Inmarsat’s Rebecca Cowen-Hirsch: Govt Should Leverage Commercial Tech for Satcom Architecture Integration

Rebecca Cowen-Hirsch, senior vice president of government strategy and policy for Inmarsat Government, has said the government should direct appropriations toward efforts that leverage commercial satellite communication platforms to establish an integrated satcom architecture.

“For 2019, a strong leadership is needed to apply funding resources to take full advantage of the forward-looking architecture that commercial satellite operators and the government are collaborating upon, to optimize all of the advancements that comsatcom has to offer and determine the gaps where finite smaller purpose-built capabilities may be required,” Cowen-Hirsch wrote in a Via Satellite piece posted Tuesday.

She cited the $600 million in funds allocated for the U.S. Air Force to procure two more Wideband Global Satcom satellites under the $1.3 trillion omnibus bill for fiscal 2018 and how the measure appears to be “out of sync with the mantra of the national security leadership expectations.”

Cowen-Hirsch also noted how the Air Force’s Analysis of Alternatives study initiated in 2016 helps facilitate government-industry partnerships to establish a new satcom architecture that would replace the WGS satellite constellation.