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The commercial space industry is experiencing a new era in satellite performance. Over the past few years, multiple commercial satellite operators have deployed and activated next-generation high-throughput satellite (HTS) constellations. These satellites are able to provide far more throughput than existing wideband satellites, with increases in throughput of up to 400 percent.
These new HTS have re-energized […]

Earlier this month, I attended an AFCEA symposium in Baltimore, Maryland. High on everyone’s agenda was implementation of National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) 1601.  The Act will move responsibility for the DoD’s use of commercial SATCOM from the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) to the Air Force Space Command.
First some background – the FY18 NDAA

Leaders of government and military agencies increasingly acknowledge that space is a contested domain with operations requiring a greater need for resiliency. In order for the United States to maintain its leadership in space, satellites and communications networks must be able to withstand attacks and, if and when they occur, be able to recover quickly.

Tesla, a company owned by Elon Musk, is making headlines this year with its struggles to produce the mid-priced Model 3.  This is the same gentleman who founded SpaceX in 2004 and turned the rocket company into one of the greatest success stories in the industry, with a long string of technology firsts and a

Industrial revolutions leave no sector or industry untouched, and the fourth industrial revolution is no different. We are witnessing the rapid transformation that’s blurring the line between the physical and digital worlds through artificial intelligence, machine to machine communications, and the Internet of Things—technologies that are touching every aspect of our lives. For the government

The 2018 Special Operations Forces Industry Conference (SOFIC) is right around the corner, and if you attended last year, you’ll recognize this year’s theme: Win-Transform-People. For the second year, the conference will “emphasize the USSOCOM Commander’s vision to win the current fight, transform current capabilities and equipment for future threats, and focus on our greatest

Recent media articles have taken a negative tone regarding how the government procures commercial technology in space. Last month SpaceNews went as far as stating in a headline that the military “can’t decide what to buy.”
We think that’s an exaggeration. Certainly, the government needs to streamline its acquisition processes, and it is exploring how best

The recent Senate confirmation of Rep. Jim Bridenstine as NASA’s 13th administrator bodes well for a fresh perspective that can benefit both the agency and commercial space industry. As the representative for Oklahoma’s first congressional district, Bridenstine is the first elected official to head the nation’s space agency. Since coming to congress in 2013, Bridenstine

Earlier this year the consulting firm Northern Sky Research released the fourth edition of its Unmanned Aircraft Systems Satcom and Imaging Markets report. This report explores opportunities across the UAS industry value chain, with a particular focus on markets for satellite operators and geospatial imaging/analytics companies.
SatCom Frontier reached out to the lead analyst of this

Judging from the omnibus appropriations bill for fiscal year 2018, Congress and the U.S. Department of Defense understand how critical space is to the nation’s military. According to an article in Space News, the fiscal 2018 budget contains additional millions of dollars for space that the Pentagon did not even request. Appropriators explained that they

The U.S. Air Force has its focus set on space these days, as evidenced by its recently released Fiscal Year 2019 budget and an ongoing review of the military’s space operations. Both look promising.
“The Air Force’s FY-19 budget accelerates our efforts to deter, defend and prevail against anyone who seeks to deny our ability to

Decades of relative tranquility in space have come to an end. The possibility of state-on-state conflict has become part of military planning, making flexible and continuous connectivity more critical than ever for defence forces around the world. The cybersecurity threat to SATCOM has also increased, both from hostile governments and non-state actors.
These new realities are

Disruption or innovation – which term most accurately describes the government and military markets for commercial SATCOM? That’s the question posed by a thought-provoking article published last week by research firm Northern Sky Research.
The article addresses head-on something not often discussed openly by commercial providers:  the government can be a difficult customer to serve. Unique