U.S. Air Force Maj. Michael Moyles

Maj. Michael Moyles of the U.S. Air Force’s Space Superiority Panel is a strong believer in the ability of hosted commercial payloads to serve the satellite communication needs of U.S. Department of Defense. In 2004, he compiled a thesis at the Naval Graduate School that analyzed how hosted payloads could better meet the U.S. military’s capacity demands.

“It is no secret that it takes the U.S. Department of Defense around 70 months from the time we identify a requirement to the time that we have a satellite on orbit,” said Moyles. “That amount of time, in most cases, is too long to wait and that is when we look to lease to commercial services.”

    Cultivating the relationship between commercial satellite providers and the Department of Defense has not always been easy, Moyles said, but as the demand for military satellite communications continues to grow, he has noticed a change in the military’s understanding of the importance of working with commercial providers.

Via Satellite: How has the relationship between the Pentagon and the satellite industry evolved?

Moyles: I started to notice a dramatic change over the last five years when new positions dedicated to each type of satellite bandwidth started to form within the Department of Defense. We now partner together on a regular basis in conferences like Satcon, ISCe, GlobalMilCom and SATELLITE 2009 to learn how each side of the equation works. We even have an annual conference called the Department of Defense Commercial Satcom Users Workshop, where you have all the providers of commercial services and all the users of those commercial services together in one room for a week learning how these systems work together. There have also been working groups of handpicked government representatives and handpicked industry representatives forming workgroups to tackle specific issues. One example is the Mission Assurance Group, specifically geared to determine how can we better protect satellite communications. There are similar working groups for operational management. These sorts of groups would be unheard of 10 years ago.

Via Satellite: How has the military’s demand on commercial services changed?

Moyles: Our needs have always been increasing and will continue to increase. Smart weapons, the U.S. Army’s future combat system, the airborne ISR piece — all of these things are massive data hogs. On top of that, we also have morale, welfare and recreation usage by troops. These include phone calls back home to their families through videoconferencing. You could make an argument that those types of communication services, which boosts troop morale, are just as important and essential as intelligence, imagery, battlefield awareness or any other military application. We provide some of that with our own military satellites, but some of that is provided by the commercial industry.

Via Satellite: Does the National Space Policy place restrictions on these types of partnerships?

Moyles: The National Space Policy published by President Bush in August 2006 requires the Department of Defense to consider the commercial industry first when their services are available and consistent with national security needs. If they can’t meet our needs, then the national space policy indicates that we should modify commercial services to meet our needs. We are told to seek out our own solutions only when the commercial industry cannot meet our needs and cannot be modified. The challenges lie in the implementation of this policy because there is a caveat — if there is any suspicion or any fear that commercial services are not as protected or secure as our own satellites, then the policy provides us with a justification to use only our own services and there have been many, many instances where there was enough concern. Some of this concern has been raised in the last few years with the fact that there are no longer any U.S.-owned commercial satellite providers. The merger of Intelsat and PanAmSat as well as SES Americom and New Skies have created this kind of environment.

Via Satellite: How can the commercial industry address concerns from the military over the protection of communications infrastructure?

Moyles: The impression that commercial satcom is not protected is wrong, and the Department of Defense needs to do a little more homework over the concept of protection. I think that the word protection has been misused to a large degree. If by protected we mean hardened against a nuclear attack, then of course, there are no commercial satellites that can provide those types of services, only military. But if by protection you mean encryption or anti-jamming, there are commercial satellites that are capable of providing those features. They may not be able to mitigate the jamming but they will be able to locate where the jamming is coming from and either terminate it or nullify it. In most cases military satellites are subject to the exact same basic threats as commercial satellites. The mitigation measures are the same.

Via Satellite: How does the partnership with the commercial industry reduce risk?

Moyles: If the Department of Defense can diversify its communications portfolio where some of our communications is terrestrial, some by military satellite and some by a variety of commercial satellite providers, we reduce risk. If we put all of our eggs in one basket, so to speak, we create incentive — a huge target for someone with hostile intent to create a significant event that puts our entire communications network at risk. By diversifying you also reduce the impact of an attack. If you have only four satellites providing your military communications and one of those satellites is attacked, 25 percent of your communications is compromised, which is huge. But if you have the same communication over a dozen or so satellites plus six different service providers plus a terrestrial back-up, the impact is reduced therefore risk is reduced because there are 100 different ways that communication network could operate.

Via Satellite: Will the presidential administration change affect commercial and military partnerships?

Moyles: President-elect Obama and Vice President-elect Biden released a memo clearly stating that space is a priority and that is about as detailed as he got. How these policies will be implemented is anyone’s guess. I hope it will not have a negative impact on the relationship between the Department of Defense and the industry.