Arlington, va. – The US Army wants to convert its satellite communications into something that works at a spontaneous difference between the Internet – fluid, sharp, and network. But at an industry conference this week, Pentagon officials said that long -known military space internet is still a long way.
In an era where commercial satellites beat military people, the Defense Department is trying to tap in this diverse ecosystem, the Defense Officers said at the SAE Media Group’s Millsacom USA conference on 17 June.
The goal is making the DOD “Enterprise Setcom” what says-one virtual, software-defined network that can automatically resume communication between satellites of military, commercial and affiliated nations if an anti-satellite jams.
But reality today is a ecosystem full of manual processes, hardware silos and incompatible standards.
When you travel internationally, separate hardware is not required to connect your iPhone to the local cell network. This is thanks to the 3G generation partnership project (3GPP), a global cooperation that created integrated technical standards for mobile networks decades ago.
There is no such standard of satellite communications. “The question always comes out: If the DOD wants this ecosystem where users can roam in the service provider network, will we do that work?” Mike Dean, director of Command, Control and Communications Infrastructure in the Defense Department, said. The answer is that a technical standard is required compared to 3GPP.
Dean hopes that the satellite industry will have its own “3GPP moment”, but so far, that moment has not come. The commercial satellite industry remains fragmented, ownership technologies develop with each company that are not good with others. As Rajiv Gopal, vice -president of Hughes Network Systems, put it on: “Can I take a OneWeb modem and change it with Amazon Kuper Modem? I don’t think it can be done today.”
BESPOKE ‘Pizza Box’ solution
Each branch of armed services uses various satellite terminals, requiring expensive hardware upgrades to work with various commercial services. The result is that Paul Van Slate, head of the satellite communications division at the Pentagon’s main information office, says “Bspok Pizza Box” – Custom Hardware Units that military facilities use to integrate the modem of various satellite providers.
These pizza boxes, he said, are expensive and cumbersome to upgrade with new software. In rapid-growing military conditions where communication can mean the difference between life and death, this hardware-dominant approach is an obligation.
“The software upgrade is much faster than all the new hardware’s wiring and cable and interoperability tests,” the van slate said. Under the Pentagon vision for the future, he said, “If a new wave form is developed, I do not need to buy a new modem to achieve that ability and buy another rack of Bespok pizza box.”
The military has adopted commercial systems such as Starlinks of SpaceX, which has properly achieved the market share as it avoids the problem of completely interpreting. Starlink’s terminals are designed to work specially with the constellation of spacex.
This makes a contradiction for the Pentagon planners. Starlink works well, but officials say they do not want to depend on any single vendor.
The Defense Department has committed to the next generation communication strategy, pushing for hybrid space networks that tap in their own classified satellites, which are from commercial players and from American colleagues. These satellites will expand many classes – low meaning orbit (Leo), medium meaning orbit (meo) and geostationary meaning orbit (Geo) – so that excesses and flexibility can be ensured.
But this hybrid network needs to solve technical and commercial challenges that the Pentagon has fought over the years.
Space Internet Build
Enterprise Satellite Communications Management and Control (ESC-Mc) system, Dod’s plan to obtain satellite inter-operation centers on some called Mission Control Center, will provide the “general operating picture” of all available satellite networks, automatically rooted the communication through the best available paths.
But the ESC-Mc is only as good as the infrastructure supports it. The army needs to modernize its ground stations (called teleports), many of which were created for old geostationary satellites. It also requires new “hybrid terminals” that can switch between different satellite networks using software instead of hardware swaps.
The good news is that all three military branches are now developing these hybrid terminals – some Dean is called “unprecedented”. The Air Force can field its first hybrid terminal by 2026, although taking other services that the van slate has described as “crawling, walking, running” approach.
Uninterrupted satellite services
For now, Pentagon’s seamless satellite is an internet vision aspiration. Technical challenges are solved as the commercial industry already performs multi-network routing and virtue, said Van Slate. But applying these techniques to military networks, with their unique security and reliability requirements, need coordination in dozens of companies and government agencies.
“We think of the space section, we think of terminals, but we always forget the ground,” Dean said, how complex the challenge is really. The construction of a true satellite Internet requires not only satellites and terminals, but a complete reunion of ground infrastructure that connects the space-based network to terrestrial people.
The van slate placed it more clearly: the user terminal – gear that connects soldiers with satellites – still “tail that teases the dog.”
Ideally, modem and converters that enable compatibility between vendors will be replaced with standardized, software-upgradable servers, they said. “If a new wave is developed, I do not have to buy a new modem and there is another rack of the Bespoke Pizza box to achieve that ability.”
Gopal argues that the SATCom industry has made significant progress towards interoperability, even though it has not adopted standards compared to cellular communication – a huge industry that has been working on standards for decades.
Despite the challenges, the authorities insist that the army is committed to the creation of a hybrid septom. “The way we need to achieve flexibility in many areas is through more diversification,” said the van slate.
