Military Satellite Communications. Concerns with Milstar's Support to Strategic and Tactical Forces
Abstract
The Department of Defense's (DOD) multiservice Milstar system is intended to provide the National Command Authorities, chief military commanders, and strategic and tactical military forces with a highly protected and survivable means of communications that would be operable nearly worldwide and throughout all levels of military conflict. The Milstar program involves the acquisition of satellites; a mission control capability; and specially designed Army, Navy, and Air Force terminals for a variety of users operating from ground-mobile vehicles, ships, submarines, aircraft, and fixed-ground locations. As requested, the General Accounting Office (GAO) evaluated (1) the Milstar system's capabilities to support strategic and tactical missions and (2) the extent to which DOD has provided assurance of continuing comparable satellite communications among the users after the Milstar satellites under development are launched. DOD initiated the Milstar program under Air Force management in the early 1980s. Milstar is intended to be DOD'S most robust communications satellite system. It is designed to operate in the extremely high frequency (EHF) radio spectrum, although it has super high frequency and ultra high frequency capabilities, and it was originally designed to transmit signals at low data rates (LDR). Milstar employs computer processing capabilities on the satellites and several different radio signal processing techniques that provide resistance to electronic jamming.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Nov 01, 1998
- Accession Number
- ADA356657
Entities
Organizations
- United States Government Accountability Office