U.S. Air Force Looks At European Space

Signal, Sep 2008 by Baddeley, Adam

Those issues are influencing interest in availability over commercial Satcom alternatives, he points out. "It certainly seems that availability of communications is decreasing because there is a bigger commercial demand for it. So when you put all that together, you will probably look at other ways to provide nonsecure communications when you need that. WGS is one of those ways. Leasing space on Skynet or Xtar is another way to look at it. It depends on short-term and long-term needs, whether it is in the right place and obviously the cost."

The approach pursued on AEHF is less radical than that adopted on WGS and also may attract more users. This approach may be requested for future space capabilities such as the Transformational Communications Satellite (TSAT) program.

"I'm not aware of any [AEHF interest from other countries], but that doesn't mean there won't be in the future," McKinney states. "We are certainly not precluding it. We certainly expect that question to be asked [about TSAT], but we currently are concentrating on the AEHF program and getting that up and operating. Then countries will have a chance to see how advanced AEHF is in meeting their needs and requirements. There will be time later on to discuss whether that could be extended to TSAT."

Most of what the European Space Agency does remains firmly in the civil domain, orienting its interests toward NASA. The European Defence Agency (EDA) is a more recent organization with interests in military space. The EU formed the EDA in 2004 to promote cooperation in defense capabilities and research among members. An absence of clear policy direction for how the EDA should respond to the challenges of military space initially meant that there was little relevance to the role of the European space liaison. However, that now appears to be changing.

"The EDA and the EU need to determine the areas they want to explore and develop," explains McKinney. "Then we will see if there are areas for future cooperation. I think whether or not a European space policy develops will dictate most of that."

That limited involvement is determined to large extent by the European space liaison. "Most of my work isn't in the policy end," he emphasizes. "That is the responsibility of the Office of the secretary of Defense. Once policy is established, my role is to support how you implement it and what would make sense in terms of cooperation and interoperability. Right now, Europe is in the process of establishing that capability. That is what we are looking at."

Change on that front is becoming apparent, McKinney adds. "There has been some reporting that the French will make that [an EU] discussion item in the second half of this year, with the idea of creating just that-where do we want to go, what is our policy and where we should invest our funds. I think that will be a key point in determining where we all go together."