Viasat Inc. (NASDAQ: VSAT) was one of 30 industry teams competitively selected by the U.S. Air Force AFWERX program to virtually demonstrate new and emerging capabilities, including the company’s advanced Hybrid Adaptive Network (HAN) satellite communications (SATCOM) capabilities in support of Joint All-Domain Command & Control (JADC2) efforts.
The demonstration, which brought together senior leaders from across the Department of Defense (DoD), enabled Viasat to showcase its capability to provide an open multi-network, multi-orbit SATCOM enterprise that leverages commercial innovation to enhance resilience, performance and warfighter effectiveness across a contested, multi-domain battlespace.
For the first time as part of this Air Force challenge event, AFWERX established a contract vehicle for DoD users to immediately gain access to developing technologies presented by the 30 selected companies. The AFWERX contract vehicle is open to interested government organizations to use until September 30, 2020.
Warfighters require a resilient communications architecture for JADC2 high-velocity, data-rich, net-centric operations. The Viasat HAN demonstration highlighted critical use cases including assured connectivity, enterprise situational awareness and seamless, intelligent roaming across commercial and government networks.
By operating across multiple networks, orbits and frequency bands, Viasat’s HAN system is well-positioned to enable joint forces to efficiently communicate and share data from operators/sensors on the ground, in the air, at sea and in space—with synchronized effects to rapidly close the kill chain in contested environments.
A customized, cloud-based portal provides the interface for commanders and operators to share situational awareness and command, control and communication (C3) data in machine time.
AFWERX was launched by the USAF in 2017 as a dual-purpose technology accelerator program that focuses on enhancing relationships with commercially viable companies with dual-purpose technologies that have both private sector and government applications.
Executive Comment
“We were proud to be chosen by AFWERX to demonstrate automated SATCOM network switching based on warfighter priorities and threats. In fact, we conducted a ‘Live Fire’ demonstration of a layered, resilient communications architecture that seamlessly roamed across multiple satellite networks, operated over various frequency bands, waveforms and provided independent, diversified network options for tactical, secure, cross-domain command and control (C2) communications and fires,” said Ken Peterman, President, Government Systems, Viasat. “Our HAN architecture can advance DoD’s JADC2 efforts, providing shared situational awareness using a diverse, resilient communications system—across all modalities and missions around the globe. This proven capability is focused on enabling coalition interoperability to rapidly address adversary threats in increasingly congested, contested and competitive environments.”
