The United States Space Force highlighted in its Vision for SatCom paper in early 2020 the true problem of satellite communications today. A problem that continues to hold back progress that is desperately needed to support the DoD and most crucially the Warfighter. One simple word summarized the root cause of the recession seen in the Commercial SatCom segment and the frustration experience by many DoD SatCom users… ‘Stovepiped’. USSF further highlighted that stovepiped SatCom systems leads to Operationally Limited technology with ‘no ability for users to receive simultaneous operational benefits from multiple systems due to their disparities’. At Detraxi we coined ‘Stovepiped’ as SatCom Big Iron, utilizing the vernacular the Cloud Computing fraternity when they solved a not-so-dissimilar problem.

USSF summarized the problem that has plagued the Commercial SatCom industry unknowingly for the better part of a decade now. Stovepiped or SatCom Big Iron are not terms used by the general SatCom industry, they are not heard within the ranks of the prime manufacturers, the operators and even the technology/modem vendors. As such, Detraxi has extrapolated the problem definition hoping it may resonate better with the SatCom industry… ‘Analog Middle Mile’. From the gateway to the satellite, SatCom still operates an analog middle mile, which is inherently stovepiped and shackled in a rigid and fragmented hardware domain. SatCom is the only telecom industry today where the middle mile is still delivered in a highly restricting analog format. As such, the limitations experienced today by the DoD warfighter and the Commercial enterprise and/or mobility user should not be a surprise.

With specific regards to DoD SatCom the limitations are more apparent as the flexibility, responsiveness and resiliency required are far greater with volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous environments. The problem is only compounded when i) a mix of MILSATCOM and COMSATCOM, and ii) multiple operators or a fleet of satellites, are required to meet objectives.

The JADC2 has explicitly highlighted the challenges of delivering C2 to far flung regions of the world via beyond-line-of-sight communications SatCom systems. As C2 is being developed under the Digital Modernization Strategy, the use of a core communication system that is locked into a stovepiped analog middle mile will clearly create a greater gap. Additionally, the analog middle mile problems increase exponentially with expanded deployments of current SatCom architectures, and thus the gap will only be further exacerbated with greater 21st Century digital domain challenges and requirements.

Detraxi is offering a new patent-pending SatCom architecture, Apparition, that fully digitizes the middle mile from the backend network/gateway to the satellite.
Apparition is delivered through five core building blocks:
• Public/Private Cloud Computing Infrastructure and Services
• Digitized Radio Frequency Technologies
• Virtualized Ground Based Beamforming (VGBBF)
• Radio Transport Protocol (RTP)
• Thick-Route Optical Feeder Link (OFL)
Apparition enables a cloud based SatCom ecosystem removing all analog stovepiped hardware at the Gateway and replacing it with a fully flexible digital virtualized environment. Digitizing the middle mile additionally allows all the heavy lifting functionality of a high throughput satellite (HTS) to be placed on the ground making for a simplified and far lower cost satellite, one that is capable of greater functionality than other computationally intensive onboard processor (OBP) proposed alternatives.