In an era of accelerating innovations in commercial satellite systems and technologies, DoD is assessing the expanded role of COMSATCOM in the military wideband enterprise. This panel will present the objectives and status of a series of Air Force Pathfinders, Pilots, and potential demonstration efforts that continue exploiting emerging commercial capabilities. A major challenge is the technical and cultural abilities for DoD to absorb these products.
Presentation/dialogue among DoD and industry leaders will focus on perceived risks, mitigation strategies and opportunities to enhance commercial architecture access/flexibility, reduce culture and overcome critical business barriers, affordability adopt new services, and improve commercial mission assurance. Topics such as trade-offs between exquisitely design purpose-build DoD constellation versus proliferated commercial high technology such as HCS, LEO, and MEO networks; emerging DoD use cases (e.g., network roaming, global mobility); incentivizing convergence to the DoD wideband enterprise; and future space and infrastructure enhancements will also be discussed.