Are Terminals Included for MILSATCOM Systems?

Every year NSR writes about an ‘upcoming wave’ of sovereign SATCOM capabilities – WGS-11+, Skynet-6EC, etc. and today is no different. In the past few months, the UK announced $2B in ‘new funding for military space programs’, the European Commission announced “€6 billion program” with a component focused on secure connectivity, and Australia recently opened bidding on what most expect is a “$4B AUS program” for JP9102. By the end of the year, other sovereign MILSATCOM networks are likely to be announced. With investments like this for ‘secure and dedicated access’ to satellite connectivity resources, suppose “the ground segment” is included?



NSR’s Government and Military Satellite Communications, 18^th Edition report places Gov & Mil commercial satellite connectivity at $86B from 2020 to 2030. Set against a landscape of $1.25 Trillion in cumulative retail revenues according to NSR’s Global Space Economy, 2^nd Edition, Gov & Mil COMSATCOM Markets will account for roughly 7% of retail revenues. Driven by increased requirements across the Gov & Mil enterprise, for applications such as C4ISR or troop welfare, the need for connectivity remains clear – and commercial providers will remain a key ingredient in fulfilling that requirement. However, that does not address the key question of how these networks will coexist or why NSR remains optimistic on the prospects of commercial services in Gov & Mil Markets.

For that optimism, NSR looks to the historical record of MILSATCOM networks on both the available capacity and ground terminal programs. It is almost tragic the number of times, “it’s all about the terminal” is the answer for why Gov & Mil procurement or utilization acts the way it does. Heavy utilization of FSS Ku-band capacity instead of migration towards GEO-HTS Ku-band? It’s the terminal. Single-digit Mbps bandwidth on navy vessels while cruise ships can enjoy Gbps-class connectivity? It’s the terminal. Roaming between orbits or amongst frequencies? It’s the terminal. Nearly all bottlenecks in any ‘current-gen’ network architecture centers squarely around the underlying terminal infrastructure.

U.S. Space Force’s SATCOM Vision Paper highlights the importance of ‘SATCOM Terminals’ throughout their paper published in 2020, mentions “terminal” 7 times throughout the 8-page paper. One of the key findings of the U.S. Wideband AoA was development of an ‘enterprise terminal program’ to manage the complexity of terminal program acquisition. Elsewhere, JP9102 press releases from the major bidders all mention the ‘importance of the ground segment’, and other MILSATCOM networks or notional enterprise design diagrams all mention some level of ‘total system design’ or ‘integrated space + ground’, etc. However, as reported as of January 2022 the lead agency in charge of doing the analysis on the ‘next gen’ infrastructure is still working on building out their analysis. It would seem that the wheels of MILSATCOM innovation continue to move slowly.

Now, perhaps ‘this time is different’ and ‘lessons learned will be implemented’ in the next wave of wiz-bang ‘all things to all warfighter network of the future’ designs. There is plenty of evidence to support that conclusion with the creation of the U.S. Space Force itself, reorganization of SATCOM acquisitions into the Commercial Satellite Communications Office (CSCO), and other developments elsewhere, which not only discuss a hybrid orbital infrastructure but mention the ‘role of commercial’ from day-0. However, with 17,000 terminals across 135 different form factors/designs in the U.S. Government’s network according to findings from the Wideband AoA a few years ago – it will be no small task to replace the existing infrastructure.

Why COMSATCOM?

These factors are some of the major drivers for NSR’s optimism on Gov & Mil markets continuing to use commercial capacity – the ‘terminal problem’ is just that, a problem AND on-orbit capacity from commercial providers will significantly out-pace anything ‘sovereign’. Leveraging commercial assets, which NSR projects will exceed more than 172 Tbps of GEO & Non-GEO HTS supply by 2030, will be critical to meet the future bandwidth demand of tomorrow.



Looking from the typical lens of ‘investments on-orbit’ and Government & Military orders will generate nearly 2.5x in cumulative revenues compared to commercial markets. Not only are these networks unlikely to deliver 172 Tbps+ of throughput, but they maybe cost a whole bunch more? Seems like another reason to accelerate a ‘paradigm change’ in approach.



Procurement activities in the U.S. Government market would also seem to mirror that while the ‘crazy period’ of troop surges in the Middle-East are over, the level of procurement is stabilizing over the past couple of years – and is likely to remain fairly stable over the next few years as the ‘next gen’ terminal infrastructure is figured out. 2022 will be a ‘key year’ given the troop drawdown in Afghanistan, and ‘award counts’ doesn’t entirely represent the ‘award value’, but the trends towards on-going leverage of COMSATCOM capabilities remain strong.



Let us also not forget that while the U.S. Government is a ‘key customer’ in Gov & Mil markets, they are not the only customer – advances in battlefield situational awareness, sensor fusion, and other strategies which require significant data throughput are proliferating across the world. For smaller countries, they are likely to have the same requirements of connecting deployed troops for C2 or MWR use-cases but are unable to afford the $B investments required for ‘their own’ satellite. Commercial services will be their method of enabling next-generation battlefield strategies.

Bottom Line

MILSATCOM networks are the best frenemy of commercial providers – constantly present they are ‘on paper’ highly competitive solutions to commercially-sourced services. However, if history is any indication, sovereign capabilities are not a 100% replacement for connectivity requirements, must operate in a complex oversight and management paradigm, seldom include the ‘full lifecycle costs’ to the end-user, typically do not incorporate both space and ground segments and cannot match the amount of raw capacity available by commercial providers. As data transport, sensor fusion, and “C2ISR” conops proliferate across the Gov and Mil community, access to connectivity will remain mission-critical. Frequently, that means ‘any and all’ sources of connectivity are leveraged – not just MILSATCOM.