Air Force seeks lower cost satellite communications.

• Position: From the National Defense Blog

Military satellites have become extravagant luxuries. Corn-mercial bandwidth leases also are entering the "too expensive" category as defense budgets shrink.

For the Defense Department's satellite communications buyers, the pressure is on to find lower cost alternatives.

"We need innovative approaches" for providing space-based services, said Lt. Gen. Ellen Pawlikowslci, commander of the Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center, in Los Angeles.

Pawlikowski, who oversees a $10 billion military space portfolio, spent the past two years surveying the private sector for money-saving ideas. She found that there are lots of good...