Hybrid SATCOM networks can answer future challenges

Defense leaders say satellite communications modernization requires moving data efficiently while thwarting threats.

The Defense Department is increasingly innovating around satellite technology to maintain its reach and decision advantage, with applications in the space domain touching on multiple commands.

Col. Arun Shankar, J36 division chief and director of U.S. Space Command Satellite Communications and Spectrum Directorate, said satellites are “absolutely essential to not just DOD efforts, but a modern American way of life.” He noted their usefulness for everyday technologies like ATMs and weather tracking, for example.

Spacecom works often with the Space Force, which has staff representatives helping bridge gaps with commercial partners on contracting. Satellite communication “allows troops to be more distributed and be able to fight in a more decentralized fashion, which is what we’ve become accustomed to over the years in the DOD, as communications capabilities have improved,” Shankar told GovCIO Media & Research.

Shankar leads the division responsible for the command, management, planning and coordination for all military satellite communication systems in support of strategic global operations within Spacecom. He said every branch of the military is now dependent on robust satellite communications and that the technology is a critical part of the Combined Joint All Domain Command and Control (CJADC2) infrastructure.

“CJADC2 is often described as the means to connect all sensors, shooters and data streams within a combined force. For deployed forces, this will require a satcom solution,” Shankar said. “Beyond line-of-sight transport capability to relay information across the globe at the speed of war is essential to success against any modern threat, and satcom provides that transport capability in the most distributed fashion.”

According to Shankar, the evolution of satcom has forced a rethinking of its importance and application, as commanders understand its utility to relay information across the battlefield and the threats that could disrupt that information flow.

“We view the military satcom and commercial satcom to be somewhat of a single enterprise. It’s important we have different tools available in our tool belt for different tasks,” Shankar said. “We need the ability for terminals to operate on a variety of waveforms over varying frequencies. We need the ability for users to maintain their networks when transitioning between different beams, antenna satellites, or even between military and commercial satellite systems, and we need to ensure that our information, our control systems, are protected from attack by a determined and sophisticated adversary.”

Emerging technology like AI is showing promise not only in traditional military applications, but also in the space domain. AI can help with information optimization and moving small data sets over distance rather than larger ones that can be more vulnerable to attack.

“Satcom capacity is finite, and the more that we can do to optimize our fixed resources, the better of a service we can provide. Tech like AI and edge compute offer a means for optimization,” Shankar said. “Rather than transmitting a large volume of raw sensor data by using edge compute and AI, we can limit the transmission to a smaller data set of just maybe some type of smaller information. There are numerous ways in which wide area network optimization techniques can also be used across the DOD to make satcom more efficient.”