Defense Innovation Unit teams with companies on space-based internet
WASHINGTON — As the Defense Innovation Unit works to demonstrate a space-based internet capability that could help the Pentagon achieve its vision for a connected battlespace, one of the organization’s biggest challenges has been navigating the military services’ disparate strategies for achieving it.
DIU is developing the Hybrid Space Architecture in partnership with the Space Force and the Air Force Research Laboratory to provide internet connectivity from space. The plan is to demonstrate the ability to use commercial satellites and communication systems to provide more bandwidth, security and flexibility to military and civil users.
The effort is closely linked to the Defense Department’s concept of Joint All-Domain Command and Control — a vision to connect military forces and their information sharing systems, regardless of whether they’re operating in the air, space, sea, land or cyber domains.
To realize that vision, the department needs a secure, reliable communications infrastructure that can quickly collect and distribute data, which the Hybrid Space Architecture is meant to provide. The technology is under design to link communication satellites across multiple orbits, fuse data from an array of sensors, and leverage cloud computing to securely process and disseminate information from space.
Pentagon leaders consider JADC2 the military’s top development priority and have recognized the importance of space-based connectivity in that work. However, with the services crafting separate plans, it can be difficult to align those strategies, according to DIU’s Rogan Shimmin.
Shimmin, DIU’s program manager for the effort, told C4ISRNET in an interview that despite the challenges that come with supporting a secure, hybrid communications infrastructure, the biggest hurdle has been getting buy-in from all services.
“It’s meant to be a joint exercise, but so far ... each of the branches has sort of gone off in their own direction, trying to figure out what that means,” he said. “So we’re trying to bring [together] a lot of those disparate organizations who’ve been working on their own strategies, their own use cases for this architecture.”
DIU’s role in the Hybrid Space Architecture project is to partner with commercial space firms to identify and integrate their capabilities into the network. Their work builds on several years of research within the Air Force Research Lab and force design work within the Space Force’s Space Warfighting Analysis Center. The Space Development Agency, which launched its first transport satellites in April, is also developing communication satellites that will be an early node within the broader hybrid network.
Shimmin said along with identifying commercial technology and working with nontraditional companies, DIU is in a unique position to connect the military services with technology that meets a common need.