Startup looks to provide Defense with quick-launch satellites

A startup satellite company founded by former top Pentagon space officials and the head of Lockheed Martin Corp.'s space business, plans to develop communications satellites aimed to meet the Defense Department's requirement to launch put satellites into orbit in 60 days, rather than the years the department now takes developing its own satellites.

U.S. Space LLC in Dulles, Va., plans to offer its communications satellite service on a fee-for-service basis that is lower than what is charged by commercial satellite operators, which currently provide about 80 percent of the Pentagon's global communications satellite capacity, said Craig Weston, president and chief executive officer of the company.

Weston, a retired Air Force major general with extensive satellite experience, including a tour as chief information officer at the National Reconnaissance Office, said U.S. Space intends to build satellites that operate only in military satellite frequency bands and place them into orbital slots assigned to Defense. Commercial operators now provide Defense with service in commercial bands and slots.

U.S. Space plans to build satellites that will provide service in the military's Ultra High Frequency band, which sends data and voice over narrow bands to ships and portable terminals ground forces use. It also will provide broadband data services in the Ka band. Commercial operators typically offer broadband service in the commercial Ku-band.

Though Defense already has UHF satellites in orbit, it leases some commercial capacity and plans to launch new UHF satellites in 2011. "Demand for UHF will exceed what is available," Weston said.

Defense eventually wants to acquire six Wideband Global Satellites from Boeing Co., for broadband service over the Ka-band. Danny Price, deputy director of communications, network programs and policies in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Networks and Information Integration, estimated this year that three of the WGS birds could take up the two-thirds of the commercial satellite capacity leased by Defense.

Boeing handed over control of the second WGS satellite in orbit to the Air Force in June. U.S. Space satellites will augment the WGS constellation and the company can quickly put them into orbit above global hot spots, Weston said. The satellites have a throughput of 6.2 gigabits per second. The U.S. space satellites will not operate at such a high data rate, and Weston declined to provide specifics because the company is in the process of designing the satellites.

U.S Space will build its first satellite in about two and a half years, he said, and then plans to launch a satellite within 60 days after receiving an order from the Pentagon. The company will not build a satellite until it receives an order from Defense, according to Weston, a mistake made by XTAR LLC, which provides commercial services to Pentagon users in the Defense X-band frequency. XTAR launched its first satellite in 2005.

William Schmidt, vice president of government services for XTAR, a joint venture of Loral Space and Communications of New York and HISDESAT Servicios Estratégicos S.A. of Spain, faced a challenge when it started operations, but now has contracts with the General Services Administration, the Defense Information Systems Agency and the State Department.

Defense uses the X-band primarily for communications to large, fixed-Earth stations, but Schmidt said XTAR satellites have high-powered transponders that can communicate with smaller, man-packed terminals.

U.S. Space investors include Orbital Sciences, a satellite and rocket company also located in Dulles, and other parties Weston declined to identify. Mark Albrecht, who ran International Launch Services, a joint venture between Lockheed and a consortium of Russian space companies, is chairman of U.S. Space. Board members include retired Lt. Gen. Michael Hamel, former commander of the Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center, and retired Air Force Maj. Gen. James Armor, former Director of National Security Space Office.