Ever since the Apollo missions, space initiatives have been driven by speed and innovation. President John F. Kennedy recognized the importance of a rapidly growing scientific workforce in his iconic “We choose to go to the moon” speech. Today, space plays a crucial role in our daily lives, transforming Earth into a global neighborhood and contributing to its economy. But it has also become a vital domain for national and international security.

The Defense Department and Space Force (USSF) recently released aligned strategies that prioritize expanding commercial partnerships to enhance mission capabilities, resilience and operational advantage. The USSF Commercial Space Strategy (CSS) emphasizes leveraging industry innovation, prioritizing operational utility, feasibility, resilience and speed to fielding.

The CSS highlights the need for beyond-line-of-sight satellite communications (SATCOM) to support command and control, data transport and reach-back requirements for the Joint Force worldwide. Through commercial SATCOM partnerships, the USSF aims to enhance data transport, capacity, flexibility, reliability and resiliency to support multi-domain and joint mission operations. The CSS also acknowledges commercial space sector’s role as an accelerator, fostering innovation and helping reduce barriers to entry for new capabilities.

The DoD’s Commercial Space Integration Strategy (CSIS) recognizes the importance of leveraging all available tools to prioritize the resilience of the national security space architecture. It identifies 13 mission areas, including SATCOM as a hybrid mission area. The CSIS emphasizes the integration of government and commercial SATCOM systems, highlighting the need to make “commercial solutions integral — and not just supplementary — to national security space architectures.”

These strategies demonstrate the military’s commitment to embracing private sector partnerships and commercial innovations to enhance mission capabilities and resilience for modern military operations.

Collaborative, user-driven innovation

Ideal collaboration will drive a continuous loop in which industry invests, develops and demonstrates with federal agency end user requirements foremost in mind. Through continuous iteration, testing and customer feedback, commercial operators can deliver solutions that are proven, strong and resilient.

While shifts toward this type of development and adoption will face budget and acquisition challenges, the government is making meaningful progress through several rapid experimentation and development initiatives designed to accelerate creation of national security and warfighter operation capabilities.

While not a defense-focused initiative, NASA’s Communications Services Project is an example of embracing collaborative public-private partnership, helping create a market for new COMSATCOM solutions and services that could be replicated by government agencies. NASA is working with five commercial companies to develop and demonstrate COMSATCOM solutions for future launch and near-Earth communications. NASA recognized that commercial systems could meet their mission communications needs rather than investing heavily to replace its Tracking and Data Relay Satellite system.

The Air Force Research Laboratory’s Defense Experimentation Using Commercial Space Internet program has awarded several major industry contracts that explore the capabilities of commercial space constellations to connect military platforms with user terminals that can talk to multiple space broadband providers, including across different spectrum and orbits.

Last year, Space Systems Command announced the launch of the Commercial Space Office (COMSO) to pave pathways for collaboration in its “race to resilience” by 2026. Senior Materiel Leader Col. Richard Kniseley explained that “The goal of COMSO is to leverage the full force of this innovation with speed, cost efficiency and minimal duplication of effort to deliver efficient and sufficient commercial space capabilities to the warfighter.”

These innovative programs offer models for mutually beneficial public-private partnerships that USSF and other DoD components can leverage.

Building blocks for success 

The next phase of realizing this collaborative vision requires a strong, aligned partnership foundation. Implementing effective and scalable SATCOM hinges on engaging trusted commercial partners that are willing and able to deliver current and future solutions fully in sync with DoD operational and mission needs.

Looking ahead, four essential building blocks for successful SATCOM initiatives include:

1. Intentional innovation: Commercial industry continuously innovates advancements in satellite and ground networks, applied with the intent to meet operational and resilience needs. Trusted public-private partnerships should promote transparency to better understand mission requirements and enhance iterative SATCOM
2. Flexibility: Dynamic mission needs demand flexible technologies and service models from commercial providers. Additionally, greater agility in agency procurement can accelerate the adoption of new capabilities for warfighters.
3. Expertise: The commercial industry attracts top talent, and government customers can access this expertise without incurring recruitment and training costs. Managed services also deliver ongoing technology maintenance updates, shifting that responsibility to industry to conserve time and resources.
4. Commitment: Commercial SATCOM providers should immerse themselves in government partnerships to understand specific environments and requirements. This customer-focused approach ensures mission-aligned capabilities, solutions and services, executed with efficiency and efficacy.

President Kennedy’s famous 1962 speech emphasized the pursuit of difficult goals; more than 60 years on, developing advanced SATCOM capabilities remains a challenge. Space is hard, but strong commercial-government partnerships engendering trust and commitment will yield the solutions we need to reliably support space missions and protect our warfighters.

Sunil Pandit is vice president of strategy at Viasat Government.

Copyright © 2024 Federal News Network. All rights reserved. This website is not intended for users located within the European Economic Area.