Government and military programs around the world are continuing to explore how to effectively connect disparate groups of assets to deliver the resilient, flexible communications capabilities needed for their operations. These efforts exemplify how the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) and their allied counterparts are recognizing evolving mission demands and the need to utilize commercial sector innovations to meet their individual and shared objectives.
At the heart of this is the need to quickly, effectively and securely share information – in any environment. There are a few common attributes or desired communication capabilities that come up across these programs to support this objective – secure, hybrid (multi-band, multi-orbit), flexible, reliable and interoperable.
And, as we look back at 2024, we’re proud that Viasat’s government teams within the Defense and Advanced Technologies (DAT) and Communication Services segments have often been working side-by-side with customers on these initiatives.
Viasat is trusted by government agencies to help achieve their operational goals – serving as the connective tissue between disparate solutions. We actively partner with our government customers and industry partners to deliver innovative solutions that serve different mission needs with greater resilience and enable collaboration across a variety of platforms.
Below are several examples from this past year of how Viasat is working alongside defense customers and partners to enable seamless connectivity and deliver the resilient communications that warfighters and missions require:
- Defense Innovation Unit Replicator Initiative. This initiative aims to deliver large masses of uncrewed, all-domain attritable autonomous (ADA2) systems for warfighter operations support and aligns with the overall U.S. DOD effort to accelerate delivery of innovative capabilities to the warfighter at speed and scale. Viasat will provide our Multi-Domain Uncrewed Secure Integrated Communications (MUSIC) architecture with software-defined networking as the network component to enable the seamless and resilient connectivity of autonomous systems using multi-transport pathways.
- Defense Experimentation Using Commercial Space Internet (DEUCSI) program. This U.S. Air Force initiative aims to use commercial satellite connectivity services and address the need for resilient communications with a hybrid network that can leverage different frequencies, orbits and providers. Viasat was selected to develop a high-performance Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) antenna system to enable multi-band, multi-orbit, multi-vendor network access. Additionally, Viasat is also enabling ViaSat-3 network access as part of sub-contractor support to Northrop Grumman for the testing and integration of commercial SATCOM with military systems.
- Autonomous Warrior 24 Exercise. This event was part of the AUKUS Maritime Big Play (MBP) initiative, a series of trilateral exercises and experiments aimed at enhanced capability development, increased interoperability and the expanded use of autonomous systems across the maritime domain. Viasat’s NetAgility Software Defined Networking (SDN) platform was used to enable MUSIC to connect uncrewed autonomous vehicles from sub-surface vessels, to uncrewed surface platforms and stratospheric High-Altitude Platforms (HAPs). MUSIC enabled seamless communication and coordination across diverse unmanned systems, communication transports, and operational environments. As part of the exercise, Viasat integrated commercial satellite, cellular, and Mobile Ad-hoc Network (MANET) radio networks with its Move Out Jump Off-Next (MOJO-Next) Tactical Data Link (TDL) gateway to connect uncrewed autonomous vehicles and sensors from different partners.
- Embraer C-390 Multi-Mission Airlifter. Viasat is collaborating with Embraer to enable advanced hybrid satellite communications (SATCOM) on the Embraer C-390 Millennium military aircraft to provide increased operational awareness and enhance interoperability, data rate throughput, and resilient connectivity with Automated Primary, Alternate, Contingency, and Emergency (APACE) communication plans across multiple domains. Viasat will deliver its Hybrid SATCOM Approach (HSA) solution based on the dual-band, global aero terminal, GAT-5530 (known as KuKarray). The integration of Viasat’s hybrid capability addresses the requirement for differentiated and resilient SATCOM solutions to support the rapidly evolving missions of current and future global defense customers. Viasat also demonstrated this unique hybrid solution for the U.S. military – including simulating network disruptions and cyber-attacks on the network to illustrate how automatic PACE communications can redirect network traffic to maintain connectivity (including rollover between different orbits).
Viasat is proud of how we’re helping our global government customers realize their goals of more secure, reliable communications that support diverse missions while also safeguarding their personnel.
We look forward to continuing this work with our customers and partners in 2025 as resilient, protected and high-performance SATCOM and integrated networking capabilities continue to emerge as a necessary foundation for current and future mission operations.