During the test, the contractor for the first time connected its hybrid SATCOM terminals to two commercial internet satellite systems — one stationed in low-Earth orbit (LEO) and another in geosynchronous orbit (GEO), according to the firm. The demonstration was the company’s first for AFRL’s Defense Experimentation Using Commercial Space Internet (DEUCSI) effort, also known as Global Lightning.

“Northrop Grumman is responding to the U.S. Air Force’s need for rapid deployment of resilient communications to develop and field the technologies required by our warfighters to meet today’s challenging missions,” Steven Conn, the company’s director of advanced communications and signals intelligence, said in a statement. “This successful test, leveraging a diverse team of commercial and defense SATCOM providers, is critical for the pace of maturity on the Global Lightning program and the ability to begin flight testing in the near future.”

At the July demonstration, Northrop Grumman established connectivity between its hybrid SATCOM terminals to a commercial proliferated LEO communications provider at Ku frequencies, as well as with the ViaSat F1 satellite in GEO at Ka frequencies. The event validated ubiquitous communications and the ability to rapidly switch between constellation systems and orbital regimes, according to the organization.

Global Lightning looks to leverage commercial space internet services to establish path-agnostic communications for warfighters. The program is linked to the Pentagon’s Combined Joint All-Domain Command and Control (CJADC2) effort, which aims to connect disparate systems across the battlespace under a single network to enable rapid data transfer between all warfighting domains.

AFRL has given awards to various defense contractors and commercial SATCOM providers for the effort in recent years. In 2023, Northrop Grumman received a four-year, $80.3 million contract from the research lab to execute the demonstrations as part of its “call 3” phase that will demonstrate connectivity between military platforms and commercial space internet constellations across two use cases — communications in the Arctic region and airborne comms.

L3Harris also received a three-year deal worth $80.8 million to perform work on the call 3 exercises for Global Lightning. The company announced Sept. 10 it had completed a critical design review for its Rapidly Adaptable Standards-compliant Open Radio (RASOR) capability that will be used to test connectivity between military platforms and commercial space internet.

“Following this successful CDR, we plan on conducting integrated hardware testing within the next year to support Air Force flight tests currently scheduled to begin at the end of 2025,” Adam Milner, L3Harris’s senior manager of space networks, said in a statement.

Viasat, SES Space & Defense, SpaceX, OneWeb and Telesat are among the commercial SATCOM providers that have been contracted for the Global Lightning program since it began.

Meanwhile, AFRL is already looking forward to future demonstrations. Viasat announced Tuesday that it received a $33.6 million contract from the research lab to develop and deliver active electronically scanned array (AESA) systems as part of Global Lightning’s “call 4” phase.

The commercial AESA antennas are expected to support communications for tactical aircraft and enable connectivity across multiple frequencies, orbits and commercial networks.

“We believe hybrid resilient communication solutions are central to future government mobility operations and our teams are committed to continuing to help solve these multi-band, multi-orbit, multi-constellation interoperability challenges with high performance, cost-effective capabilities,” Michael Maughan, Viasat Government’s vice president of space and mission systems, said in a statement.

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As part of the initiative, AFRL plans to conduct a set of demonstrations that will aim to provide military aircraft with ubiquitous connectivity using commercial spacecraft and networks.

The Pentagon announced the $9 million deal with Intelsat on Wednesday.

“This contract provides for efforts to develop and experimentally test satellite communications (SATCOM) systems capable of operating with multiple commercial space internet constellations operating in low, medium, and geostationary earth orbits offering a new low size, weight, power, and cost (SWaP-C) terminal that easily integrates onto aircraft platforms to provide resilient, high throughput, globally available, and highly reliable SATCOM,” per the announcement.

It was a competitive acquisition and 11 offers were received, according to the department.

The company’s work on the DEUCSI resilient multi-orbit airborne module (ROAM) effort is expected to be completed by Nov. 26, 2024.

Earlier this year, the Air Force awarded an $80 million contract to Northrop Grumman and an $81 million deal to L3Harris for DEUCSI.

The Defense Department previously inked agreements with Raytheon ($13 million), Lockheed Martin ($17 million), Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. ($10 million) and L3 Technologies ($18 million) to work on the program.

A key goal of DEUCSI is to establish “path agnostic communications,” or the ability to “reliably communicate to any location on the globe without explicitly specifying which nodes of a communication network to use,” according to a call for proposals.

The program could aid the Pentagon’s Combined Joint All-Domain Command and Control (CJADC2) initiative, which seeks to connect the various platforms and data streams of the U.S. military services, allies and international partners under a more unified network to enable more effective decision-making.

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The demonstrations are part of AFRL’s Defense Experimentation Using Commercial Space Internet (DEUCSI) program, which aims to leverage burgeoning commercial space internet services in order to establish resilient communications and data-sharing capabilities for warfighters. A notice on Sam.gov states the end goal is to establish “path agnostic communications” — or the ability to “reliably communicate to any location on the globe without explicitly specifying which nodes of a communication network to use.”

The program’s mission ties directly into the Pentagon’s vision for its new warfighting concept known as Joint All Domain Command and Control (JADC2). The effort seeks to connect systems that are currently siloed across the battlespace under a single network, enabling warfighters to quickly send and receive critical decision-making data.

The lab initially began DEUCSI in 2017 and has since given awards to several defense contractors and commercial satcom providers to work on the effort. Earlier this year, AFRL awarded Northrop Grumman and L3Harris individual contracts for upcoming experiments that will focus on connecting military platforms with different commercial satcom constellations located in low-Earth, medium-Earth and geosynchronous orbits.

Jenna Paukstis, vice president and general manager of Northrop’s networked information solutions division, told DefenseScoop that the company is building upon the program’s previous work that established a baseline capability and continuing it at a higher volume.

The contractor will be providing 20 open system processors and multiple antenna solutions that will be tested during two separate demonstrations with AFRL.

“One of the key things is that under this program, we’ll be able to build and test out our open system processors as well as our antenna solutions — both with the goal of providing beyond-line-of-sight capabilities to both air and ground forces,” Paukstis said Monday in an interview on the sidelines of the annual AUSA conference.

According to the Defense Department, Northrop received a four-year, $80.3 million contract from AFRL on June 2 for the DEUCSI demonstrations. The week before on May 25, the lab awarded L3Harris a contract worth $80.8 million to work on DEUCSI for three years.

The recent awards are part of the program’s “call 3” phase that is looking to establish the “ability to communicate with military platforms via multiple commercial space internet constellations in various orbital regimes using common terminal hardware,” according to the solicitation on Sam.gov. These will explore two use cases: fixed and mobile communications in the Arctic region and airborne communications.

Satellite communications in the Arctic are extremely limited for the U.S. military, as the connecting data links become unstable due to long distances needed to operate in the environment. But commercial space internet constellations — especially those in low-Earth orbit — may offer more reliable connectivity.

For demonstrations with Arctic communications, AFRL is looking for terminals “that provide for switching between multiple communications constellations while operating for long periods of time, potentially unattended, in the harsh Arctic environment,” according to the solicitation. The lab wants capabilities that could access multiple constellations or have the ability to switch between constellations within seconds.

As for airborne communications, AFRL is interested in connecting one or more Air Force aircraft to two or more commercial satcom providers using common terminals — reducing the amount of hardware modifications normally needed for this capability.

According to the lab’s solicitation, it wants to test multi-orbit, multi-constellation communications capabilities on at least five different types of aircraft.

Although Paukstis could not confirm the timeline or offer specific details about the demonstrations, she said the company will initially be connecting to ViaSat, SES Space & Defense and SpaceX’s new Starshield service — and there’s a possibility more commercial satcom providers could be added in the future. The experiments will focus on all three orbital regimes, she noted.

“The importance of connecting across the three is really for that resiliency,” Paukstis said. “We talk a lot about resilient connectivity, even if you’re just talking about air-to-air — not just air-to-space or air-to-ground. And so you get that resiliency by having that diversification.”

She emphasized that Northrop’s work on the upcoming demonstrations will focus on specific objectives that will allow warfighters to have decision advantage in contested environments. 

“The first is making sure the warfighter can securely share that data — so that seamless sharing of information, and then really synchronizing operations at mission speed,” Paukstis said. “The second thing is to be able to leverage open architecture and configurable systems so that you can more rapidly integrate, whether it’s into an airborne platform or ground vehicle.”

Another crucial component of DEUCSI will be the ability to offer cost-effective communications by leveraging already existing commercial satcom solutions in different orbital regimes, Paukstis added.

“It ties directly to … how do you create that digital battle network using a dynamic, scalable, resilient architecture that pulls into the commercial industry business, as well as our security awareness and mission expertise that Northrop brings for the internet of warfighting things,” she said.

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