JOINT BASE LEWIS McCHORD (JBLM), Washington – The Army is leveraging satellite capabilities in multiple Earth orbits to deliver the network throughput, low latency, and resiliency it needs for future operations.
For several years, the Army has been working closely with commercial vendors through streamlined cooperative research and development agreements, known as CRADAs, to securely integrate and explore the capabilities of emerging commercial Low Earth Orbit (LEO) and Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) satellite constellations, as well as the services and ground terminals needed to access them. Now that some of these commercial solutions are maturing and expanding in global coverage, the Army has begun to conduct operational assessments to inform near- and long-term network design decisions.
“With the added multi-orbit capabilities, our communications pathways are more diverse, robust, and present a greater challenge for an adversary to overcome,” said Lt. Col. Nicolas Beck, commander of the 51st Expeditionary Signal Battalion-Enhanced (ESB-E), 22nd Corps Signal Brigade.
Since September, the 51st ESB-E has been supporting an Army assessment to inform the potential integration of emerging high throughput, low latency (HT/LL) LEO commercial satellite communications (SATCOM) into the Army’s expanding Unified Network transport arsenal.
Recent geopolitical conflicts continue to underscore the need for commanders to possess multiple transport options to enhance their primary, alternate, contingency, emergency (PACE) communication plans to ensure resilient rapid uninterrupted data exchange on the battlefield. The more agnostic transport network pathway options that exist for data to travel through--especially in disrupted, disconnected, intermittent and low-bandwidth (DDIL) environments--the more resilient the network becomes to signal roadblocks, including enemy jamming.
“A strong PACE plan will be critical to any future large scale combat operation,” Beck said. “Previous SATCOM equipment was limited to only connecting to satellites in Geosynchronous Earth Orbit [GEO]. This is a single transport option that the high throughput, low latency capabilities eliminate by giving us access to MEO and LEO satellites.”
Additionally, HT/LL capabilities help reduce military signature, enabling the Army to blend its electronic signature with existing commercial signatures within the area of operation. This presents a challenge to adversaries, making it harder to identify which SATCOM links to jam, causing them to spend more time and resources identifying dispersed command post locations, Beck said.
“In short, the high throughput, low latency capabilities provide commanders with more bandwidth, a reduced military signature, and longer survivability,” Beck said.
THE ASSESSMENT
The HT/LL assessment supported by the 51st ESB-E leverages several different maturing commercial LEO solutions integrated with the unit’s organic baseband systems. The purpose is to determine the best mix of solutions to potentially add HT/LL transport to the Army’s portfolio of SATCOM terminals. The assessment will also inform concept of operations (CONOPS) and tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs) for future HT/LL use in Army units.
The unit will deploy and use the commercial assets in a variety of training exercises, mission sets and locations, said Col. Stuart McMillan, project manager for Tactical Network (PM TN), at the Program Executive Office Command, Control, Communications-Tactical (PEO C3T), which is managing the HT/LL Assessment for the Army.
“The valuable quantitative and qualitative data points and Soldier feedback we collect from the assessment will help shape Army high throughput, low latency requirements and drive future decisions on what to procure and how to implement materiel solutions to meet those requirements,” McMillan said.
The PM fielded the Scalable Network Node (SNN) antenna and baseband, to the 51st ESB-E as part of the unit’s conversion from an ESB to an ESB-E formation, in April 2023. Then to support the HT/LL Assessment, the project office facilitated the training on the commercial HT/LL solutions in September 2023, at the unit’s home station at JBLM.
Later this fiscal year, PM TN will also conduct a HT/LL MEO Assessment leveraging Scalable Class Of Unified Terminal (SCOUT)-Medium satellite terminals, to evaluate whether MEO SATCOM could be a viable solution for transport diversity at division and above headquarters, McMillan said.
SUPPORTING NETWORK MODERNIZATON
Two of the main benefits drawing the Army to integrate LEO and MEO network transport communication capabilities into the network design are the huge increase in bandwidth and reduction in latency they provide, compared to current GEO capabilities.
“If you can imagine a signal transmitted from a ground satellite terminal traveling at the speed of light, it would connect with the LEO satellites first, over current GEO satellites, due to the shorter distance,” said Warrant Officer 01 (WO1), David Hernandez, network technician for the 51st ESB-E. “This cuts down on data round trip times, and drastically improves the latency, giving ground commanders a better command and control (C2) experience.”
Commercial LEO and MEO SATCOM significantly improve the performance of the network and the Army’s mission command systems, especially for real-time applications that provide the resilient data exchange commanders need to understand the battlefield and make rapid informed decisions. As the Army continues to move toward a more data-centric operational environment, its need for HT/LL capabilities increases, as more data is stored in the cloud. HT/LL multi-orbit SATCOM capabilities, along with automatic (Auto) PACE communications, are foundational elements for tactical edge cloud computing, distributed C2, on-the-move network connectivity.
AUTOMATING PACE
In support of the HT/LL SNN Assessment, PM TN installed an Army Auto-PACE software capability, known as Seeker, to help facilitate the use of commercial LEO links. Seeker increases bandwidth through aggregation, quick detection of link outages and rapid, automated self-healing. Adaptive network connections determine the optimal signal path at any given moment to enable rapid and reliable data transfer. The automated changeover to different PACE options is seamless to the end user and reduces network complexity at the edge, so Soldiers can focus on the fight.
“Seeker is a multifaceted software in that it can merge multiple forms of transport, such as satellite, Troposcatter, TRILOS, cellular, etc. into one stream to improve bandwidth and throughput capabilities for the warfighter and other customers,” Hernandez said. “It also has a bleed over feature in which one transport method can be capped at a certain bandwidth with the excess data bleeding over into another transport. In either case, it serves our customers an enhanced network experience.”
As commercial LEO and MEO satellite capabilities, as well as protected high capacity GEO military capabilities, continue to mature and expand globally, the Army is carefully laying a strong foundation to enable the secure integration of the right transport agnostic, multi-band, muti-orbit solutions, and combination of solutions, into its Unified Network design, at the right time and cost.
“Auto-PACE and high throughput, low latency multi-orbit SATCOM capabilities are essential to the Army’s network modernization efforts,” Beck said. “Army data requirements continue to grow, and both technologies enable maximum data throughput, while ensuring a reliable network for commanders to communicate.”
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The U.S. Army Program Executive Office Command, Control and Communications-Tactical (PEO C3T) develops, acquires, fields and supports the Army's Unified Network to ensure force readiness in both current missions and potential future large scale combat operations. This critical Army modernization priority delivers resilient terrestrial and satellite communications capabilities to ensure commanders and Soldiers remain connected and informed at all times, even in the most austere and hostile environments. PEO C3T is delivering an integrated Unified Network to regions around the globe, enabling high-speed, high-capacity voice, data and video communications to an Army user base that includes joint, coalition and other mission partners.
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