Remotely piloted aircraft fuel demand for satellite bandwidth.

• Author: Jean, Grace V.

To fly combat missions around the globe, the Defense Department's Predator and Reaper unmanned aerial vehicles rely on satellite communication links that allow Air Force pilots to direct the aircraft from ground control stations based in the continental United States.

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The communications-hungry drones consume large amounts of bandwidth to pipe battlefield video feeds and other sensor data back to intelligence centers and to forces on the ground. As a result, satellites are becoming overloaded by the never-ending demand. Experts say the problem will only grow worse as the services increase the number of remotely piloted aircraft in the skies.

The Defense Department's space sector is struggling to keep pace with the proliferation of drones. Since the 2009 cancelation of the Air Force's Transformational Satellite program, which was supposed to provide more capacity for overloaded military satellite communication networks, Air Force officials increasingly have turned to commercial providers to make up the difference. Nearly 80 percent of the U.S. government's satellite communications capacity comes from the commercial sector, experts say.

Part of the challenge there for the Defense Department is providing a means for transmitting information securely over these networks. Communications routed through commercial providers are largely not protected to the same degree as transmissions over military-owned satellites, which require encryption and other security measures that safeguard them from attack. Though the ultimate plan is to move all of the Defense Department's battle-hardened space-based communication needs onto military systems--a transition that analysts say could take years, even decades--Pentagon officials for the foreseeable future will remain dependent upon commercial providers to supplement the network.

"As satellites become more expensive and the government has less money they are looking for ways to be able to increase the amount of satellite bandwidth available," said William Ostrove, space systems analyst at Forecast International. "They don't have money to buy their own so they're going to commercial satellite operators ... to get that capacity without having to buy and launch their own satellites."

Commercial satellite operators are agile partners that are capable of making fast decisions that produce space systems in as little as three years, said Joseph Vanderpoorten, technical...