Army bets on new satellite network, hopes for system that actually works

FORT CARSON, Colo. — Military, civilian and defense industry leaders say an advanced new satellite-based digital communications backbone for warfare will be critical to keeping the U.S. military at the forefront of technology in the 21st century.

The key, several sources said, is an Anduril Industries product that the Army is testing: the Next Generation Command and Control (NGC2) system. Military officials say they hope the California-based defense technology company’s product is not just another shiny new apparatus in a long history of big promises by defense contractors that have failed to deliver or have quickly become outdated.

Congress is considering holding back half the NGC2 program’s funding until it has sufficient proof that the system works.

The current version of the National Defense Authorization Act for 2026 specifically mentions NGC2. It says 50% of the funds to support the system’s development will be made available only after Secretary of the Army Dan Driscoll submits a report to Congress. Lawmakers want to see “the Army’s detailed funding plans for current and new procurements” around the testing of the NGC2 system, the legislation says.

The Army’s 4th Infantry Division at Fort Carson is conducting a series of tests of the Anduril NGC2 system with increasing complexity. The 25th Infantry Division at Schofield Barracks, Hawaii, will undertake a similar testing series, called Lightning Surge, starting next year to assess whether NGC2 is capable of supporting operations in the Pacific.

Officials say the original $98 million contract with Anduril was designed to be flexible in terms of spending and requirements while the tactical network is being built.

“If the satellite connection has been contested or is down, how are you sharing throughout? Like mesh networks on the radio side, all of that is complicated,” said Brig. Gen. Michael R. Kaloostian, director of the Command and Control Future Capability Directorate at the Army. “What can’t be complicated is the front end. It’s the user, it’s the artillery officer, it’s the infantryman. That can’t be complicated.”

The general told The Washington Times in an exclusive interview that the goal for the NGC2 system is to combine all data available on a battlefield and make it accessible to commanders. The system is a combination of software and new hardware that aims to enable every level of the Army to communicate and share information quickly while using artificial intelligence to manage the vast ocean of data, all within a hyper-secure cyberspace environment that adversary intelligence operatives cannot penetrate.

“We are decomposing all of these kind of bespoke systems, and we’re taking the data feeds that are required — that a commander needs to be able to make decisions, to be able to speed up a kill chain — we’re taking all that,” Gen. Kaloostian said.

All this is intended to enhance the tactical awareness of U.S. military units on battlefields, where the prospect of being overwhelmed by data and multifaceted, advanced technology threats poses a serious risk.

“We want to make sure that the [end user device], what the soldier is using, is simple to use,” Gen. Kaloostian said. “A user shouldn’t think it’s much more different than when he or she uses their iPhone or their Android device.”

That task may seem simple, but it becomes much more complicated when the Army’s goal in building this system includes flying drones, controlling radar and shooting artillery.

A mix of defense tech firms

Anduril is leading a team of defense contractors involved in the NGC2 system that includes other “technology-first” companies. Colorado-based Palantir, Virginia-based Govini and Research Innovations Inc., as well as Amazon, Microsoft, Florida-based L3Harris Technologies and others are being tapped to help develop the complex system.

Rather than having a single large defense contractor build the system, the Army is requiring that it be constructed with open architecture, allowing future upgrades to hardware and software to come from any supplier.

The investment by government and industry to accomplish the task is growing as military leaders and politicians demand faster, newer technology in the hands of soldiers, while asking defense companies to adopt a more commercial business strategy.

“There’s an appropriate role for the government, and there’s an appropriate role for industry,” Joe Welch, the senior civilian executive for the Army’s Transformation and Training Command, told The Times in an interview.

“We’re learning a lot about that,” he said. “I think one of the results of our prototyping with 4th ID and 25th ID as we move into the so-called production phase of this is that we’re going to have a really good understanding about how to set that relationship up in a long-term contracting and agreement perspective.”

Mr. Welch said a major part of the design is to avoid vendor lock, where a defense industry company becomes the sole commercial provider for a product or service. He was quick to caution that the open architecture approach doesn’t mean the Army will use a jumbled mass of different systems.

“We’re working to integrate the [different] approaches as quick as possible,” he said. “We’re not going to have multiple versions of NGC2 out there.”

The current version features new processing computers from Anduril at various levels, as well as new software on existing Army systems, such as the Blue Force Tracker, a legacy computer installed in most Army vehicles.

The goal is to feed all information from across the battlefield into the Lattice Mesh network, an Anduril product meant to help prioritize, filter and manage the information.

“That’s like the art and the magic of what Next Gen C2 is,” Gen. Kaloostian said.

“How can we quickly make sense of all of the sensors, all of the data that’s going to be in that future operational environment and future conflict?” he said. “That, to me, is a monumental challenge. Not only are we thinking through the kill chain but helping commanders make decisions.”

Inside the testing of NGC2

Maj. Gen. Patrick Ellis, the 4th Infantry Division commander, was given the command partly for this purpose, said military officials in the offices of the Secretary of the Army and the Chief of Staff of the Army.

Gen. Ellis is a career infantry officer, and his previous job with Army Futures Command provided him with firsthand exposure to new technology tools that he is now responsible for testing.

His task is to ensure that the NGC2 system the Army ultimately adopts is capable of launching the service into a futuristic technology space on the battlefield. He is doing that through a testing series called Ivy Sting. The challenge is that the system needs to be one that the entire Army can rely on in a variety of environments.

“I look at it as a toolbox for the commander,” Brig. Gen. Shane Taylor, the capability program executive for Command, Control, Communications and Network for the Army, said during an exclusive interview at Fort Carson.

The Army is so invested in the new approach to the battlefield and NGC2 that Gen. Taylor’s organization was created out of “a major reorganization” aimed at “delivering Next Generation Command and Control (NGC2) capabilities.”

“Let’s be honest: 25th has a very different fight than 4ID,” Gen. Taylor said. “It’s going to be line of sight comms. It’s going to be beyond line of sight. It’s going to be [low earth orbit], [medium earth orbit], [geostationary earth orbit] satcom. It’s going to be 5G. It’s going to be Wi-Fi. But what density and distribution of that will be different between those two commanders and how they fight.”

The combination of secure Wi-Fi-based mesh networks for soldiers on the front lines, high data rate radio connections between headquarters, and increasingly more use of low earth orbit satellites presents a challenge that the Army has continually tried to address. Instead of successfully building an extensive, capable network, various upgrades over the past decades have resulted in cross-compatibility issues that most service members, including Gen. Taylor, are known to sarcastically joke about.

Making new communications platforms work with data from existing hardware is now the priority.

“The unique thing about where we’re going is the ability to rapidly create apps, software solutions, off of that data layer,” Gen. Taylor said. “That really is critical to getting after, really what our No. 1 priority is.”

That priority is to not get left behind by modern technology and be stuck with old hardware, or “tied to a box,” as Gen. Taylor describes it. He emphasized that the service must be able to perform software updates across the force to provide new capabilities, all of which support creating an overall picture of the battlefield for commanders, known as a common operating picture.

“This common operating picture, we’re supportive of it,” Sam Mehta, who heads the communications division at L3Harris Technologies, which supplies the majority of the Army’s communications equipment, a critical component in the NGC2 system to transfer information among soldiers.

“We always say cellphones or mobile phones, that these are software-defined data devices essentially,” Mr. Mehta told The Times. “That’s what our current generation of technology we’re delivering is.”

Integrating the new with the old

One of the biggest hurdles for the NGC2 system is to create a communications structure that supports all the latest sensors, drones and systems of the AI age and allows information to flow from soldiers on the ground up to their higher headquarters.

“We have the ability to significantly upgrade and update the capabilities for what we’ve already delivered,” Mr. Mehta said.

That’s a critical aspect of the NGC2 system, military officials said. Rather than replacing all existing hardware at a high cost, the Army is challenging suppliers to collaborate and upgrade the equipment they already have.

L3Harris is working with Amazon’s Kuiper program to use low earth orbit satellites in military applications.

Mr. Mehta said what makes the Kuiper program attractive to NGC2 is security. “What we like about Amazon Kuiper in particular is that they are purpose-building … for secure, encrypted military trade transmission.”

It’s a critical factor that U.S. lawmakers are likely to examine before finalizing approval of full funding for NGC2.

L3Harris has, for years, provided much of the equipment the Army uses to encrypt communications. Now, as the focus shifts from being able to talk on a radio to sending massive amounts of data through cyber channels, encryption technology remains an important requirement.

The entire NGC2 system aims to foster secure and resilient communications, using a plan that provides a primary, alternate, contingency and emergency platform for communication.

Congress is requiring the Army to prove that the entire system achieves “high assurance” encryption and decryption certification from the National Security Agency.

The 4th Infantry Division’s Ivy Sting testing series and the 25th Infantry Division’s upcoming Lightning Surge testing will have to account for all these factors.

Both divisions will conduct field tests over the coming months, and these tests will not be limited to the Army. The entire U.S. national security community is watching to see whether the collection of contractors, new technology and money results in success or a perfect storm for wasting taxpayer dollars.