Open Call for Innovative Defense-Related Dual-Purpose Technologies/Solutions with a Clear Air Force Stakeholder Need

AFRL/RV has a national defense-related mission need in the area of connecting disparate government and commercial satellite ground communications networks. Specifically, the impact of this project will be to improve the efficiency and resiliency of the satellite communications infrastructure and multi domain command and control. We believe that technology development under the above SBIR Phase II topic may eventually contribute to solving our mission needs. The mission impact of this project on the Air Force and the Department of Defense will be to increase satellite network capability with current or less manpower while decreasing latency of space communications, reducing manual configuration of communication hardware and networks, and allowing rapid machine-to-machine rescheduling and constellation management. The main goal of ATLAS Space Operations under this contract is to provide path agnostic satellite communications service to both DoD and commercial customers. The ATLAS Freedom Pass Server operates agnostic to the hardware in place at ground sites enabling secure interface to disparate ground systems. The Freedom Pass Server builds contact schedules, performs uplinks and downlinks, streams satellite telemetry in near-real time, and monitors the health of a constellation. For the Phase II SBIR activity, ATLAS proposes to enhance the DoD satellite resource management capability by integrating across multiple services to increase the capability and resiliency of the Air Force satellite communications architecture. Disaggregation of the space communications architecture is key to resilient space operations. In the case of the ground architecture, leveraging multiple commercial networks provides a much more robust satellite communications capability that is resistant to attack and failure. We will recognize profit by charging private and non-defense customers for a simple, secure, and more cost-effective solution to integrating and accessing disparate satellite ground station capabilities worldwide.