The Defense Ministry should prove that technology works before spending billions

Tom Temin: And this program seems to be vapor. As you point out, they spend billions of different slices of money to display these satellites. What happens that they have no reliable technology for the entire program base?

Jon Ludwigson: Well, I think that is part of what is called the proliferated war charger network which is really designed to provide a low terrestrial orbit (Leo) – so the orbits closest to the Earth – to make a variety of missions, including a missile warning and missile monitoring. To do this, a mission is technically complex enough, but it requires the use of lasers for the communication system because it offers much more capacity in terms of bandwidth, the possibility of pushing more data into the system. Laser communications are therefore really decisive to demonstrate this global capacity. And so there is a lot of value for the approach of the orbit Leo.

Tom Temin: RIGHT. They therefore essentially look at optical communications because the satellites will be quite close, in satellite terms, that you will not get this giant width of propagation of the optical signal.

Jon Ludwigson: Yes, so laser communications offer a lot of value in terms of being able to transmit a lot of information. There will be hundreds of satellites and, in fact, much more over time as the program increases – if it does it as expected. But the ability to communicate on these satellites and connect, for example, because they will be in orbit as opposed to a geostationary orbit where he always looks at the same place. These will move, and therefore to identify a missile and follow it, it takes several satellites to keep your eyes on it, and transmit this data so that the Warfighter can have the information at their disposal is quite complex.

Tom Temin: And they envisaged communications between satellites and also between the satellite cluster, if you want, and, of course, the field. Finally, he must do it.

Jon Ludwigson: Correct, yes. Thus, the satellites would send signals, then they would find an opportunistic descending link – the possibility of moving the data to the Warfighter. The communication network, I mentioned the missile warning and missile monitoring mission, which is part of it, but that could be a real communication web which would provide the possibility of communicating with vehicles, boats or plans if necessary.

Tom Temin: All right. And what is the status of this capacity for laser communications? Your report indicates that it is hardly proven at this stage, and yet they plan to launch the first batch.

Jon Ludwigson: Well, they have already launched the first lot. Thus, the Zero tranche, as they referent, was 28 satellites, which included both satellites dedicated to a missile warning and monitoring of missiles, as well as to the communication satellites on which we focus. All have laser communication terminals on them, but the ability to do so is difficult. So, to establish the connection, if you can imagine a flashlight in a room, you must point, acquire the target, then follow the target so that you can transmit the data. And it’s quite difficult when you talk about satellites at a distance. So it’s not me who tries to shine a flashlight through the room – it may be thousands of kilometers.

Tom Temin: And does it require a very precise positioning? Or can the reception beam has a certain flexibility in the place where it points? In other words, could it be concave so that even if it is a bit off, it can always catch the beam?

Jon Ludwigson: The beam must really be precise. If you can imagine, a laser pointer is probably the simplest thing that individuals can be familiar. This beam is very small, of course, when you manage it, but it is always very small at the end when you try to receive it. So you really have to be precise enough, you have to find it fairly quickly, be able to acquire this target, then be able to follow it long enough to make the transmission of data complete. It is therefore a delicate operation. The DOD has a limited experience with this, and they only demonstrated it from two of the sellers at the start, and one of them had already done so commercially.

Tom Temin: We are talking to Jon Ludwigson, director of the team of security and national security acquisitions at GAO. It was therefore proven. I guess the only way to prove that it is in space. There is no way on Earth to really try this type of technology, it looks like.

Jon Ludwigson: Well, they have carried out limited bench tests, but the types of distances we are talking about are difficult to try to operationalize in an environment in the laboratory or on the ground. You really have to get up and fly because the disturbances as you move in space are something that you have to face. You have to learn to face it stable and prevent it from doing what people call jig. If you can imagine trying to use a laser pointer when driving in your car, it would be a limited three -dimensional experience – and it would be difficult.

Tom Temin: Of course. We have all seen it with laser pointer speakers and watching this small point shaking on the screen. And, well, for Zero slice, does it work, does not work or does not work?

Jon Ludwigson: Well, they continue what we call iterative development. At first, they established what they call a minimum viable product. It was to develop the possibility of having a network of mesh – the ability to demonstrate that you can transmit data and do it somewhat complex to build the force so that when you develop the system, you will be able to do it more complex and on more satellites.

Tom Temin: And for the One, Two, Three slices plans and four of the satellites, I interpret that Gao feels that they need better proven communication skills before launching these things for billions and billions of dollars.

Jon Ludwigson: Yes, and I think that I want to understand perfectly is that the idea, the premise that the space development agency (SDA) uses here, is the one we support. We love the idea of ​​iterative development because it gives you the possibility of starting with mature technologies and adding more capacity as technologies mature. Every two years, the next batch of satellites could become more complex. But to do this, we believe that it is really important to demonstrate the minimum viable product before committing to increasing the layers of complexity and scale, and incorporating the lessons learned from the previous slices in the subsequent slices.

Tom Temin: Because, yes, the space development agency must be in close communication with combat orders, I imagine, and the leadership of armed services, because these are the consumers of this technology.

Jon Ludwigson: RIGHT. We believe it is really important for any development of the weapon system to incorporate user comments. We also believe that it is important to share key information such as the deadline for deadlines and results between stakeholders. Ensuring that everyone learns from each other along the way is the way to reach the most capabilities at the cheapest for the government.

Tom Temin: They need competition, but they also need cooperation, so there is interoperability.

Jon Ludwigson: Absolutely correct.

Tom Temin: And by the way, are the satellites contrasting Zero and Futors satellites software?

Jon Ludwigson: Yes. The principle is that you should be able to make many improvements through software updates. But some may require physical changes, which is particularly concerned with us. Software updates can be difficult as you increase the number of satellites. There are no ethernet cords flowing from the soil to the satellites currently – and I do not think it would be a desirable characteristic.