GovSatcom - Practical and technical information

The new EU Governmental Satellite Communication (GOVSATCOM) initiative of the proposed EU Space Programme 2021-2027 aims to provide Member States and EU security actors with guaranteed access to secure satellite communications.

EU Govsatcom Objectives

As stated in the EU Space Programme Regulation:
“The general policy objective of EU GOVSATCOM is to ensure the availability of reliable, secured and cost-effective satellite communications services for EU and national public authorities managing security critical missions and infrastructures.”
There for, Gosatcom EU should

• overcome the fragmentation of GOVSATCOM on European scale (from the demand side, from the supply side for nationally owned SatCom systems), and seek synergies between civilian and military domains);
• ensure the critical security needs of EU and MS governmental users are met by appropriate guarantee of access; and by ensuring that solutions are secure and sufficiently robust to ill-intentioned acts;
• ensure that the solutions provide  an appropriate level of  European non-dependence in terms of technologies, assets, operations and services.

Overview of GOVSATCOM Service Families

EU GOVSATCOM initiative targets the development of three service families:

• for Surveillance: Land border surveillance, Maritime surveillance, Specific Military operations (EU or national);
• for Crisis Management: Military forces of MS, Civil Protection, Police, CSDP missions, Humanitarian Aid responders…;
• for support of key infrastructure management: communications for Diplomatic networks, for transport infrastructures, for EU Space infrastructures (Galileo, Copernicus).

Initial GOVSATCOM related activities already exists at EDA and ESA

Activities testing partial solutions and potentially relevant technologies have already started:
- at EDA (European Defence Agency): a demonstration project is currently being set-up to test the pooling & sharing concept of national satellite capacities for military users
- at ESA : Govsatcom Precursor is an optional programme under ESA\ARTES4.0\4S\Govsatcom precursors Pacis 1-6  (with a sub-set of ESA Member States) that has started precursor projects focussing on enabling technologies for secure satellite communications and further 4S related opportunities .

Govsatcom related activities at EU

1. Horizon 2020 : “User Coordination and Support Action”: project named ENTRUSTED (=European Networking for sat Telecom Roadmap for the gov Users requiring Secure interoperable innovativE Standardized services) project lead by GSA (European GNSS Agency).
2. European Parliament Preparatory Action : Preliminary market consultation on GOVSATCOM ground -segment Hub.
3. Parallel GovSatcom Hub studies (procurements entrusted to GSA Q4 2019, with the objective to develop tailored solutions for the EU GOVSATCOM Hubs.
4. EU GOVSATCOM Space R&D activities to prepare the potential additional Govsatcom Space Segment (TBD)