Leveraging proven technology was key to the recently launched Arctic Satellite Broadband Mission, a historic Northrop Grumman-primed international space mission that included both commercial and U.S. military payloads on the same satellite for the first time. (Northrop Grumman illustration).
Satellite communication is so reliable and commonplace it’s easy for everyday users to take it for granted, whether watching live sports or checking email mid-flight.
Since the 1980s, militaries have also migrated to space-based communications systems. Ensuring the U.S. military and its allies have continuous communication capability, however, is more complicated than providing cable television and internet service to consumers. Military satellite communications (MILSATCOM) systems need to fight through adversary jamming, operate despite ground station disruptions, withstand challenging environmental conditions, and mitigate an ever-growing set of attack approaches.
David Doami is senior director of MILSATCOM and Sustainment at Northrop Grumman.
In short, protected MILSATCOM systems need to be no-fail — and no company has more experience in delivering on these stringent requirements than Northrop Grumman, said David Doami, senior director of MILSATCOM and Sustainment at Northrop Grumman.
“MILSATCOM systems are used to communicate the highest priority messages that we have in our country including the president, as commander in chief, commanding the combatant commanders and our strategic forces,” said Doami, pointing to Northrop Grumman’s decades of designing and delivering strategic SATCOM for the U.S. military. “During the Cold War, we had a single nuclear threat, and space supported the air, ground and sea domains. Today, we have multiple nuclear-capable threats and space itself is a contested domain. In this environment, survivable and assured MILSATCOM are more critical than ever before as a vital communications link for the warfighter.”
Decades in the Making
Protected MILSATCOM has evolved from the earliest Milstar satellites, through the Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF) satellites of the last decade, and now to new MILSATCOM systems in development, such as Northrop Grumman’s Evolved Strategic SATCOM and Protected Tactical SATCOM rapid prototypes, noted Terry Smigla, chief MILSATCOM engineer at Northrop Grumman.
Terry Smigla is chief MILSATCOM engineer at Northrop Grumman.
“Northrop Grumman and our heritage companies laid the foundation for many of today’s critical MILSATCOM capabilities, including mission payloads for Milstar and AEHF, as well as the Enhanced Polar System and Enhanced Polar System-Recapitalization (EPS-R),” said Smigla. “We know what it takes to keep protected MILSATCOM systems relevant, and we have taken advantage of technology advances to continuously improve capabilities. That’s what we’re doing with the current generation of protected MILSATCOM, as well, only we’re taking that capability to the next level. It’s a generational leap.”
With each generation of MILSATCOM, capabilities have catapulted forward to address expanding coverage and capacity needs, as well as an evolving threat environment. For example, in the 1990s, Northrop Grumman introduced the world’s first onboard digital processing on the Milstar II system. These processors can be reconfigured and updated from the ground, enabling constant improvement even once the satellite is in orbit. The company has delivered this capability on every MILSATCOM payload since.
The software that runs MILSATCOM systems such as the Milstar and AEHF payloads is just as, if not more, important than the hardware that goes on orbit. As demands have expanded, Northrop Grumman has continued to evolve the technology from the ground via software updates.
Today’s protected MILSATCOM systems are more software-defined than ever, meaning they become more capable with each upgrade, Smigla said.
“The proliferation of warfighting platforms with advanced sensors and weapons systems and the need to disseminate information across the digital battlefield drives an ever-increasing demand for data bandwidth,” said Smigla.
Protected MILSATCOM has evolved from the earliest Milstar satellites to new systems in development such as Northrop Grumman’s Evolved Strategic SATCOM and Protected Tactical SATCOM rapid prototypes. (Northrop Grumman illustration)
Assured, Affordable Comms
No-fail missions, like missile defense and protected MILSATCOM, require diverse architectures with powerful satellites, said Blake Bullock, vice president of Military Space Systems at Northrop Grumman. But those satellites must exist in sufficient numbers and incorporate resiliency features to ensure the architecture can take a punch and keep operating.
That means keeping those systems affordable is a high priority.
“In many instances, we can upgrade or repurpose existing technology for the next generation of systems at minimal additional cost, saving our investment dollars for technologies — like cutting-edge, software-defined processing — that keep the U.S. and our allies ahead of the threat,” said Bullock. “That’s the benefit of having performed this mission for so long; we understand what legacy technology continues to be relevant and where we need to invest for the future.”
Leveraging existing technology was key to the recently launched Arctic Satellite Broadband Mission, a historic Northrop Grumman-primed international space mission that included both commercial and U.S. military payloads on the same satellite for the first time.
This collaboration between the U.S. Space Force, Space Norway and Northrop Grumman resulted in the EPS-R program. The partnership delivered expanded protected MILSATCOM capability to the Arctic that, according to a public Space Force estimate, saved taxpayers around $900 million.
As the company continues to advance MILSATCOM and find innovative ways of incorporating existing technologies — such as commercial spacecraft bus platforms and standards-based networking capabilities — Northrop Grumman’s decades of on-orbit experience are the key to rapidly and affordably providing our warfighters this vital mission capability, said Doami.
“It comes down to mission mastery. There is no substitute for the experience we’ve garnered performing the mission on orbit for more than 30 years.”
Learn more about how Northrop Grumman’s innovations in MILSATCOM are securing the future for the U.S. and its allies.
