Astrium, Europe’s space company, has been awarded a three year contract by the European Defence Agency (EDA) to provide commercial satellite communications capacity for European military needs, to act as a brokerage for commercial Ku-, Ka- and C-band satellite capacity on behalf of the defense ministries of five European nations. This contract will be managed by the EDA’s newly established procurement cell, the ESCPC (European Satellite Communications Procurement Cell).
Eric Béranger CEO of Astrium Services
Astrium Services, besides providing the EDA with satellite communications in commercial bands (C, Ku and Ka) for European military needs, will offer associated value-added services including lease of terminals, anchoring and backhauling, worldwide. The ESCPC will allow the European Union member states to pool their needs, purchase, and even switch satellite communication capacity between themselves, in a coordinated manner, ultimately ensuring the best and most cost effective access to satcom services. EDA officials said they hope the deal, which was years in the making, is the thin end of a wedge that could lead to the joint investment by European governments into next-generation military satellite communications systems.
To date, five contributing member states (France, Italy, Poland, Romania and the United Kingdom) have decided to join the ESCPC to benefit from cost savings for their commercial satcoms needs. Astrium Services will offer its one-stop-shop 24/7 expertise to manage and execute a complete service catalogue for the delivery of the upcoming orders placed by EDA on behalf of the contributing member states. This is a three-year pilot effort valued at 2.3 million euros ($3 million). Astrium Services will then be responsible to negotiate a lower price with the satellite bandwidth provider as an incentive. The company will also be able to negotiate for lower prices if several nations want the same kind of capacity at the same time, permitting Astrium Services to lease a larger amount of capacity, and in some cases to for longer periods. The five founding nations of the European Satellite Communications Procurement Cell include three, France, Italy and the United Kingdom, which already have their own national military satellite telecommunications systems. Germany and Spain have elected to not participate and their defense ministries also operate their own satellite communications systems.
Eric Béranger, CEO of Astrium Services, said: “As a commercial company and a pioneer in providing milsatcoms to governments and defence ministries, we are very proud to be the first to provide commercial satellite communications to the European Defence Agency through such an innovative scheme. Being European, Astrium Services is fully engaged in making a significant contribution to European defence.”
It will then be up to Astrium Services to negotiate a lower price with the satellite bandwidth provider as an incentive. The company will also be able to negotiate for lower prices if several nations want the same kind of capacity at the same time, permitting Astrium Services to lease a larger amount of capacity, and in some cases to for longer periods. The five founding nations of the European Satellite Communications Procurement Cell include three—France, Italy and the United Kingdom—that already have their own national military satellite telecommunications systems. Notable by their absence are Germany and Spain, whose defense ministries also operate their own satellite communications systems.
There is a window of opportunity that is opening now in that the existing military constellations need to be replaced starting around 2017 and continuing into the middle of the next decade. France, for example, has already contracted for studies to explore alternatives for its next-generation Syracuse system. A decision is expected in 2013 or 2014. EDA estimates that if these nations pooled their resources into a common effort that preserved national autonomy, they could save at least 1.5 billion to 2 billion euros.
Satellite communications are critical operational enablers that link both command and control systems and intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance and targeting systems. Demand is growing significantly, particularly with the widespread use of data rate hungry applications such as drones (RPAS, Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems) on the battlefields, which require significant satcoms capacity for control and transmission of data from sensors.
Astrium Services’ experience is as an end-to-end satcoms and value added services provider for military users worldwide, and is a provider of IP-based satcoms technologies for ground segment solutions and telecommunication services. Astrium Services offers a complete choice of frequency bands covering L, C, Ku, Ka, X and UHF, providing satellite-based military communication services to some of the most demanding armed forces in the world, including those of the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Canada, the United States and NATO.