The Pentagon’s Next SATCOM Challenge: Usable Modernization 

The United States has never had more communications capacity in space. Unfortunately, we have seen that more capability on orbit doesn’t always translate to more for the warfighter.

Today, military and commercial constellations are rapidly proliferating across orbits and frequencies. The Space Force has recognized the opportunity and is moving toward a hybrid architecture that brings government, commercial and allied capabilities together.

But there’s a practical challenge between designing that architecture and delivering its benefits to the warfighter. The networks can change much faster than the platforms connecting to them.

I’ve seen customers spend more than a decade working to upgrade communications equipment on fielded platforms.

That isn’t necessarily evidence of a broken acquisition system. Modernizing an operational fleet is inherently difficult. Funding has to align. Equipment has to be procured, integrated and certified. Installation competes with maintenance and operational schedules. Training and logistics have to follow. And an entire fleet cannot stop operating while its communications systems are replaced.

In the time it takes to upgrade a fielded platform, a lot can change. New services and waveforms become available. Software architectures evolve. Threats change. Entirely new constellations have been conceptualized and brought on orbit.

This isn’t a new problem. The Mobile User Objective System (MUOS) offers a useful example. Years after its full satellite constellation was on orbit, the Defense Department was still unable to fully use some of MUOS’s advanced capabilities, in part because compatible user terminals had not yet been delivered across the force. The capability existed in space; getting it into users’ hands took much longer.

We cannot expect military platforms to recapitalize at the speed today’s commercial communications technology changes. So we should design our communications architecture so they don’t have to.

Design for the force we actually operate

Future architectures are naturally depicted as end states: new satellites, new terminals and new networks, all operating together.

The joint force will rarely exist in that condition.

At almost any point in a major military modernization initiative, some platforms will have the newest equipment, others will be awaiting installation, and still others will operate systems designed a decade or more earlier.

The implication is important: modernization should assume a mixed fielding

A terminal installed today cannot reasonably be expected to connect to every network that might exist over its service life. Physics still matters. Different frequencies can require different antennas and RF components. Power, security and platform constraints remain.

Software cannot eliminate those realities.

But we can make change easier.

Requirements and acquisition organizations should consider processing and memory headroom, modularity, software-defined functionality where practical, and stable interfaces alongside today’s performance requirements. This mix isn’t a temporary problem; it’s the enduring reality of a global military.

A system should not simply be designed to satisfy the requirement on the day it is fielded. Where practical and affordable, it should have room to accommodate requirements we know will change.

That includes compatibility.

Supporting every legacy technology indefinitely would constrain modernization. But neither can we assume thousands of fielded systems disappear when a new architecture arrives.

The objective should be deliberate transition: preserve backwards compatibility where it provides operational value, while using gateways, translation or bridging where direct compatibility would unnecessarily constrain the future network.

Not every platform needs every connection

A hybrid network also does not require every ship, aircraft or ground unit to connect directly to every available satellite network.

Trying to achieve that would often be technically impractical, prohibitively expensive or operationally unnecessary.

The better question is: Can the force move information where it needs to go using the communications paths available to it?

Consider two platforms operating together. One has been upgraded to access a new satellite network; the other has not.

When mission conditions permit, an appropriate line-of-sight or troposcatter connection could allow the legacy platform to bridge through the upgraded one and reach capabilities it could not access directly.

That concept can extend across ships, aircraft, vehicles, command posts and other nodes.

It is not a universal solution. Bridging creates dependencies of its own. Links can be disrupted. Bandwidth, cybersecurity and emissions-control requirements matter.

But it creates another option.

And options are the foundation of resilience.

Measure adaptability

If adaptability has operational value, we should measure it.

Requirements and acquisition organizations should ask not only whether a communications system meets today’s bandwidth, security and availability requirements, but how readily it can adapt during its expected field life.

How easily can supported capabilities be added through software? Which components can be upgraded independently? How long does it take to integrate a new provider? Can legacy platforms reach newer networks through other nodes? When one path disappears, how quickly can mission traffic move to another appropriate path?

These measures should complement, not replace, traditional performance requirements.

Because the lifecycle cost of a communications system is not simply what it costs to field.

It is also what it costs to change.

Test transitions, not just systems

Operators can expose these problems by changing what we test.

Don’t demonstrate only that each communications system works. Create conditions in which the architecture has to adapt.

Remove a gateway. Jam a frequency. Make one network unavailable. Constrain commercial capacity. Put an upgraded platform alongside one still awaiting modernization.

Then see what happens.

Can mission traffic find another acceptable path? Can one platform provide connectivity for another? Does the transition require significant operator intervention? Does a technical limitation stop it—or do authorities, contracts or organizational boundaries get in the way?

The objective isn’t to build an invulnerable network. No such network exists.

It is to build one that degrades gracefully rather than fails catastrophically.

This also requires acknowledging that not every network is interchangeable. Strategic communications, protected tactical communications and routine broadband have very different mission and security requirements.

The goal is not universal connectivity, it’s mission-appropriate optionality.

Modernization without synchronization

The Space Force is right to pursue a hybrid architecture. In fact, its current objective force design explicitly recognizes the need to support today’s user equipment while the force migrates toward a new SATCOM architecture.

The challenge now is making that principle real across a force that will remain technologically heterogeneous throughout the transition.

That requires action from several parts of the enterprise.

Requirements organizations should explicitly value lifecycle adaptability. Acquisition organizations and industry should build in reasonable headroom and modularity where mission needs and economics support them. Operators should test whether communications can transition across networks and platforms under realistic disruption.

And Congress can reinforce those incentives by asking not only how many new systems have been fielded, but how quickly the force can absorb a new network or capability without replacing equipment already installed.

For much of the satellite era, communications capacity was the scarce resource. Today, government and commercial networks are creating an unprecedented number of potential paths.

The challenge is connecting the force to them at the pace technology changes.

We cannot make military platforms recapitalize at the speed of the commercial technology market.

We can design the network so they don’t have to.