U.S. Navy Seeks Real-time Physiological Monitoring System

On the same subject

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  July 15, 2019 | International, Aerospace

  Can commercial satellites revolutionize nuclear command and control?

  By: Nathan Strout The rapid growth of commercial space makes the use of non-government satellites for nuclear command and control increasingly tempting, according to one official. During a speech June 26, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein said that the service — which oversees both the United States' ground-based intercontinental ballistic missiles, as well as strategic bombers capable of delivering nuclear warheads — was open to the idea of using private sector satellites. “Whether it's Silicon Valley or commercial space, there's unlimited opportunities ahead right now for us in terms of how we think differently on things like nuclear command and control,” said Goldfien. “I, for one, am pretty excited about it.” The military has increasingly turned to the commercial sector to expand its capabilities more cost efficiently. For instance, the National Reconnaissance Office — the agency in charge of the nation's spy satellites — announced that it was looking to expand the amount of satellite imagery it buys from commercial companies. The Air Force has also expressed interest in developing a hybrid architecture for satellite communications, which would see war fighters able to switch between commercial and military satellites as they move through coverage areas. According to Goldfein, there's no reason that commercial capabilities could not similarly be applied to nuclear C2. “The work that we're doing in connecting the force and building a network force around the services in the conventional side has equal applications to the nuclear command and control side, because at the end of the day what we need is resilient capable architecture that keeps the commander in chief connected,” said Goldfien. “So one of the areas that I think we're going to be able to leverage significantly is the rapid and exciting expansion of commercial space in bringing low-Earth orbit capabilities that will allow us to have resilient pathways to communicate.” Currently, the military relies primarily on the Advanced Extremely High Frequency System for the nuclear sector. With four satellites in orbit and a fifth to be launched later this month, AEHF provides highly secure, anti-jamming communications for the military and national leaders like the commander in chief. It wasn't clear in Goldfein's comments whether he was interested in using commercial capabilities to augment, replace or work as a backup to AEHF and other military satellite systems. He did note that the sheer volume of satellites in some commercial constellations provides increased survivability for the network. “We want to get to a point both in conventional and unconventional, or conventional and nuclear, where if some portion of the network is taken out, our answer ought to be, ‘Peh, I've got five other pathways. And you want to take out 1,000 satellites of my constellation, of which I have five? Knock yourself out.' That's what I see is going to be a significant way that we're going to be able to leverage,” said Goldfein. The possibility of lowering costs is another major incentive to turning to the commercial sector to begin providing the communications necessary. “What we want to eventually get to is the reversal of the cost curve. Right now it actually costs us more to defend than it takes to shoot. And we want to reverse that so it actually costs them more to shoot than it takes for us to defend,” explained Goldfien. Goldfein pointed to commercial launches as an area where competition had helped drive down costs. “Increased access to affordable launch and smaller payloads that are more capable has caused this rapid expansion of commercial capabilities in space,” he said. “That may be one of the most exciting developments that we have going forward, because industry is going to help us solve many of these problems.” https://www.c4isrnet.com/battlefield-tech/c2-comms/2019/07/12/can-commercial-satellites-revolutionize-nuclear-command-and-control/

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  September 14, 2020 | International, Aerospace, C4ISR

  US Space Force developing a strategy to improve satellite communications

  Nathan Strout WASHINGTON — As the U.S. Space Force builds out its fiscal 2022 budget, the nascent service is developing a new strategy to govern how it builds and leases satellite communications and services, Lt. Gen. Bill Liquori explained during the Defense News Conference Sept. 9. The strategy follows the Enterprise SATCOM Vision the Space Force released in February. That document formally laid out the military's desire to have a single satellite communication architecture capable of keeping war fighters connected even in contested, degraded and operationally-limited environments. Currently, the Department of Defense relies on a loose federation of stovepiped, government-built satellites and commercial providers to provide connectivity. But moving forward, the Space Force wants war fighters to seamlessly roam from one signal to another to maintain their connection. “At the end of the day, anyone who's using satellite communications doesn't really care where that information comes from,” explained Liquori, the Space Force's deputy chief of space operations for strategy, plans, programs, requirements and analysis. “They really want to know that when they need to use their radio they can use it, and if there's somebody trying to counter them using that radio, that there's an ability for them to pivot to an alternative communications mechanism, because what they care about is getting their message across.” While the service was able to include some aspects of that Enterprise SATCOM Vision in the fiscal 2021 budget, that budget process was already well underway when the Space Force was formally established in December. That budget request included $43 million in research, development, test & evaluation funding to develop the Fighting SATCOM Enterprise, a new designation emphasizing the ability to roam between various communications satellites, regardless of whether they are commercial or government operated. Liquori emphasized that more would be done in the fiscal 2022 budget. “The '22 budget is now the next step if you will, and we've continued to lay in both budget line items for being able to maintain a common operating picture of our SATCOM links in theater as well as continuing on prototypes,” he explained. “There are certainly inputs there for Protected Tactical Waveforms so that we can do protected communications with more than just our traditional military purpose-built systems, but ideally to use that waveform on other systems as well.” Simultaneously, the service is developing a strategy that will govern how the Enterprise SATCOM Vision is implemented. “Obviously the '22 budget submission is big for any service," Liquori said. “We're working on an Enterprise SATCOM strategy that will follow from the vision document, if you will.” Commercial providers have expressed cautious optimism with the Space Force's approach, while arguing that the effort needs more funding and more specifics. https://www.c4isrnet.com/smr/defense-news-conference/2020/09/09/space-force-developing-a-strategy-for-implementing-its-enterprise-satcom-vision/

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  March 14, 2019 | International, Land

  DARPA Seeks Tools to Capture Underground Worlds in 3D

  DARPA is seeking information on state-of-the-art technologies and methodologies for advanced mapping and surveying in support of the agency's Subterranean (SubT) Challenge. Georeferenced data – geographic coordinates tied to a map or image – could significantly improve the speed and accuracy of warfighters in time-sensitive active combat operations and disaster-related missions in the subterranean domain. Today, the majority of the underground environments are uncharted or inadequately mapped, including human-made tunnels, underground infrastructure, and natural cave networks. Through the Request for Information, DARPA is looking for innovative technologies to collect highly accurate and reproducible ground-truth data for subterranean environments, which would potentially disrupt and positively leverage the subterranean domain without prohibitive cost and with less risk to human lives. These innovative technologies will allow for exploring and exploiting these dark and dirty environments that are too dangerous to deploy humans. “What makes subterranean areas challenging for precision mapping and surveying – such as lack of GPS, constrained passages, dark or dust-filled air – is similar to what inhibits safe and speedy underground operations for our warfighters,” said Timothy Chung, program manager in DARPA's Tactical Technology Office (TTO). “Building an accurate three-dimensional picture is a key enabler to rapidly and remotely exploring and searching subterranean spaces.” DARPA is looking for commercial products, software, and services available to enable high-fidelity, 3D mapping and surveying of underground environments. Of interest are available technologies that offer high accuracy and high resolution, with the ability to provide precise and reproducible survey points without reliance on substantial infrastructure (e.g., access to global fixes underground). Additionally, relevant software should also allow for generated data products to be easily manipulated, annotated, and rendered into 3D mesh objects for importing into simulation and game engine environments. DARPA may select proposers to demonstrate their technologies or methods to determine feasibility of capabilities for potential use in the SubT Challenge in generating and sharing 3D datasets of underground environments. Such accurately georeferenced data may aid in scoring the SubT competitors' performance in identifying and reporting the location of artifacts placed within the course. In addition, renderings from these data may provide DARPA with additional visualization assets to showcase competition activities in real-time and/or post-production. Instructions for submissions, as well as full RFI details, are available on the Federal Business Opportunities website: https://www.fbo.gov/spg/ODA/DARPA/CMO/DARPA-SN-19-21/listing.html. Submissions are due at 1:00 p.m. EDT April 15, 2019. Please email questions to SubTChallenge@darpa.mil. https://www.darpa.mil/news-events/2019-03-07