SDA needs a spiral development plan for user terminals

The Space Development Agency (SDA) has dozens of satellites in space and hundreds in production as part of its Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture (PWSA) proliferated LEO constellation, having organized an impressive team of (largely commercial) manufacturing partners. However, as the agency plans to operationalize the PWSA, there’s been a notable lack of news about user terminals (i.e., antennas and modems) for the connectivity portion of the constellation.

PWSA has two layers of satellites, a Tracking Layer for monitoring missiles and hypersonic weapons, and a Transport Layer for communications services. SDA graphics indicate the PWSA will have three communications payloads:

-         Link-16 to expand tactical communications for soldiers beyond line of sight

-         Ka-band for “direct downlinks to theater-targeting cells,” and

-         Optical links mainly for in-space communications, but also for drones.

The first set, Link-16, is designed to stitch seamlessly into existing networks, creating little if any need for new user equipment. Optical crosslinks are in a period of aggressive development, thanks overwhelmingly to SDA to creating opportunities of scale. High-speed connections through Ka-band, however, will only be achievable if new user terminals are available for soldiers and vehicles. In particular, SDA should seek to cultivate a suite of Ka-band user terminals, which will need to be flat, electronically steered antennas. User terminals take years to develop, and can even take longer than satellites given the complexity of the electronics systems.

Commercial Ka-band megaconstellations are on the way but have not yet flooded the market with user terminals. Amazon Kuiper terminals aren’t ready for purchase. Telesat Lightspeed is still in development.

Most available flat-panel antennas are in Ku-band and aren’t compatible with the PWSA constellation, such as Starlink’s dishy, or OneWeb user terminals from Intellian, Hughes and others.

While satellite development started first, SDA can play catch up by partnering with companies making flat-panel antennas for commercial constellations. Quilty Space would not be surprised to see mil-Ka variants of user terminals for Amazon Kuiper or Telesat Lightspeed. Manufacturers of Ku-band antennas could also be incentivized to make Ka-band versions that work with the PWSA constellation.

If SDA only cultivates satellite manufacturers and not user terminal companies, it will waste billions of dollars and years of time playing catchup. That’s not a situation anyone wants, except perhaps America’s adversaries.

SOURCE: https://spacenews.com/space-force-preparing-for-the-age-of-proliferated-low-earth-orbit-satellite-networks/