The Coast Guard this summer plans to assess a proliferated low-Earth orbit (pLEO) satellite system on one of its cutters in the Arctic region for a number of applications such as broadband connectivity, alternative positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT), maritime distress communications, and connectivity with unmanned systems.
For the upcoming technology assessment aboard the Healy, the Coast Guard’s lone medium polar icebreaker, the service earlier this month said it intends to enter into a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) with Hughes Network Systems, which distributes broadband satellite service for Eutelsat’s OneWeb pLEO constellation. The April 17 notice of intent in the Federal Register is open for other companies to propose potential pLEO CRADAs with the Coast Guard.
Hughes Network Systems is part of EchoStar Corp. [SATS].
Currently, 121 Coast Guard patrol boats and cutters are equipped with Starlink terminals, providing broadband connectivity. Those installations began about a year ago after earlier technology assessments of the terminals aboard the Healy and the Polar Star, the Coast Guard’s only heavy polar icebreaker.
Adm. Linda Fagan, commandant of the Coast Guard, earlier this year highlighted that Starlink satellite communications aboard icebreakers have provided significant quality of life upgrades for crews, allowing them to keep in touch with their families when they otherwise would be off the grid for months at a time (Defense Daily, Jan. 12).
In addition to non-secure networking, Starlink is also used for secure connectivity.
Earlier tests of Starlink in the high latitudes proved “you can get really great bandwidth,” but new satellite constellations are being introduced and the Coast Guard wants to assess these, Lt. Cmdr. Ryan Cassidy, assistant branch chief for IT and Networks at the Coast Guard Research and Development Center, told Defense Daily on April 26 during a virtual interview.
Starlink, which is part of SpaceX, has only been used for “robust global underway connectivity for ships,” but the upcoming CRADA will assess additional applications, Jon Turban, the project manager for the high latitude studies, said during the interview. Starlink could also apply for a CRADA to showcase its capabilities beyond broadband connectivity, the officials said.
The Coast Guard uses ship-based small unmanned aircraft systems with an internet connection in the lower latitudes but wants to test for the same levels of responsiveness and latency in the Arctic, Cassidy said. Alternate PNT is another application as is maritime distress communications, he said.
There are existing satellite communication systems used for distress calls but the Coast Guard wants to see if these can be more effective using a pLEO network, Cassidy said.
Tactical network connectivity for Coast Guard boarding teams and multi-orbit satellite systems are also of interest, the notice of intent says.
Having terminals from different pLEO satellite constellation providers would provide multiple high-speed, low latency communication pathways for a ship, providing redundancy and resiliency, Turban said. Coast Guard vessels operate with other satellite communications systems, but Turban said these don’t provide near the same level of broadband connectivity of Starlink and other pLEO constellations.