In modern wars, intelligence has an expiration date; being able to transmit information more quickly and reliably will help modern militaries to meet it.

Last week, the Ukrainian military reported a problem that must have seemed extraordinary: some of their drones were losing their satellite internet connection when they flew too fast. Restrictions affecting Starshield, the military service that uses SpaceX’s Starlink satellites, reportedly disrupted a number of sensitive Ukrainian missions during the throttling. One unit reported interruptions lasting 10 to 20 seconds. It goes without saying that during a conflict in which a drone may have just moments to spot and engage a target, those seconds matter enormously. 

What does this tell us about the nature of modern warfare? For one thing, it is that for all the importance of being able to see what your enemy is doing, the value of what you can see depends on the speed at which you can move that information, understand it, and act on it. If a satellite in space takes a photo of a mobile missile launcher positioned beside a certain road, that knowledge is valuable, but only for a time: sooner or later, the launcher is bound to move. If the satellite analyst receives the photograph three hours after it is taken, and a battlefield commander needs another two hours to call in a strike on the target, the information may already be useless. If the same photograph could be delivered and assessed within minutes, it could make a decisive difference. 

Of course, not all intelligence expires at the same rate. The location of an airfield may remain useful for months; the location of a moving vehicle will generally be obsolete within moments. Military planners will therefore have to match the speed of their communications to the speed of the events unfolding on the ground. There is very little point collecting images more quickly than they can be delivered and acted upon. 

On the Modern Battlefield, Data Transfer Is a Weak Link

Ukraine has shown what faster delivery can achieve. In an analysis published this year, the Center for Strategic and International Studies described an operation in June in which commercial satellite information reached Ukrainian operators roughly 15 minutes after it was collected. Rather than wait for a long sequence of reviews, the operators received the information directly. The achievement was the ability to put that information to use in time, not merely to capture it. With more and more commercial companies capturing more and more pictures of the Earth, and with other kinds of sensors—such as radar and surveillance drones—capturing images through cloud and darkness, or from close to the ground, commanders are now blessed with a rich and comprehensive view of events. Gathering this data used to be the main constraint in military operations; it isn’t anymore.

The disruption of Starshield illustrated starkly that communications and intelligence need to be considered together. What that means practically is that governments have to consider whether they have enough ground stations to receive data, enough capacity to handle large amounts of that data, and reliable connections to the military decision-makers so that those commanders can get what they need and act, with confidence and without delay. They also have to think about alternatives: what happens if one service goes down? Things happen; and if one highly reliable and impressive satellite constellation suddenly ceases to work, for whatever reason, then those that depend on it may find themselves in serious danger. 

How Optical Communications Could Solve the Data Transfer Problem

Optical communications could make an important contribution to this problem.

Most communications on Earth—both on the surface and from space—are transmitted through radio waves. Optical communications use tightly directed beams of light (lasers) instead. These beams can carry more information in a given period, allowing a satellite to deliver a large quantity of images during a brief opportunity to communicate with a ground station. Unlike radio frequency transmission, the lasers are also extremely hard to jam or spoof, for the simple reason that they propagate in a narrow beam. Of course, they are not perfect; they are more susceptible to weather disruption than radio waves, and the narrow beam demands precise alignment between satellite and receiver. The goal is not to replace radio communications altogether, but rather to diversify the means of communication—establishing a broad network of ground stations rather than one or two, and thinking of communications as requiring a whole ecosystem rather than a simple matter of getting information from A to B. 

Thinking in terms of the quality of the data captured by satellites is natural when, for a long time, that was the main consideration. Now, we need to think backwards from the usability of the data. Ultimately, the value of the data in a military context is bound up with the degree to which it is useful. The faster that high-quality data gets into the hands of the people making decisions, the greater the value of that data. Moving high-quality data quickly, securely and reliably is the key.

In modern warfare, even the most exquisitely detailed image has an expiration date. Being clear-eyed about this, and investing in the infrastructure that will ensure that such imagery doesn’t surpass that date, is absolutely vital to preparedness and deterrence.

About the Author: Jean-Francois Morizur 

Jean-Francois Morizur is the CEO of Cailabs, a French technology company specializing in advanced ground-to-satellite optical communications. He is also the vice president and a partner of Deeptech France, a hub for science-based and patentable innovations emerging from fundamental and applied research. He holds dual PhDs from Pierre and Marie Curie University in France and the Australian National University.

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