International Working Group Discusses Future Architecture of Allied SATCOM

Published May 22, 2025
By Lisa Sodders Space Systems Command Public Affairs

El Segundo, CA -- A growing number of international partners and an enhanced understanding of shared priorities and challenges between the U.S. and allies were some of the highlights of this month’s 9^th Allied SATCOM Future Architecture Working Group (FAWG).

More than 60 representatives from across the U.S. Department of Defense, the U.S. Space Force (USSF), and Australia, Belgium, Canada, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, New Zealand, Poland, and the United Kingdom attended the three-day event, May 5-7, 2025 at Space Systems Command (SSC) headquarters.

“International collaboration on SATCOM offers significant benefits to the warfighter, including capability, resilience, and redundancy through system interoperability - not to mention cost-avoidance and the maximization of combined national resources, which are wins for all,” said FAWG Co-Chair Richard Saxon, acting director, SSC International Affairs. “We work, fight, and win together.”

“Space is perhaps one of the most important places to get interoperability from the start because it is the one truly integrating domain for the Joint Force,” said FAWG Co-Chair Capt. Adam Clarke of UK Strategic Command. “SATCOM is the key enabler for decision advantage. With that, we can bring all our warfighters together and muscle up. Without it, we can’t.”

The FAWG is a military SATCOM community-generated forum focused on identifying and aligning SATCOM acquisition plans and timelines for better integration and interoperability. The FAWG has been held twice a year since Nov. 2020, with the host alternating between the United Kingdom and the United States. Future FAWGs through 2027 will be hosted by other international partners, evidence of growing commitment to the task.

“It’s critical for the United States and allied partners to work together on SATCOM for more seamless joint operations, increased resiliency and burden-sharing, as well as innovation,” Clarke said. “Our allies frequently come up with novel ideas, valuable insights, and brilliant innovation, and that benefits all of us.”

In addition to discussion of space-based threats, conference attendees explored hybrid networks, mixed and integrated satellite communications networks composed of a variety of different types of SATCOM terminals, and other equipment operated by civil, military or commercial entities, to bring resilience and value to military SATCOM.

Eleven nations presented updates on their national SATCOM program to advance collective understanding and discuss cooperation opportunities. The forum also focused on how to collectively leverage international partner diversity, policy and expertise. Representatives from the USSF Field Commands and the Pentagon offered international partners greater clarity on U.S. commercial space policy.

“One of the great things about this working group has been the abundance of different expertise and talent that we have,” Clarke said. “We have every facet of how to operate SATCOM, how to deliver it, and how to use it on tap to tackle difficult problems.”

The FAWG has grown from just information sharing among international partners to “activity that will decide how we should best work in the future,” Clarke said. “We’re going faster, we’re looking for opportunities to advance the warfighter by picking off difficult subjects that we can only really tackle together as allies.”

“There’s a whole bunch of stuff industry can do for us, there’s a whole bunch of stuff commercial can do, but there are some things we can only do together, otherwise we end up with Betamax or VHS,” Clarke added. “By working together now, we can head that off. We can drive what we need, we can help industry work out what they need to deliver to best support us all.”

For the first time, a Community of Interest (COI) workshop was added to the FAWG to discuss joint initiatives for research, development, testing, and standardization of hybrid SATCOM terminals technologies.

Saxon said the conference also yielded a new structure for future meetings, with focused breakout sessions to tackle difficult and relevant problem sets - in effect, operationalizing aspects of the working group. Future FAWGs will be extended from three to four days to offer additional opportunities to workshop communities of interest. This will help to advance Allied by Design principals through an actionable FAWG Roadmap that identifies international collaboration and cooperation opportunities. The Roadmap will be used to tackle the challenges that can only be done via international partnership.

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