U.S. Strategic Command (STRATCOM) hopes to ramp up installation of its replacement for the Milstar satellite constellation, as reliability problems of the nuclear-survivable legacy system have slowed the follow-on’s procurement timeline, STRATCOM’s No. 2 official said during a speech in Washington Tuesday.
The military has sent a fraction of the available follow-on Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF) satellites into orbit, but integration problems between the two different-era systems has posed challenges for AEHF launches, STRATCOM Deputy Commander Air Force Lt. Gen. James Kowalski said during a Peter Huessy Breakfast Series event.
“A couple of the satellites are in orbit,” he said. “There are more ready to go into orbit. What we have fallen behind on is getting terminals in place and operating while the AEHF constellation augments the older Milstar constellation, we continue to struggle with the Milstar constellation—its reliability, its problems and trying to focus on keeping that constellation up. So it’s important that we finish the AEHF constellation and then employ out those terminals that allow that secure, survivable and assured communications out there.”
Leaders of the nuclear enterprise have recently vowed to modernize nuclear command, control and communications (NC3) as a system housing components dating back to the 1960s continues to age.
Kowalski said STRATCOM’s top NC3 priority is updating the Presidential National Voice Conferencing (PNVC) system. PNVC allows the president to communicate with top military advisers during crises, including nuclear scenarios.
“It is more than just the nuclear command and control we always refer to as the thin line,” Kowalski said. “But it is also national leadership command and control coordination. So any kind of crisis, the president wants to have that kind of access—not only to command centers, but to all his advisors across the government departments.”
Air Force spokeswoman Tina Greer said June 10 in an email AEHF is scheduled to reach initial operational capability (IOC) this summer. AEHF is developed by Lockheed Martin [LMT].