NRO, Navy launch experimental Otter CubeSat
The National Reconnaissance Office and the Naval Postgraduate School recently put a new CubeSat into low-Earth orbit to conduct experiments and reduce risk for future programs of record.
The technology suite, dubbed Otter, was launched Jan. 14 via a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, the Navy said in a news release Friday.
The platform’s primary payload has “space-based maritime domain awareness capabilities.” The secondary payloads — an X-band transmitter and an LED on-orbit payload (LOOP) — will “help the government evaluate communication technologies and concepts of operations on future CubeSat missions,” according to the release.
The vehicle will be operated by Naval Postgraduate School faculty and students on behalf of the National Reconnaissance Office, via the Mobile CubeSat Command and Control network.
NRO is one of the United States’ premier spy agencies when it comes using satellites for intelligence purposes. President Donald Trump has nominated Troy Meink, one of the office’s senior leaders, to serve as the next secretary of the Air Force.
“The NRO is always looking for innovative ways to advance our capabilities in space,” Aaron Weiner, director of the organization’s advanced systems and technology directorate, stated in the release. “This demonstrator … showcases the value in rapidly qualifying low-cost, commercial off-the-shelf hardware.”
New Zealand’s Defence Science and Technology organization is also a partner in the project.
The Otter effort comes as the Pentagon and intelligence community are embracing the concept of putting relatively inexpensive platforms and proliferated satellite architectures into LEO to improve resiliency and reduce latency, among other benefits. For example, the Space Development Agency is working to build out a massive constellation, known as the Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture (PWSA), for data transport and missile tracking.
“One of the things we’re excited about when you look at taking satellite communications from [geostationary orbit] all the way down to LEO and not GEO, [is] you’re able to … decrease latency, increase throughput,” Mike Dean, director for command, control and communications infrastructure in the office of the DOD Chief Information Officer, said Thursday during a panel at the Potomac Officers Club’s annual Defense R&D Summit in Northern Virginia, noting that the Pentagon is about to kick off a new study focused on non-terrestrial networks and protocols.
The Navy is also looking to improve its SATCOM and networking capabilities.
“When you look at 5G and Navy, a big part of this becomes, what’s the base component? … And for us it’s about that high data rate, high speed, large bandwidth capability. So as you start to look at those applications that we’re working on in the future, what would that be when you’re looking at the afloat? It’s that satellite communications to improve the bandwidth and connectivity to our strike groups at sea. That’s huge,” Scott St. Pierre, the service’s director for enterprise networks and cybersecurity, said during Thursday’s panel.
“Afloat [command, control, communications, computers, cyber, intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance and targeting], long-range fires — those are big data capabilities that we need to move data fast. We want to get it up to the satellite, down to an analysis station, [and] back up to the satellite with the results of what we’re looking at,” he added.
The Otter technology, an experimental system that’s not currently part of the PWSA, is intended to “add sensors in the space layer to be able to see what’s going on in the water,” Wenschel Lan, interim chair of the Naval Postgraduate School’s Space Systems Academic Group, stated in Friday’s release. “It’s not just a camera, but a lot of different phenomenologies that you can sense from space to then help paint the picture of what’s going on.”
The X-band transmitter “is ideal for space communications optimized for data-intensive payloads,” according to the release.
The Otter project is also envisioned as a risk-reduction effort that could smooth the way for future Pentagon satellite programs and give personnel important know-how.
“We’re spending a small amount of money to buy down the risks so that when they actually do a full program of record, they’re not going into it blind,” Lan added, noting that the initiative will also give NPS students direct experience with space missions and make them “better prepared to serve as Space professionals in the Navy, throughout the DOD, and beyond.”
Otter isn’t NRO’s and NPS’ first rodeo when it comes to collaboration on satellite projects. Last year, they launched a CubeSat called Mola that also carried an X-band transmitter and LOOP technology, according to the release.