An analysis of emerging commercial wide band satellite system and their potential for military use

Abstract

Spurred by the growing need of information transfer around the globe, considerable investment is being made in the private sector to develop and field new commercial SATCOM services. From the military perspective, the exploitation of this commercially developed SATCOM services becomes an attractive augmentation to expensive MILSATCOM programs especially in an era of declining defense dollars. Applications such as battlefield situational awareness, operational planning and execution, weather, telemedicine, operations and maintenance support, tailored intelligence, distance learning, training, morale, welfare and recreation services are areas where emerging commercial wide-band satellite systems such as Teledesic, Skybridge, Cyberstar, Astrolink and Spaceway might offer possible solutions. This thesis analyzes these five commercial satellite systems in terms of their performance measures derived from the seven required characteristics as defined in the Advanced MILSATCOM Capstone Requirement Document Ref. 7. In addition, factors that might account for the commercial viability of these systems are also considered to determine their survivability in this competitive market place. A portion of this thesis has also been devoted to illustrate current MILSATCOM architecture so as to give reader an appreciation of the present capabilities, life spans and the possible future architecture that it might take.