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The House Drive needs entry to a fleet of small, maneuverable business satellites that may present a spread of providers from geosynchronous orbit, mainly satellite tv for pc communications.
In an Oct. 8 discover to business, the service mentioned it plans to start out a contest in January for the hassle, dubbed Maneuverable GEO. The intent is to create a pool of contractors the service can faucet, when wanted, to complement navy capabilities. Importantly, the spacecraft ought to have the ability to maneuver—both to keep away from particles or to maneuver between orbital slots to offer higher protection to customers in a given area.
That agility is especially necessary for satellite tv for pc communications missions, the place completely different frequencies provide roughly safety and bandwidth for operators.
“Mixed with the necessity to complement growing old navy satellite tv for pc sources, the power to offer a lot of these smaller, faster satellite tv for pc builds with maneuvering capabilities which can be able to offering entry to, specifically, scarce navy frequency bands is paramount to efficiently supporting DOD operations and communications wants,” the service mentioned in an earlier Sept. 15 discover.
Officers have been weighing the necessity for a program to leverage GEO-based business satellites, and the previous head of the Industrial House Workplace, Col. Wealthy Kniseley, mentioned the idea on a number of events over the past yr.
“That’s going to be a game-changer for us within the navy, the place you’re not at a stagnant orbit, and also you’re capable of drift from level to level, particularly supporting us within the occasion of a regional or nationwide struggle in order that we are able to maneuver extra of our capabilities to be extra agile to the warfighter,” Kniseley informed reporters in September 2024 at AFA’s Air, House & Cyber Convention.
Past business SATCOM—which the service mentioned is vital to complement its growing old and transitioning navy SATCOM constellations—House Drive leaders envision the business fleet supporting extra conventional capabilities like place, navigation, and timing, and environmental monitoring, in addition to future missions like on-orbit manufacturing.
The Maneuverable GEO program consists of three vital shifts the House Drive has pursued lately: mobility in orbit, proliferation, and hybrid military-commercial satellite tv for pc fleets.
Beneath every of these focus areas is an crucial to construct extra resiliency into the service’s structure to guard towards rising threats from Russia and China—and to take action rapidly. Maneuverable GEO, officers say, will assist get after that purpose.
“This mixture of maneuverability utilizing decentralized, spatially dispersed small and medium satellites will increase the resilience of each the service total and, within the case of [commercial SATCOM] providers, the sign for any specific person,” USSF mentioned within the September discover.
Audio of this text is dropped at you by the Air & House Forces Affiliation, honoring and supporting our Airmen, Guardians, and their households. Discover out extra at afa.org