Final Day of ISCe Stress Importance of Commercial Satellite Industry and Government Partnership
Maj. Gen. James Armor, Director, National Security Space Office.
SAN DIEGO, CA, June 8, 2007 - Satnews Daily - The third and final day of ISCe was devoted to sessions as part of the Military and Government Requirements Forum. Several panels tackled various aspects of the military satellite market including one on the Department of Defense’s (DoD) Transformational Communications Architecture and another on “Intelligence and Communication—You Can’t Have One Without the Other!”
The Intelligence and Communications panel was chaired by Maj. Gen. James Armor, Director, National Security Space Office and featured a distinguished panel that included Denis Curtin, Chief Operating Officer, Xtar; Harry Gatanas, Executive Vice President, Strategic Programs Group, SI International; Paul Millingon, Business Development Director, Paradigm Secure Communications; Cdr John Roesli, C3F, J6-US Navy; and Nelson Santini, Director of C4ISR Business Development, Datapath.
The military’s intelligence requirements have changed a lot after 9-11 and the Patriot Act, according to Cdr Roesli. “It used to be information that we need to know, now it is we need to share”said Cdr Roesli, citing the need to share intelligence not only with multiple law enforcement and government agencies domestically but internationally as well with multiple navies and forces.
“We are almost solely reliant on satellite communications,” said Cdr Roesli, “which opens up potential vulnerabilities.” The panel emphasized the need for redundancy in systems and multiple communications paths for reliability and increased security.
Paradigm’s Millington said that despite the development of the military’s own capabilities there will always be capacity shortfalls which can be augmented by the commercial sector through hosted payloads and what he calls the “coalition operationally responsive space,” or cooperation between allied nations and forces.
General Armor gave the keynote speech at the ISCE 2007 Leadership luncheon sponsored by Intelsat General, EADS and Paradigm Secure Communications.
In his luncheon address, Gen. Armor spoke on the US’ national space policy which ensures freedom of action in space and seeks to cooperate with other nations for the peaceful use of space. He emphasized the importance of the US commercial space sector and the need for “sharing of space capabilities with international and commercial partners.” (a full interview with Gen. Armor will be published in the second quarter issue of MilsatMagazine (www.milsatmagazine.com) coming out at the end of June).
The ISCe 2007 Conference and Expo was considered a success in terms of the quality of attendance and session by its organizers Hannover Fairs USA (HFUSA). HFUSA announced the 7th annual ISCe event next year will be held again in San Diego at a much larger venue from June 10-12, 2008.
