Viasat To Develop AESA Systems With U.S. Air Force DEUCSI Contract

Under the Defense Experimentation Using Commercial Space Internet (DEUCSI) program, the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory has awarded a $33.6 million contract to Viasat, a satellite internet service provider, for the development of active electronically scanned array (AESA) systems for tactical aircraft and rotary wing platforms.

According to Viasat’s press release, the company will “deliver a high-performance, low-size, -weight and -power AESA antenna that can support resilient communications for tactical aircraft by enabling connections across different frequencies, orbits and commercial networks.”

Viasat plans to combine its commercial AESA technology and experience with radio frequency integrated circuits to create this more flexible and reliable phased array antenna.

This type of phased array antenna system is meant to benefit military users for missions that require multiple beams and low probability of intercept. AESA systems, with their wider range of frequencies, can also help prevent jamming.

“We believe hybrid resilient communication solutions are central to future government mobility operations, and our teams are committed to continuing to help solve these multiband, multiorbit, multiconstellation interoperability challenges with high-performance, cost-effective capabilities,” said Michael Maughan, vice president of Space and Mission Systems, Viasat Government, via the release.

Maughan said Viasat is looking forward to working with the DEUCSI program, which is an Air Force Research Laboratory initiative aimed at integrating low Earth orbit broadband satellite communications (SATCOM) system capabilities into U.S. Air Force applications.

Brian Beal, principal engineer for the Air Force Research Laboratory Integrated Capabilities Directorate, said the DEUCSI program is “an economic experiment as much as a technical experiment.”

“Thousands of spacecraft in low Earth orbit do great things for communications, for the DoD [U.S. Department of Defense], but we also know that you can't really afford that with the way things have been done traditionally,” Beal said. “So, a big piece of the work that we do is learning how to use these commercial constellations in a way that makes business sense for us as well as our commercial partners.”

One of the program’s first projects was experimenting with emerging single-vendor constellations, including Starlink, a SpaceX-owned satellite internet service. The Air Force Research Laboratory tested about 100 different ground sites and three to five aircraft types, resulting in mature capabilities that are now being used operationally across the Air Force. The program’s focus is now on hybrid SATCOM and using low Earth orbit constellations.

Beal said the goal is to be able to communicate with several different satellite constellations using common hardware, which provides some service advantages and helps mitigate the cost of integrating hardware on aircraft.

“What we've been working toward is being able to use a common set of hardware that covers multiple frequency bands and is able to communicate with both military and commercial satellites in multiple different orbits,” Beal told SIGNAL Media.

Beal explained that Viasat responded to the DEUCSI’s call for multiband, multiorbit capable antennae that meet the performance requirements of the various constellations but also meet the size and power constraints for smaller aircraft.

The Air Force Research Laboratory has recently awarded contracts to RTX Corporation and Northrop Grumman for similar antenna development, according to Beal.

As for the future of the DEUCSI program, Beal said the next two to three years will consist of primarily developing, flight-testing and integrating the hardware with different mission partners across the Air Force. Beal said he expects the service to become available through the Space Force commercial SATCOM office after thorough testing.

“We have a very strong focus on actual, empirical test and real hardware and real data,” Beal said. “That's why, as new constellations are developing and being implemented, we've structured the program in such a way that it is straightforward for us to bring those new constellations into the fold. But we generally don't do that until they actually have hardware on orbit or very close to being on orbit.”