsats in all orbits, accessible to troops, vehicles, ships and aircraft via ground terminals and mobile receivers that would automatically “hop” from one satellite network to another.

The goal is to ensure connectivity even when adversaries have successfully degraded access to spectrum during a conflict by jamming or launching kinetic attacks on satellite networks. “Adversaries understand the advantage SATCOM brings our warfighters and are working to deny, degrade, and destroy these capabilities,” says the vision document, signed on Jan. 23 but only released today.

“The single, integrated SATCOM enterprise will enhance integration between the military and private sectors, with a goal to enable warfighters with the ability to transition between their networks and terminals to alternate resources with little or no disruption,” the Space Force announcement said.

The document also puts an emphasis on speeding development of future SATCOM capabilities. It states: “We must move faster than our adversaries … . We must adopt faster acquisition processes and faster command and control constructs to maintain the advantage in any conflict.”

“Despite the global, instantaneous reach of our satellite communications systems, which includes both military and commercial capabilities, the current loose federation of SATCOM systems needs to improve in resiliency, robustness, flexibility, and manageability,” said Maj. Gen. Bill Liquori, Space Force director of Strategic Requirements, Architectures and Analysis.

The SATCOM Vision was put together over about an 18-month period by Air Force Space Command, which now has been subsumed into the Space Force. (An expert team from the Space Force, Space and Missile Systems Center, and the Space Force Commercial SATCOM Office was heavily involved in defining key requirements and concepts, the Space Force explained.)

SATCOM Enterprise Vision structure

And as only Breaking D readers knew, it went to Raymond’s desk in the fall.

Key elements of the vision include: “Global Situational Awareness & Common Operating Picture, Command & Control Management System, SATCOM terminals, SATCOM governance, and Acquisition & Provisioning.”

Space Force’s immediate priority is to create a “team of core experts” to develop a road map to “ensure near-term budgeting priorities are in-line with the SATCOM vision.”

Also, the announcement says, the Space Force “will develop a flexible modem interface (FMI) standard to support agile SATCOM roaming for Department of Defense users and develop a strategy to replace the current Wideband Global SATCOM (WGS) capability.”

The WGS satellites, built by Boeing, currently provide most military satellite communications bandwidth. In a surprise move, Congress in 2018 extended the program by adding $600 million to the Air Force budget for Boeing to produce the 11th and 12th satellites. WGS 10 was launched in March. In April 2019, Boeing received a contract modification that pumped $605 million into production of the 11th satellite.

The firm announced on Dec. 26 that it has completed development of WGS 11, to be delivered in 2024. Boeing said this new satellite will “deliver hundreds of coverage beams and provide a more flexible and efficient use of bandwidth. These innovations will enable the spacecraft to support more users in theater and allow dedicated beams to follow aircraft in flight.”

In what will no doubt be music to the ears of the commercial satcom industry, the Space Force says it: “will continue engaging commercial partners to evaluate opportunities that may complement or possibly replace portions of a traditional military SATCOM purpose-built system.”

Capabilities acquired to support the vision “will be a mixture of military and commercial, U.S. and non-U.S., and leverage commercial and defense industrial bases for innovative technologies, products, tools, services, and processes.”

Commercial providers have been frustrated about what they have seen as a lot of talk over a decade, but little action by DoD to better integrate commercial satellites into DoD’s SATCOM architecture. Industry leaders — including Viasat, Hughes, Intelsat, Inmarsat, SES and Eutelsat — have been arguing the Pentagon would save money, and speed capabilities, by buying satcom “managed services” (like your average mobile phone or cable TV/Internet plan) instead of leasing commercial bandwidth in fits and starts for short periods of time.

Congress added $49.5 million in the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act for DoD to pursue commercial satcom-as-a-service acquisition. However, the military has been slow to allocate the money as it studied the issues, and did not request new funding in 2020. Congress, for its part, forced another $5 million into Air Force’s budget for commercial satcom service buys in the 2020 NDAA.