WRIGHT-PATTERSON AFB, Ohio – U.S. Air Force researchers are asking communications and networking experts at two U.S. defense contractors to find new ways to distribute information among land, sea, and air forces quickly to support high-speed decision-making.
Officials of the Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, awarded contracts last week to L3Harris Technologies and to Northrop Grumman Corp. for the Defense Experimentation Using the Commercial Space Internet (DEUCSI) program.
This project seeks the ability to move and share data seamlessly among a wide variety of fixed and mobile operating locations using constantly available, high-bandwidth, beyond-line-of-sight communications.
This new capability will be called path-agnostic communications because its users will be able to communicate reliably to any location in the world without explicitly specifying which nodes of a communication network to use.
Air Force researchers awarded a $17.9 million contract to L3Harris Technologies Communication Systems-West in Salt Lake City; and a $9.9 million contract to the Northrop Grumman Technology Services segment in Herndon, Va., for the DEUCSI Call 002 vendor flexibility effort.
The contracts to L3Harris and Northrop Grumman seek to establish the ability to communicate with Air Force and other military platforms via several different commercial space internet constellations using common user terminal hardware elements.
In October the Air Force awarded a $3.6 million contract Lockheed Martin Corp. in Bethesda, Md., and a $2.3 million contract to Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. in Boulder, Colo., for the DEUCSI program.
The vision for path-agnostic communications is becoming possible due to the burgeoning commercial space internet, Air Force officials say. Several commercial companies plan to establish space internet constellations consisting of hundreds to thousands of satellites, each to create global internet services.
The Defense Experimentation Using the Commercial Space Internet program seeks to establish resilient, high-bandwidth, high-availability Air Force communications and data sharing capabilities by leveraging developing commercial space internet networks.
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This approach differs radically from traditional military satellite communications programs in which the government typically specifies and funds every aspect of the program, Air Force researchers point out.
Instead, taking advantage of the commercial space internet will concentrate government efforts on the few areas that are unique to Air Force applications.
The project has three phases: establish connectivity between several Air Force sites using commercial demonstration satellites and terminals; expand connectivity to many Air Force assets by proliferating user terminals to several locations and vehicle types; and special experiments to address military-unique requirements not otherwise met by commercial space internet vendors.
For more information contact L3Harris Communications Systems-West online at www2.l3t.com/csw, Northrop Grumman Technology Services at www.northropgrumman.com, or the Air Force Research Laboratory at www.wpafb.af.mil/afrl.
