In Space, baby steps and a ponderous ‘pivot’: 2022 in Review
For the newest military arm, this year saw it plant the seeds for important changes in everything from strategy to acquisition.
For the newest military arm, this year saw it plant the seeds for important changes in everything from strategy to acquisition.
"I think everyone agrees that if there's a reasonable cost-based argument that paying for use does make sense," industry analyst Tim Farrar said. But "I think Elon has made that more difficult rather than less difficult because you don't normally negotiate your weapons contracts on Twitter."
Four Pentagon offices are working together on an ambitious hybrid architecture that spans orbits as well as classification levels, officials told Breaking Defense.
"We're offering a very specialized services so we're not trying to compete in the general purpose broadband," Iridium CEO Matt Desch told Breaking Defense. "We don't have to be the primary; we may be the emergency or contingency kind of solution."
"Viasat has been undergoing an existential crisis as it competes with SpaceX for the satcom market," one industry source said.
The full constellation of next-gen O3b mPower satellites is expected to be on-orbit by 2023, said SES CEO Steve Collar.
"We'll have communications capability up there within the next year or so," said NORTHCOM commander Gen. Glen VanHerck.
Major SATCOM providers -- such as Hughes (a subsidiary of SATCOM giant Echostar), Viasat, Intelsat, Inmarsat, SES and Eutelsat -- argue that this would not only ease problems with service gaps that have long plagued troops in the field, but also be cheaper and allow speedier integration of new technology.
"We think that p-LEO is a big deal. And there's got to be a revolution that has to hit the ground segment, says Phil Carrai, president of Kratos's space, training and cyber division.
SDA says it's still a transition partner for Blackjack, despite no specific funding line in its 2021 budget.
NewSpace Networks will bid against Lockheed Martin for bankrupt Vector Launch's GalacticSky software-defined satellite assets, says co-founder Shaun Coleman.
"Security in space is different than security on Earth," says Jeb Linton of IBM Watson. "If you lose command and control for even five minutes, your satellite could be completely shut down."