SDA Adds Transport Links To New Hybrid Satcom Terminals

COLORADO SPRINGS—The U.S.  Space Development Agency (SDA) is extending its K_a-band military communications link to airborne U.S. Air Force platforms, U.S. Navy ships at sea and eventually U.S. Army mobile units as part of a Space Force program to develop hybrid satellite communication terminals.

There are individual hybrid satcom terminal programs underway across each of the services, and Space Development Agency Director Derek Tournear says they are either on contract now or will be to add the low Earth orbit data link from the organization’s Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture. The contracts already covered other satellite communications connections, including SpaceX’s Starshield and military constellations.

“[A] hybrid satcom terminal is the Space Force’s vision for how to do satcom terminals in the future and it’s really a panacea, if it works well,” Tournear says. “It’s going to tie all these together, and that’s the plan.”

The goal is for the terminals is to be able to transition autonomously between multiple satellite communications links for resilient communications, including within fighter jets and on large ships.

The Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) has developed its terminal, known as Global Lightning, to connect to communications links such as Starshield, OneWeb and Telesat, with those contracts modified for SDA’s link.

“So that’s being developed, that’s their terminal,” Tournear told reporters at the 2024 Space Symposium here. “That terminal, as it’s being developed, will be tested on multiple different platforms, but will have the connectivity to the military K_a for the SDA transport layer.”

The Space Force’s fiscal 2025 budget request calls for $228 million for hybrid satcom terminals. Budget justification documents state the funding will cover integration on the first five of nine planned platforms and to increase customization of multiband apertures to allow use on challenging platforms.

AFRL has been developing Global Lightning since 2019, and in 2021 demonstrated it onboard a KC-135. A laboratory video of the test showed the boom operator on a KC-135 watching a live stream of a SpaceX launch on a tablet using a Starlink connection.

The U.S. Navy’s terminal is the Satellite Terminal (transportable) Non-Geostationary (STtNG). The U.S. Army is working with both of the systems “and taking the best of breed and figure out what the future looks like.” Tournear says.