What the Mobile User Objective System will bring to UHF SATCOM

Abstract

The Operational Requirements Document (ORD) for the Mobile User Objective System (MUOS), the replacement for the current UHF MILSATCOM, requires a great increase in communication capacity and Quality of Service (QoS). To achieve these objectives, MUOS is moving away from operation over individual 5-kHz and 25-kHz bandwidth transponders and adapting a commercial third generation (3G) Wideband Code Division Multiple Access (WCDMA) cellular phone architecture using geosynchronous satellites in place of cell towers. Because the WCDMA waveform will not be interoperable with the current UHF waveforms, each MUOS satellite carries a legacy payload, similar to that flown on the currently deployed UFO 11 satellite, to allow for a gradual transition to the MUOS WCDMA waveform. While the current narrowband UHF MILSATCOM system provides reliable service to many users, it provides unacceptable service to many other users, and worse, there is insufficient capacity to provide any service at all to many potential users. The MUOS constellation of four satellites provides greater than 10 times the capacity of the current UHF constellation, but because the MUOS waveform will eliminate the need for dedicating resources to individual services, its ability to fulfill user communication requirements will actually be much greater than this. The current UHF waveforms are unable to provide efficient transport for Internet Protocol (IP) packets which has prevented the migration to modern net centric IP communication services. MUOS implements an all packet core networking infrastructure that supports both net centric IP communication services as well as traditional circuit-switched services.