By IPS Correspondents
LONDON, Oct 23 1996 (IPS)

With an eye on cutting costs and improving efficiency, military planners are tapping into the services provided by commercial communications firms, according to experts.

And the prospect of expanding business with the military is in turn providing an incentive for satellite companies to improve their technology, the experts say. These firms see military sources as offering a potentially lucrative addition to their client base.

A top-level re-examination of the military space programme currently underway in the Pentagon is expected to result in increased use by the U.S. Defense Department (DoD) of consumer products like Inmarsat terminals, handheld global positioning system receivers and low-resolution remote sensing imagery.

The military is now developing a formal strategy for making the best use of commercially available products and is drawing up a formal position on how far military space operators should rely on commercial systems to cut costs.

Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Space Robert Davis and the DoD Space Architect Maj. Gen. Robert Dickman are examining how to best acquire and deploy all military space systems to meet requirements for the next 20 years.

These issues were also considered at a conference sponsored by Davis’s office earlier this year where top civilian DoD managers called for change and complained about existing military space systems’ high costs, lack of coordination, outdated technology and other problems.

Phillip Anselmo, a recently retired Navy Rear Admiral who was involved with military space programmes, explains that the U.S Navy gave up ownership of space communications in the 1980s and contracted with Hughes Aircraft to provide services. He says the Global Broadcast System, which DoD is now starting should also be procured commercially.

Paul Kaminski, the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Technology, says since Operation Desert Storm, the U.S.-led military operation against Iraq, the services have learned to make the most of leased commercial satellite services.

“The Department needs to become a far smarter buyer in both what we buy and how we buy it,” he says, noting that the commercial sector has learned how to achieve cost effectiveness without giving up capability.

BUT Donald Lionetti, a former Army Lt. General who commanded the Army Space and Strategic Defense Command, says not all systems should be from commercial sources. “You can rely upon that which you own, and you may not be able to rely upon that which you do not own,” he says.

Those which can be safely leased include weather, remote sensing, global broadcasting services and battlefield paging, he notes.

The U.S Air Force is currently evaluating commercial satellites for possible inclusion in its Satellite Control Centre planning operations. The idea is to add control and scheduling of civil communication, remote sensing or other commercial spacecraft to the approximately 90 military satellites that are controlled at the satellite centre in Colorado.

The Army Communications and Electronics Command (CECOM) is considering use of commercial systems for its Battlefield Information Transmission System (BITS). BITS covers military use of commercial direct-broadcast satellite (DBS) systems, asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) communications coding, low-earth-orbit (LEO) satellite telephones, and wireless personal communication systems (PCS).

The Army plans to piggyback on commercial terrestrial and satellite PCS networks, including PCS use of low-orbit and geosynchronous-orbit satellites, and DBS networks. Hughes Defense Systems is already seeking ways of adapting existing systems to suit the military needs.

Considerable attention is now focusing on space-based telephone systems. Various syndicates plan to invest vast sums in their development.

Motorola is involved in the 66-satellite Iridium; Loral in the 48- satellite Globalstar; TRW has the 12-satellite Odyssey projects. GM’s Hughes Communications wants to build an eight-satellite, three billion dollar Spaceway system. Billionaires Craig McCaw and Bill Gates have put up seed money to help Teledesic Corp. founder Edward Tuck try to launch a 9 billion dollar system that uses 840 low- earth-orbit, cross-linked satellites.

Target customers are frequent business travelers, developing countries without modern phone networks — and the military.

It is the military interest which is seen as a basic insurance. “The military bristles in communications ability, but they are looking at cost-effective means of extending or augmenting their communications services,” explains Bruce Gerding of TRW.

Some military officials harbour doubts, however. Lt. Col. Don Troxel, director of system engineering in the Air Force’s military satellite communications programme office, says the Pentagon should use commercial communications satellites only to “augment” its own capabilities.

In recent years, the DoD has leased space on commercial communications satellites to support contingencies such as the NATO operation in Bosnia, but this revealed some problems, he says.

These were mainly difficulties in ensuring they are available when needed. “If you want to use commercial means you have to be assured capacity,” Troxel warns.

But in the end cost is likely to be the decisive factor and commercial leasing is expected to be the cheapest option. This will be a spur to all the commercial satellite companies who will tailor their development accordingly.

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