Research Summaries

Back Space and Missile Defense Command (SMDC) Nanosatellite Project - 3 (SNAP-3) Joint Capability Technology Demonstration (JCTD)

Fiscal Year 2015
Division Graduate School of Operational & Information Sciences
Department Information Sciences
Investigator(s) Gallup, Shelley P.
Sponsor U.S. Southern Command (Joint)
Summary U.S. and PN forces are frequently deployed to remote areas with little infrastructure. Underserved AORs lace vital BLOS data and communications capabilities to serve terrestrial tactical users. When operating over a great distance or in rugged terrain, tactical users cannot maintain radio line of sight (LOS). These creates gaps in SA, increasing the possibility that threat or criminal activity goes undetected, unmonitored, un reported, and unactioned. In addition, the exfiltration of UGS data frequently requires friendly forces to expose themselves to hostile forces in order to get sufficiently close to the sensors to receive a signal and may provide a tip-off to unfriendly forces.
A space-based network of low-cost communications satellites interfacing with current generation US tactical radios (e.g., AN/PRD-117 and AN/PRC-152 radios) and PN tactical radios (e.g., Harris 5800 Series) can provide critical BLOS communications. BLOS-enabled satellite communications ground terminals, however small they may be, do not provide a means to operate effectively in rugged, mountainous, and jungle environments. These crucial BLOS communications are normally enabled with heavier, higher power radio ground communications systems or with commercially leased capabilities too cumbersome for tactical terrestrial formations operating in these environments. A constellation of low-cost communications satellites would enable networked UGS systems data exfiltration with zero mission tip-off and no US forces exposure.
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Publications Publications, theses (not shown) and data repositories will be added to the portal record when information is available in FAIRS and brought back to the portal
Data Publications, theses (not shown) and data repositories will be added to the portal record when information is available in FAIRS and brought back to the portal