The need for special operations forces to remain connected to their C2 while remaining undetected – and particularly unlocated – is a vital part of their modus operandi.
There has been much commentary regarding the employment and success of satellite communications (SATCOM) in Ukraine following Russia’s latest invasion on 24th February 2022.
It was widely acknowledged that SpaceX’s Starlink Low Earth Orbit (LEO) constellation was being used by the Ukrainian Armed Forces (UA) and Special Operations Forces (UASOF). Media reports suggested thousands of Starlink satellite terminals were initially donated to Ukraine by SpaceX and in June this year, the US Department of Defense (DoD) confirmed it was continuing to purchase Starlink services to support UA.
Today, the war in Ukraine continues to serve up invaluable lessons learned for UASOF and the wider international community as they continue to take the fight to the Russian invading force across the eastern side of the country.
Defence and industrial sources familiar with the role of UASOF in the ongoing conflict explained to Armada International how special operations teams require SATCOM to optimise operational effectiveness across the battle space.
To satisfy these types of demand signals emerging from UASOF and indeed, the wider international SOF community, industry sources highlighted a series of disruptive and emerging technologies which are entering service around the world.
Critical and SOF-peculiar requirements include 24/7 accessibility; low probability of detection and interception (LPD/LPI); as well as ‘increased’ levels in mobility – the ability to communicate on-the-pause (COTP) and then rapidly move position to prevent well equipped and highly capable Russian Electronic Warfare (EW) teams from detecting radio frequency (RF) signals and geolocating an area of operations.
continued to explain to Armada how Russian EW teams could then employ counter-communications technology to not only disrupt connectivity of UASOF, but also use information to provide targeting data to indirect fire units to destroy teams on the ground.
Additional requirements include reduced form factor antennae, low latency and higher data throughput to support the processing, exploitation and dissemination (PED) of intelligence which in turn supports command & control (C2) and compresses decision-making processes.
Examples include L3Harris Technologies which company officials disclosed to Armada is an innovative flat panel, compact-electronically scanned array solution designed to provide SOF customers around the world with a next-generation SATCOM connectivity.
L3Harris’s military SATCOM (MILSATCOM) lead, Jamal Hamid described to Armada how SOF can employ a wide range of space-based communications across multiple orbits. This can include a hybrid mix of commercial (COMSATCOM) as well as MILSATCOM solutions across Low Earth Orbit (LEO), Mid Earth Orbit (MEO) and Geostationary (GEO) satellite constellations, each of which have a variety of ‘pros and cons’ when it comes to supporting special operations around the world, Hamid added.
Current COMSATCOM providers offering LEO-based solutions include Amazon’s Project Kuiper; OneWeb as well as Starlink. SpaceX is also working on plans to deploy a more secure LEO service to military customers in the form of its Starshield constellation which the company states will include “additional high-assurance cryptographic capability to host classified payloads and process data securely, meeting the most demanding government requirements”.
According to Hamid, spot beam technology deployed from satellites in LEO and GEO is ideally suited to enable SOF to deploy smaller terminals which has resulted in the proliferation of flat panel antenna solutions across the market.
L3Harris solutions include the Darkwing flat panel VSAT (Very Small Aperture Terminal) which has been designed as a lightweight and man-portable solution for SOF. Weighing just 22 pounds (10 kilograms), Darkwing can be carried in a backpack and rapidly deployed in a matter of minutes to provide COTP.
“Darkwing uses Inmarsat’s commercial Flex and GX services which support spot beams for very focused data transfer. We have been shipping for more than a year to US and international customers who operate a layered approach with different modems and waveforms,” Hamid said.
According to defence sources, Darkwing is already in service with US SOF although Hamid was unable to provide further details due to operational security concerns.
“SOF use a mix of GEO and LEO. C-ESAs or small form factor antennas are an ideal solution for SOF because they can be used intermittently by small tactical operations centres deployed to remote areas of the world for beyond line-of-sight connectivity every few days,” he explained.
According to Hamid, Darkwing is capable of providing forward-deployed operators with downlink data rates as high as 100Mbps and uplink throughput around 6Mbps. He also described how the solution needed just five minutes to establish a connection with a satellite in LEO or GEO, hence its suitability to support COTP.
But Hamid also warned: “Everything is COTP at the moment but communications on-the-move (COTM) will come in the future” – a capability which would allow SOF operators to communicate by voice and data, even when travelling at high speeds, he added.
Additional customers of Darkwing and Shadow terminals include the Australian Defence Force (ADF) and end users in the ‘Nordics’.
Also speaking to Armada, Oneweb’s senior director Business Development, Government, Billy Bingham described how LEO-based SATCOM could help SOF optimise situation awareness and decision-making in the world’s most austere and remote operating environments.
OneWeb continues to promote its COTP capability which, according to Bingham, will soon also be capable of enabling COTM.
Oneweb, which currently operates a 648-strong constellation of satellites in LEO, offers a variety of user terminals to SOF customers, including small form factor systems from Inster which Bingham described as a “man-portable, flat panel array”.
“Communications OTP and OTM can be enabled by low profile and lightweight C-ESA which, whether carried on the person or mounted on board land, air or maritime platforms, connects operators to LEO, MEO and GEO satellite constellations,” he explained.
Bingham also described how C-ESA solutions must be “small, lightweight, cost effective and modem agnostic”, providing SOF operators with flexibility in acquiring LEO, MEO or GEO satellites in both COMSATCOM or MILSATCOM frequency bands.
Networked to the company’s own LEO constellation, Oneweb’s Inster user terminal has capacity to provide data throughput up to 195Mbps with latency rates as low as 70ms. Oneweb’s network also provides coverage across the Arctic Circle and High North (above 50 Degrees North) – an area of the world which has historically struggled with connectivity to GEO satellites positioned above the Earth’s Equator.
Confirming a COTM capability will go “live” soon, Bingham described how the Inster terminal could support “certain” use cases in support of SOF, including early entry teams into theatre; tactical operations centres or TOCs; and communications for special operations task groups.
Benefits, he said, include “quick connectivity; high throughput; low latency; and security” in addition to the provision of “low profile antennae and LPI/LPD waveforms to reduce detection, disruption and interception of signals by adversaries”.
Oneweb also offers additional flat panel designs to SOF, including Kymeta’s low profile Osprey u8 C-ESA which can be integrated on the roof of a tactical ground vehicle. Integration to date has included Toyota Landcruisers, Land Rover Defenders and Polaris Government and Defense’s MRZR Lightweight Tactical Assault Vehicle.
Referring to Kymeta’s solution, Bingham explained how its increased field of view would reduce concerns of forward-deployed SOF teams who might be seeking to connect to satellites in GEO through obstructing mountains for example.
Finally, Singapore’s ST Engineering has also developed its very own C-ESA to satisfy special operations requirements. The Flat Panel M300 Manpack Terminal is fully developed and currently in evaluation with an undisclosed SOF unit, a company official confirmed to Armada.
Weighing 17.5lb (8kg), the terminal is ruggedised and according to company literature has been “designed and adapted for special and airborne operations”. The solution is folded for ease of transport and can be unfolded to optimise connectivity to the constellation. The terminal is controlled by a handheld ‘Unified Communications System Mobile’ device. Currently at Technology Readiness Level 8, the M300 is designed to network to Ku-band satellites in GEO constellation, providing customers with COTP.
Company officials also confirmed the terminal could provide end users with data rates up to 384kbps, suggesting such a capability provided more capacity to share data across a battlespace when bandwidth capacity of handheld radios could be limited. They also suggested that the M300 would be capable of networking to satellites in LEO in the future, although there was as yet no timeline for such an upgrade.
Layered Communications
SOF communications are not limited to LEO-based SATCOM. Instead, forward-deployed teams must benefit from a layered connectivity approach which provides operators with greater resiliency in terms of tactical communications, particularly useful when operating against peer adversaries.
Defence sources explained to Armada how multiple types of connectivity networks could be aggregated together to support primary, alternative, contingency and emergency (PACE) communications for SOF operators.
These PACE communications plans would allow SOF units to benefit from a mix of LEO, MEO and/or GEO SATCOM as well as other Line of Sight (LoS) and Beyond LoS solutions including mobile ad hoc networks, very high frequency (VHF), high frequency (HF) and troposcatter.
At this year’s annual SOF Week exhibition in Tampa, Florida in May, multiple communications providers came together to demonstrate such a layered connectivity solution to the US Special Operations Command (USSOCOM).
Comtech (Troposcatter), Silvus Technologies (MANET) and Kymeta (SATCOM) supported the demonstration, which was specifically targeted at USSOCOM’s Program Executive Office-Maritime to illustrate how a layered solution could optimise connectivity during special operations, particularly relating to manned and unmanned platforms at sea.
The demonstration featured Silvus’s StreamCaster 4200 software defined radio (SDRs) which was connected to USSOCOM’s Android Tactical Assault Kit (ATAK) – a chest-mounted end user device worn by operators to provide situation awareness and command and control.
SDRs created the network to provide end users with blue force tracking, GPS, voice and data capabilities during the simulated exercise which simulated a maritime interdiction operation at sea.
SDRs were then networked to Comtech’s Compact Over-the-horizon Mobile Expeditionary Terminal (COMET) and Kymeta flat panel antenna to connect to SATOM services which enabled end users to share intelligence over the horizon. The aggregated network was supported by USSOCOM’s Information Enterprise System cloud environment. Data generated during the demonstration was converged into a single, common operating picture using Byteworks’ Common Operational Picture solution.
Comtech’s chief strategy officer, Daniel Gizinski, explained how Troposcatter networks were ideally suited to provide SOF with a communications capability which “bridges multiple network tiers”.
“Troposcatter provides much longer range than high frequency radios, with more bandwidth enabling much higher data rates to support streaming video. The development of kinetic, electromagnetic, and cyber anti-satellite capabilities has created a focus on enabling communications in a day without space, given modern military reliance on satellite-based communications.
“This network demonstrated several of the core initiatives sought by the Combined Joint All Domain Command and Control (CJADC2) initiative, including multi-vendor interoperability, network healing, and assured and resilient communications in the occasion of a denial event,” he said.
A company official at Silvus also described how MANET could haul, display and manage “voice, video and audio data from a moving vessel”.
“PEO Maritime believes more and more manned and unmanned vessels will be working together, so they want forward-deployed vessels relaying as much information as possible back to other teams allowing them to adapt planning on the back of intelligence received while approaching a target area,’ the Silvus official said.
During the demonstration, data packets as large as 40Mbps were transmitted and received although this throughput could be increased to 80Mbps using USSOCOM’s AN/PRC-163 and AN/PRC-167 software defined radios as manufactured by L3Harris.
“We have the capability to connect the ‘163’ to StreamCaster. USSOCOM wants to know what’s in the realm of the possible so we are attempting to inform the PEOs,” the official added.
Conclusion
As technology continues to emerge, SOF around the world will continue to rely heavily upon military and commercial SATCOM services but their ability to merge into a wider, more resilient tactical network will remain critical as the world dives deeper into the age of strategic competition.
by Andrew White
