Armed Forces News

The Marine Corps wants to expand the capability to communicate beyond line of sight, using satellite communications. The service’s systems command has established a working group to study ways to improve the existing Very Small Aperture Terminal Family of Systems VSAT, which can support high-bandwidth voice, video and data transmissions. It now takes two Marines roughly between 30 and 45 minutes to set up a VSAT system. The Marine Corps wants to shave that down to 10 to 20 minutes, and reduce the system’s overall weight as well.

“To increase readiness and the Marines’ ability to gather intelligence and real-time information through satellites, it’s important to design the VSAT as a modular system,” said Scott McCoy, VSAT project engineer at Marine Corps Systems Command.

A modular system would reduce maintenance timelines and costs, and give users better flexibility to configure systems to mission requirements, McCoy said.

The Marine Corps anticipates issuing a formal request for proposals sometime this summer. The goal is to field a replacement system to major subordinate commands within the Marine Expeditionary Forces by 2020, and offer the system service-wide by 2023.