SES Space & Defense awarded US AFRL contract
September 5, 2023
SES Space & Defense, a wholly-owned subsidiary of SES focused on delivering satellite network solutions for the US Government, has been awarded a multi-year contract by the US Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) to conduct a series of tests to integrate space broadband services across a multi-orbit satellite network in support of the Defense Experimentation Using Commercial Space Internet (DEUCSI) programme. This announcement by AFRL is the third award under the DEUCSI CALL 003 Programme seeking experimentation for use cases in the Arctic region and airborne communications.
The DEUCSI programme is intended to establish communications with military platforms via multiple commercial space internet (CSI) constellations in Geosynchronous Orbit (GEO), Medium Earth Orbit (MEO), and Low Earth Orbit (LEO) utilising a common user terminal with the ability to alternate between space broadband providers.
SES Space & Defense will demonstrate multi-orbit, multi-band solutions that seamlessly switch among commercial space broadband services in different frequency bands to access favourable spectrum or failover between constellations. In doing so, SES Space & Defense says it will leverage common hardware elements to communicate with commercial space broadband constellations and military communications systems to provide greater flexibility in communication paths while minimising the deployment of constellation-specific hardware.
“An integrated multi-orbit, multi-band satellite architecture is a requirement in today’s contested and congested environment for a network-centric military,” said SES Space & Defense Senior Vice President of Space Initiatives, Jim Hooper. “The DEUCSI programme is a great example to showcase SES Space & Defense’s multi-orbit, multi-band holistic approach to deliver seamless interoperability to the US Air Force to achieve unparalleled situation awareness and strategic advances for mission success.”