{"id":1417570,"date":"2022-04-04T08:29:56","date_gmt":"2022-04-04T12:29:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1417570"},"modified":"2022-04-04T08:30:12","modified_gmt":"2022-04-04T12:30:12","slug":"u-s-space-force-looks-to-iridium-in-quest-for-satellite-broadband","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/u-s-space-force-looks-to-iridium-in-quest-for-satellite-broadband\/","title":{"rendered":"U.S. Space Force Looks to Iridium in Quest for Satellite Broadband"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">22<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fu-s-space-force-looks-to-iridium-in-quest-for-satellite-broadband%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1417570&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div id=\"attachment_213618\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\">\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-213618\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Iridium NEXT satellite constellation (Graphic: Iridium)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>WASHINGTON: The Space Force is increasingly interested in Iridium\u2019s satellite broadband communications services as one path to feeding the military\u2019s ever-growing appetite for space-based Internet \u2014 especially as the military services move to make <a href=\"https:\/\/breakingdefense.com\/tag\/joint-all-domain-command-and-control\/\">Joint All Domain Command and Control (JADC2)<\/a> real, say senior company officials.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cRight now, the most exciting thing they\u2019re looking at is our broadband services. With that, we\u2019re able to provide broadband on the move, and they\u2019re a big adopter of that, obviously, for things like JADC2,\u201d Scott Scheimreif, Iridium\u2019s executive vice president for government programs told Breaking Defense.<\/p>\n<p>Scheimreif said his firm is \u201cnot trying to compete\u201d in general-purpose broadband, but is offering \u201cvery specialized services\u201d that could be of use to Space Force.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe don\u2019t have to be the primary; we may be the emergency or contingency kind of solution. But we\u2019re not going to have a fixed-price for broadband,\u201d he said, drawing a distinction with the company\u2019s narrowband offerings.<span><br \/><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The company operates 66 active Iridium NEXT satellites in Low Earth Orbit (LEO), plus nine spares.<\/p>\n<p>Buying <a href=\"https:\/\/breakingdefense.com\/tag\/commercial-satellite-communications\/\">commercial satellite communications<\/a> (SATCOM) as a service \u2014 that is, buying access to bandwidth under a fixed-price contract over a fixed number of years, similar to how individuals buy a cell phone plan \u2014 is something that the Space Force has been <a href=\"https:\/\/breakingdefense.com\/2021\/10\/space-force-plans-up-to-2-3b-in-comsatcom-contracts\/\">struggling to do since its inception.<\/a> It also is something in which combatant commands and the other services, <a href=\"https:\/\/breakingdefense.com\/2021\/09\/like-a-cell-phone-plan-army-tees-up-satcom-services-pilot\/\">particularly the Army<\/a>, are interested.<\/p>\n<p>The goal is two-pronged: to save money but also provide more, and more resilient, battlefield communications by being able to switch from one provider to another when one system is either unavailable or actively being jammed.<\/p>\n<p>Space Force\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/breakingdefense.com\/tag\/space-warfighting-analysis-center-swac\/\">Space Warfighting Analysis Center (SWAC)<\/a> is working on a so-called force design aimed at creating a \u201cspace data backbone\u201d that integrates SATCOM across military, commercial and even allied networks, SWAC Director Andrew Cox told Breaking Defense in an <a href=\"https:\/\/breakingdefense.com\/2022\/01\/exclusive-space-warfighting-analysis-center-chief-on-creating-something-out-of-nothing\/\">exclusive interview in January<\/a> that effort includes looking at a <a href=\"https:\/\/breakingdefense.com\/2022\/01\/swac-ponders-acquisition-strategy-limits-of-user-terminals-in-future-satcom-plan\/\">\u201cfee for service\u201d acquisition model<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Further, the <a href=\"https:\/\/breakingdefense.com\/tag\/commercial-satellite-communications-office-csco\/\">Commercial Satellite Communications Office (CSCO)<\/a> shared a draft request for proposals with industry <a href=\"https:\/\/breakingdefense.com\/2021\/10\/space-force-eyes-commercial-p-leo-satcom\/\">last fall looking for feedback<\/a> on how the Space Force might be able use such a services-based acquisition model to tap into the large constellations of broadband Internet satellites being built in LEO, such Iridium NEXT, the Starlink network being built by SpaceX or a similar network being built by OneWeb.<\/p>\n<p>CSCO serves as a middleman between commercial satellite operators and then matches the needs of various operational commands and other DoD customers to a provider \u2014 helping manage the contracting process. However, CSCO doesn\u2019t have a budget or program of record for buying bandwidth access; rather funds are found in the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/breakingdefense.com\/tag\/overseas-contingency-operations\/\">Overseas Contingency Operations<\/a> fund when a need for a surge in connectivity is required by operators. And up to now it\u2019s not done a lot of contracting on a true fee-for-service basis, <a href=\"https:\/\/breakingdefense.com\/2021\/10\/space-force-eyes-commercial-p-leo-satcom\/\">according to industry officials. <\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have much more work to do,\u201d Pete Hoene, CEO of SES Government Solutions, told the SATELLITE 2022 conference on March 23. \u201cWe really do need a long term partnership so that as owner\/operators we can invest in the capabilities the US government wants and needs, but we also have an incentive to do so \u2014 longer term contracts, Other Transaction Authority, so we\u2019re more flexible.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Iridium is one of the few firms that already has a long-term fixed price contract for SATCOM with Space Force. Indeed, the bulk of DoD\u2019s SATCOM services and bandwidth comes via the Enhanced Mobile Satellite Services (EMMS) program, for which Iridium Communications was awarded a $738.5 million, seven-year, fixed-price contract in December 2019.<\/p>\n<p>But that, Iridium CEO Matt Desch explained, is a contract for narrowband services, not broadband.<\/p>\n<p>Narrowband SATCOM is optimized for applications\/customers that need highly reliable, low power, and long-range communications \u2014 it eats up less of the bandwidth available, and transmits at a higher power level than broadband, thus the high reliability.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe make everybody else jealous, because we are the only satellite company with a fixed-price model,\u201d he said.\u201dNow, that\u2019s for our narrowband services, because we can afford to do that, be sort of all-you-can-eat.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Broadband SATCOM, on the other hand, is capable of higher data rates, meaning it can transmit much more data than narrowband in a given amount of time. Thus, broadband is used to provide not just voice communications, but high-speed internet connectivity that can rapidly transmit images and video.<\/p>\n<p>Desch said that there is a lot of interest in broadband as a service, too, but that is more difficult to make a business case for because it is more costly. For this reason, Iridium won\u2019t be offering its various-speed broadband services, called Iridium Certus, under an unlimited data for a fixed-price contract.<\/p>\n<p>Scheimreif also stressed the fact that Iridium doesn\u2019t see itself as a competitor to big broadband providers like SpaceX and OneWeb.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe kind of consider ourselves a very niche, unique capability of highly reliable, very resilient network. And we work with others like a Starlink, and a OneWeb: they\u2019re providing the big pipes and we\u2019re providing highly reliable service.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That said, Desch explained that one of the advantages of Iridium\u2019s broadband network for the Space Force is that it is already built. \u201cWe built it. We spent billions of dollars, they didn\u2019t have to build it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Service officials the company has interacted with also \u201clike the idea\u201d that Iridium\u2019s broadband service is based on L-band, he added, \u201cso it has lot of resiliency.\u201d Finally, he said, the Iridium network is attractive to Space Force because it uses \u201ca small terminal\u201d that \u201ccan be integrated with other technologies.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Iridium NEXT satellite constellation (Graphic: Iridium) WASHINGTON: The Space Force is increasingly interested in Iridium\u2019s satellite broadband communications services as one path to feeding the military\u2019s ever-growing appetite for space-based<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":489,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1417570","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1417570","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/489"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1417570"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1417570\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1417570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1417570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1417570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}