Space Force Strategy Out In ‘Months’ In Time For Budget

WASHINGTON: Space Force is working on a strategy, and 2022 funding, to implement its new Enterprise SATCOM Vision for integrating the various military and commercial satellites now used by DoD into one seamless network, says Lt. Gen. William Liquori, deputy chief of space operations for strategy, plans, programs, requirements and analysis.

“At the end of the day, anyone who’s using satellite communications doesn’t really care where that information comes from. They really want to know that when they need to use their radio they can use it, and if there’s somebody trying to counter them using that radio that there’s an ability for them to pivot to an alternative communication mechanism. Because what they care about is getting their message across,” he told today’s Defense News conference.

As Breaking D readers know, Chief of Space Operations Gen. Jay Raymond in February signed the long-awaited Vision for Enterprise Satellite Communications that lays out plans for tying together DoD wideband, narrowband, protected military satcom networks and brings commercial ones into the mix. The end goal is to provide warfighters with radios/terminals capable of “hopping” among types of satellites and their frequencies to optimize connectivity and avoid jamming.

“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 release said.

While reluctant to predict a date for release, Liquori said he expected the strategy to be finalized within months.

While there were some funds aimed at the various pieces of the Enterprise SATCOM Vision in the 2021 budget, Liquori explained, the planning cycle for that request was already wrapping up by the vision document was finalized.

“The 2022 budget is now the next step, if you will, and we’ve continued to lay in both budget line items for being able to maintain a common operating picture of our SATCOM links in theater, as well as continuing on prototypes,” he said. “There are certainly inputs there for protected tactical waveforms so that we can do protected communications with more than just our traditional military purpose-built systems, but ideally, how to use that waveform on other systems as well.”

As I reported back in February, the Space Force is developing a highly jam-resistant signal called the Protected Tactical Waveform (PTW) to be used by the future Protected Satellite Communications (PTS) program. PTS, designed as an alternative to the Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF) satellite network for classified communications, is budgeted in the 20201 request at a whopping $2.4 billion through 2025.

PTS is not a satellite but a  payload that could be fitted onto US military or commercial satellites in Geosynchronous Orbit. It might also be carried by satellites owned by international partners, according to the 2021 budget request, or launched on new commercial satellite busses.

PTS was launched by the Air Force in 2018 as part of the larger Protected Anti-Jam Satellite Communications (PATS) family of systems. Under the concept, AEHF would be reserved for strategic communications, such as nuclear command and control; whereas PTS is aimed directly at operators in the field.

PTS is envisioned as one way to ease the military’s extensive use of commercial satcom, and allow operators to freely roam between commercial and military networks as the Enterprise SATCOM Vision charges, by reducing longstanding DoD concerns about potential vulnerability of commercial satellites to jamming.

Commercial satcom providers, while pleased with Raymond’s vision, nonetheless remain somewhat skeptical of its real-world effect. The widespread perception is that there has a lot of talk by DoD for a decade or more, but little action. 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.

As Breaking D readers know, DoD did not ask for specific funds in 2021 for commercial satcom integration — rather folded the congressionally-mandated program into a rather ambiguous $43 million budget line called Fighting SATCOM Enterprise.

Congress shifted DoD’s Commercial Satellite Communications Office (CSCO) from its original home within the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) to Air Force Space Command in the 2018 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). It has now been subsumed by the Space Force. Congress followed up by creating an independent program element in the budget for commercial satcom in 2019, putting $49.5 million into the pot. It added $5 million to the program in 2020, although DoD did not ask for funding then either.

CSCO head Claire Grayson told me at Satellite 2020 in March that she was looking to reinstate specific funding in 2022 for a commercial satcom program of record. But, she caveated, the funding would not be used — at least in the near term — to provide commercial satcom services. Instead, it is being slated for “for research and development purposes, to assess capabilities that are emerging.”