Link 16, lasers provide top comms on proliferated warfighter space architecture

WASHINGTON — As the Space Development Agency continues to build out the Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture, the agency’s director, Derek Tournear, said Link 16 will continue to be the top option for communications provided by that satellite constellation because it’s the foundation that American soldiers and U.S. allies rely on the most.

“One of our operating modes in SDA is that we do not require a lot of changes to user equipment,” Tournear said. “I said … we’re going to field a few 100 satellites, let’s take the onus on ourselves to modify those satellites so they can go down to legacy radios, so we don’t force the Army, Navy, Air Force, to field tens of thousands of new radios, because that’s very difficult.”

The PWSA system will eventually include hundreds of satellites, delivered in tranches every two years, with each tranche providing more capability than the last.

The network of hundreds of optically connected satellites will deliver two primary capabilities to warfighters on the ground. The first is beyond line-of-sight targeting for ground and maritime time-sensitive targets, which includes mobile missiles and ships, for instance. The system will provide the ability to detect those targets, track them, calculate a fire control solution and deliver that solution down to a weapons platform so the target can be destroyed. The second capability is similar to the first but for enemy missiles already in flight.

Link 16 will be a big part of the PWSA, Tournear said. Link 16 is a radio system broadly used by the United States and its allies across the globe.

“There are tens of thousands of these terminals already out there,” he said. “Our uniform personnel are already , already know how to use these systems. We designed our system to primarily go down to that tactical radio.”

But the U.S. military and its allies have need for greater bandwidth than what Link 16 provides, Tournear said, and that’s where laser communications come in.

“There’s a lot of missions that need higher data rate than Link 16,” he said. “In the future, you’re going to want to have a lot of aircraft that want to move a lot of data. You’re going to want to have ground systems that have this low latency connectivity, that want a lot of data connected, that you’re not able to get with Link 16 or other systems. That’s where the laser comes in. It’s not ever going to be as prolific a user base as Link 16 … but we do see it growing, and you’ll have thousands of those laser comm terminals in the future.”

Early on in development of the PWSA, Tournear said, laser communications has been part of the plan. Demonstration satellites launched in 2021, he said, successfully demonstrated space-to-space laser communication, for instance. They also demonstrated the ability to do space-to-ground communications as well.

“In Tranche 0 and then operational in Tranche 1, those laser comm systems are going to be used for space-to-space, space-to-ground and space-to-air,” he said.

Tournear said tradeoffs were made to optimized laser communications for both space-to-space and space-to-air communications.

“We did that because we recognize that the spectrum is contested. … The enemy gets a vote in contesting spectrum, as well as just getting spectrum approval — much more difficult in the realm than in the optical realm,” he said. “We chose to go with that standard. And that’s our future going forward.”