Military Satellite Communications

Opportunity to Save Billions of Dollars Gao ID: NSIAD-93-216 July 9, 1993

The Pentagon's plan to save billions of dollars by taking advantage of modern technology in building its military satellites has failed to materialize. The Defense Department (DOD) still lacks a coordinated process for incorporating the latest technology into its military satellite communications. Unless such a process is established, DOD may end up continuing to acquire costly, customized military satellites. DOD developed alternative satellite architecture that relied on common bus designs--standard satellite platforms capable of carrying various payloads. It was estimated that these buses would cut long-term costs substantially. DOD ultimately shelved all of the alternatives, despite the fact that one of the common bus designs proved to have many technological advantages and a lower price tag.

GAO found that: (1) the DOD study identified 12 alternatives for its communications satellite needs; (2) DOD chose the second-highest-cost alternative because of high mission supportability and the low to moderate program and system transition risk; (3) other alternatives, specifically the common bus designs, could satisfy DOD communications requirements at a significantly lower cost; (4) DOD lacks a coordinated process to implement modern satellite technology; (5) DOD development of the dual common bus technology is at a more advanced stage than single common bus technology development; (6) DOD could introduce modern technology into its defense satellite communications system plans by including a dual common bus capability and revising launch schedules to avoid an excessive number of satellites in orbit at any one time; and (7) DOD could replace its Milstar satellites with the dual common bus design and reduce the costs of the other satellite systems by inserting modern technology into its existing communications systems.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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