Where to next for Australian satellite communications?

Resilient communications is key to the ADF’s ability to undertake military operations. Therefore it is vital that Australia has access to secure and resilient satellite communications.

Instead of a single orbit ­solution, Defence must instead prioritise a multi-orbit capability, increasing resilience for the Australian Defence Force.

Resilient communications is a key foundation of the Australian Defence Force’s ability to undertake joint and integrated military operations as part of a military strategy of denial. Therefore it is vital that Australia has access to secure and resilient satellite communications, or “satcom”.

Yet on November 4, 2024, the government cancelled the most important space capability planned for the ADF – defence Joint Project JP-9102. Some $US90m ($138m) had already been spent on the capability by the then most likely preferred bidder, Lockheed Martin, which was all set to ­provide four sophisticated communications satellites to be placed in geosynchronous orbit (GEO) at 36,500km from Earth.

JP-9102 would have provided an advanced sovereign satellite communications capability for the ADF and led to the creation of hundreds of jobs across the local commercial space sector.

The cancellation understandably provoked anger and outcry across Australia’s commercial space community and raised doubts about government support for Australia’s young but growing space sector. This cancellation had also followed the scrapping of the proposed National Space Mission for Earth Observation (NSMEO) in 2023, which would have seen four sovereign Earth observation satellites that would have supported defence and national security tasks in addition to civilian uses.

The government responded to this criticism by claiming that JP-9102 wasn’t in fact cancelled but was “redefined”. Instead of pursuing a single-orbit constellation, there was an emphasis now on developing a multi-orbit satellite constellation to include satellites in low-earth orbit (LEO) and medium earth orbit (MEO).

This decision was justified by emerging counterspace threats, which have seen states such as China and Russia developing a range of anti-satellite (ASAT) capabilities, with China demonstrating an ability to undertake rendezvous and proximity operations close to other satellites in GEO in a way that would allow them to interfere physically or attack them from close range.

In this sense, a satcom system based only in GEO is vulnerable, and the government’s call for a multi-orbit constellation does make sense. In justifying the cancellation – and then redefinition towards the goal of a multi-orbit constellation – the government stated: “Instead of a single orbit ­solution, Defence must instead prioritise a multi-orbit capability, increasing resilience for the Australian Defence Force.”

However, it’s important to note that the deployment of four satellites in GEO planned under JP-9102 was the first phase of a multi-phase project that would have seen subsequent phases deliver satellites in LEO and MEO too. Perhaps a better approach to outright cancellation (and then redefinition) would have been to sustain JP-9102 but provide additional funding to fast-track the subsequent phases to deliver a multi-orbit constellation more rapidly.

This would have preserved a high-bandwidth GEO segment and allowed faster progress towards small satellite constellations in LEO and MEO. That would have created more opportunities for Australia’s commercial space sector to bid for the LEO to MEO segments, while any shortfall in capacity as this multi-orbit capability was built could be met through reliance on commercial providers such as SpaceX’s Starlink, or even the higher security “Starshield” constellations. It would certainly have preserved confidence that government was serious about supporting sovereign space capability.

As it stands now, the ADF is continuing to rely on existing US and commercially provided satcom using satellites in GEO, including the Australian-owned Optus C-1, which is approaching the end of its operational life by 2027. A new Optus-X GEO communications satellite, which was ­partly funded by the Defence ­Department and launched on ­October 18, 2024, will guarantee satcom through to 2034.

A notional multi-orbit constellation does not necessarily exclude GEO satellites, so in addition to small satellites in LEO and MEO, there would be a requirement for high-bandwidth satellites in GEO. It begs the question whether cancelling or “redefining” JP-9102 was necessary, when the outcome of the new approach will be much the same as the old approach.

In terms of LEO- and MEO-based satellites, the ADF can use existing commercial mega constellations like Starlink, but there’s no clear guidance on what form a “sovereign” multi-orbit satcom constellation would take in terms of the number of satellites to be acquired, where these satellites are to be acquired from, and when such a capability will be in place, let alone the cost of such a capability.

Hopefully some guidance will emerge from the 2026 National Defence Strategy and Integrated Investment Program to give Australian companies adequate time to bid for such a project. But that time is running short.

---

Malcolm Davis is a senior analyst, defence strategy at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.