Small Satellites set for Prosperous MilSpace Future

Small satellites are primed to have a bigger role in military satellite communications. That was the key takeaway from the “Milspace in the 21st Century: SmallSats and Disaggregated Space Architectures” panel at SATELLITE 2017 on Monday. An ongoing theme of the panel was how to the U.S. military could take advantage of the advances in small satellite technology to reduce costs, time to space and get the most out of these assets. One of the main speakers on this panel was Col. Shahnaz Punjani, Operationally Responsive Space (ORS) office director of the Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico, who said she “was very excited about what lies ahead with small satellites.”

She also spoke in depth about the goals behind the Air Force’s Space Enterprise Vision (SEV). The SEV accounts for the increasing threat to space systems, and provides a vision for how the Air Force should build a force responsive to that threat. The vision describes an integrated approach across all space mission areas, coupling the delivery of space mission effects to the warfighter (such as communications, positioning, navigation and timing, missile warning, and weather data) with the ability to protect and defend space capabilities against emerging threats. Punjani said the key was to reduce the timeline and reduce costs.

“We are looking at the cross range of communications and capabilities. We ask questions like: What are the key areas we need to protect? What are the capabilities that we need? In terms of smaller satellites, we will move to small satellites with three to five year timelines. We are looking at ways to provide capabilities in a much faster time. Our first program was ORS-1; we launched it within four years.”

Punjani highlighted a number of small satellite programs that the Air Force is involved in over the next few months. The ORS-5 satellite is being launched in July, and the cost involved is less than $100 million. There will also be the ORS-6 weather demonstration satellite, which will be launched in November. When analyzing the SEV, she said schedule is the key driver, as it aims to do technology refresh in a more efficient way. “There is no new money being allocated. We need to stay within certain cost thresholds, and do a technology refresh at the same time,” she said.

Peter Wagner, Chief Technology Officer (CTO) at Spaceflight Industries/BlackSky Global spoke on the past, present and future of small satellites in the milspace domain. He said the past could be defined as a period of experimentation with small satellites, and today he characterizes the current environment as a very commercial environment for smallsats, with some of these companies being funded by Venture Capital companies that are seeking a return on investment. As for the future,

Wagner said he thinks “there are multiple futures we could imagine. I think we are going to see obviously a middle ground between boom and bust. We are going to see the rise of the cloud in space; we will start to leverage the power of small satellites. If we move into this cloud environment in space, it will fundamentally change our environment.”

Wagner also cited the influence of IoT and 5G networking as it relates to small satellites, indicating this will impact a “huge transformation” on the way business is being done. “5G networks are being designed for 200 billion connected devices. It will fundamentally change the way we design systems,” he said.

Dale Hayden, senior researcher of integration cell at the U.S. Air Force’s Air University, spoke of the new space environment the U.S. military is facing and how it must tread a fine line when dealing with the public perception of the importance of space. He said the American public thinks space is a pristine environment, where as in the business, “we have come to late the assertion that space is contested.”

Hayden believes things have got to a stage where the American public expects to win battles with few casualties. “We quickly forget the casualties in Vietnam. Could we sustain those casualties today in front of the American public? Space dominance, if it ever existed, it is not in our future. Nations on the terror watch list are developing a space capability. How long before terror organizations find a space capability? We are in catch-up mode,” he said.

Hayden believes small satellites could play a key role in improving the depth of space defenses. “We need space defense in depth. This is where small satellites and disaggregation become critically important. The larger satellites that are more expensive, those will be always be required. But, having a mix of larger and smaller satellites, and establishing a true space in depth is critical,” he said.

Scott Scheimraf, executive vice president of government programs at Iridium Communications, spoke about the role that companies like Iridium can play in this changing landscape.

“The military satellite end user has a strong need for multiple solutions. Commercial systems are being used more and more to complement military systems. We have seen a significant shift from the military satellite end user about how they view commercial. Uses of new space systems like Iridium provides much needed diversity, and enables our warfighters to be successful, and make it much harder for our adversary,” he said. VS