Commercial Space for Maritime Awareness

Written by Navy Commander Richard J. Schgallis

GIF 2010 Volume: 8 Issue: 2 (March)

As satellite technology continues to advance, unclassified commercial imaging systems are reaching an operationally relevant level of utility and persistence commensurate with the maritime domain awareness (MDA) problem set facing the maritime operational level commander. Particularly applicable for MDA are the wide area coverage capabilities of commercial synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellites such as RADARSAT, Cosmo Sky Med and Terra SAR-X.

For the past two years, the U.S. Sixth Fleet has used the wide area search modes of SAR satellites to generate actionable, near real-time, situational awareness products to support operational and tactical decision makers.

Commercial SAR satellites primarily contribute to the left hand side of an MDA prosecution chain that includes surveillance, detection, classification, identification, location, tracking and prosecution. Systems such as RADARSAT can image up to 300 nautical mile wide swaths, which can be sewn together frame after frame, yielding tens and even hundreds of thousands of square nautical miles of north to south SAR imagery.

In terms of detection, this imagery provides an expansive “ground truth” from which open-ocean or coastal maritime situational awareness can be derived. This ground truth detection information, when fused with other information sources, such as Automatic Identification System (AIS), electronic emissions intelligence or commercial shipping data bases, can aid in sorting the distinctive set of known vessel contacts from the unknown. As such, the maritime operational commander can better allocate resources and concentrate specifically on the unknown or anomalous contacts, or patterns in activity, identified through imaging.

When fused with existing information sets, SAR satellite imagery shows great promise in enhancing the operational commander’s ability to transition from not knowing the unknowns in the MDA problem set to knowing the unknowns, such that available ISR and maritime response assets can be better prioritized to assist in establishing the common operating picture (COP) for any particular area of interest.

Key to this endeavor is an architecture that provides operational level access to and operational responsiveness from commercial satellite vendors in the uplink-tasking of planned imagery. The maritime operational commander needs this direct tasking relationship in order to minimize the lead time required in imagery planning, so the full battery of available intelligence can be considered for optimizing the imagery to best support current operations. This includes, but is not limited to, the ability of the operational commander to compensate for an evolving MDA problem set—that is, moving targets—and to maintain routine monitoring of areas of interest for development of future plans.

In conjunction with this direct access to tasking, after imaging, timely actionable situational awareness products must be disseminated to MDA decision makers. Such products will differ based upon the commander’s intended use and timeline requirements. As a result, similar direct access to downlink support to minimize latency and groom imagery analysts’ efforts to meet mission needs must be inherent in the fleet architecture. This will preserve the operational responsiveness of the imagery and related products.

OPERATIONAL ACCESS

For the past two years, the Sixth Fleet has exercised operational level access to commercial satellite SAR imagery and has used it to augment its MDA picture in an otherwise ISR resource constrained AOR with a vast maritime domain problem set. By system engineering an architecture that minimizes imagery latency to between 30 and 90 minutes and codifying the collection, tasking, processing, exploitation and dissemination and the tactics, techniques and procedures for unclassified satellite imagery fusion into the COP, the command has demonstrated value in using commercial SAR imagery for both routine surveillance of the maritime domain and the over-the-horizon (OTH) cueing of maritime tactical assets.

Recently titled Radiant Polaris, the programmatics for this initiative have been spearheaded by both the OPNAV N20 staff and the Navy TENCAP office. This capability has also been aided by a contractual relationship facilitated through the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency’s commercial imagery program, which by special arrangement allowed Sixth Fleet to work directly with the commercial satellite vendors.

Now part of the NGA’s pilot CSTARS initiative, Radiant Polaris seeks to coalesce otherwise disjointed commercial satellite systems under AOR/regional downlink architectures, each with common access in order to optimize AOR imaging and maximize coverage and persistence. The goal of the project is to bring various commercial satellite imaging systems into a loose architecture and allow maritime component commanders direct access to the systems. The objective is to work from left to right on the MDA prosecution chain as far as the unclassified technology will allow. The commercial data will then be augmented with information from higher classification systems for refinement and dissemination at appropriate classification levels.

During a recent operational demonstration, Sixth Fleet deployed an Air Force Eagle Vision commercial satellite downlink unit to Cape Verde to provide direct access to three separate commercial satellite constellations. Over the 40 day deployment, maritime imagery was taken of more than 8 million square kilometers of water in some 200 satellite passes.

This imagery was in turn used by Sixth Fleet to help in OTH cueing of a U.S. Coast Guard cutter conducting maritime law enforcement training with the Sierra Leone, Senegal and Cape Verde Coast Guards. Typical production times for actionable imagery products, including imagery derived track insertion into the Global Command and Control System COP, ranged from 25 to 55 minutes. A final detailed analysis typically was submitted by the Eagle Vision imagery analyst within 90 minutes of satellite snapshot.

Most importantly, because all products provided by Eagle Vision were derived from commercial satellites and commercial AIS, all were unclassified and shareable with our host partner nations.

During this operation two significant questions arose, of which the first might be easier to answer than the second. Does this commercial unclassified capability, when utilized at the operational level, impose operational security concerns? The answer points to a definitive “no,” because this technology works far to the left of the MDA prosecution chain in the realm of surveillance and detection, with only some utility towards classification. In addition, with the vast expanses of coverage, this imagery does not point directly to any specific operational intention aside from maritime surveillance, which is well within the mandate for the maritime operational command.

The second question—quantifying the success of this kind of imagery—is slightly more difficult to answer, but only because it is conceptually driven. Does the operational commander actually have to find a bad actor with this technology alone to justify the capability and the associated costs? Again, the answer points to the negative, to the degree that this capability intentionally contributes only to a portion of the overall MDA prosecution chain.

Contributions in surveillance, detection and classification build into refinements for identification, location and tracking, and help significantly in resource management such that the chain can be completed solely to the level of satisfaction of the maritime operational commander. The maritime resource allocation force multiplier this capability presents is readily apparent. Even if the commander images a swath of ocean and there is definitively nothing of interest, that is area saved from patrolling or surveillance by other critically tasked maritime or ISR assets.

FUTURE OF THE EFFORT

Part of the CSTARS initiative will be bringing commercial electro-optical (EO) satellites into the mix, such that radar satellite imagery will be used to cue commercial EO satellites following four to five hours behind in orbit, with planning and exploitation conducted at one host site. CSTARS is envisioned as a center of excellence theater downlink prototype, which eventually could be mirrored at fleet staff maritime operation centers. Finally, additional development of predictive analysis tools that can sort contacts and give probability of ship identification, among others, will allow operational commanders to further optimize allocation of resources.

This kind of operationally responsive surveillance and cueing support does not come without challenging many contemporary military and intelligence apparatus paradigms. Moving satellite imagery of any kind away from its historical uses for intelligence analysis support and surveillance of stationary targets to the realm of direct support to and cueing for routine operations involving moving target sets requires redefinition of existing business models.

With increased proliferation of onorbit commercial imagery systems, it is a foregone conclusion that the Department of Defense will seek access to unclassified imagery of this type. Additionally, the unclassified nature of commercial imagery fused with unclassified AIS data is a significant shareable empowerment tool for coalition partners, ideally commensurate with both maritime safety and security and theater security cooperation objectives.

The important question to answer is this: At what appropriate level will this access be held in order to meet the MDA challenges of the future? Based on the recent experience at Sixth Fleet, this level of access is best held at the operational command. ♦

Commander Richard J. Schgallis served as MDA and space operations officer to Commander U.S. Sixth Fleet from 2008-10 and currently serves as the military deputy to the Naval Research Laboratory’s Naval Center for Space Technology. He can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

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