Air Force Commits Millions to Experiment with ‘Space Internet’
Arctic coverage and airborne communications are two areas highlighted for exploration.
By Brandi Vincent
Defense Technology Correspondent
February 7, 2022
The Air Force plans to enable and demonstrate a space internet that the military can use to connect and communicate via constellations of commercial spacecraft operating in various orbits.
In a presolicitation the Air Force Research Laboratory released this week, officials confirmed intent to award two to five contracts worth up to $40 million each for “multi-band, multi-orbit communication experiments.”
The work would span a couple years, and AFRL already has sights set on some use cases of interest.
“Satellite communications in the Arctic region, above 55-degrees latitude, are currently extremely limited,” officials wrote in the announcement. “Emerging commercial space internet constellations may offer an opportunity to rapidly and affordably provide unprecedented communications capacity to this region, on par with that available in lower latitudes.”
https://www.defenseone.com/technology/2022/02/air-force-commits-millions-demonstrate-space-internet/361687/
