Tournear: Link 16 From Space Working After Software Modifications
The Space Development Agency (SDA) has renamed its proliferated LEO constellation as the Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture, or PWSA. Logo: SDA
The U.S. Space Force’s Space Development Agency (SDA) said that it has ironed out wrinkles in Link 16 delivery from space to military forces over existing radios.
Last November, SDA said that it had debuted the provision of Link 16 data from space with three Tranche 0 Transport Layer York Space Systems satellites that demonstrated network entry through space to ground connection from Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) to a series of receivers using terrestrial radios.
Fielded since the 1970s, Link 16 is a tactical datalink communication system used by the U.S., NATO, and coalition forces to transmit and exchange real-time situational awareness data.
The SDA said that last November’s tests involved passive and active network entry, synchronization, and transmission of multiple tactical messages from satellites using L-band radios aboard the three Tranche 0 Transport Layer satellites to a ground test site located within the territory of a Five Eyes partner nation.
“What I didn’t say back in November is that in each one of those passes, we had about a 50 percent success rate on any given pass, and each of the contacts lasted about 30 seconds — that doesn’t sound too impressive,” SDA Director Derek Tournear said on March 18 during a keynote address at the SATELLITE 2024 conference in Washington, D.C.
“What I’ll say now is we started testing again with that Five Eyes partner, made some software modifications to fix some problems we had on orbit that was causing those challenges,” he said. “Link 16 from space is now working.”
SDA said that recent Link 16 tests from space have had a 90 percent success rate, and network connections lasted about nine minutes.
The SDA has lacked Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) approval to broadcast Link 16 from space into U.S. airspace, so SDA sought and received a waiver from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) to transmit to the Five Eyes nation.
Link 16 is part of the DoD Combined Joint All Domain Command and Control effort, and SDA’s Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture is the space linchpin of CJADC2.