2018 MILCOM

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Restricted Technical Panel: Status and Issues of the Mobile User Objective System (MUOS) (Room Atlanta/Boston)

This panel will be a technical discussion of the current state of the MUOS program, the next generation UHF SATCOM system that the Navy is acquiring for the Department of Defense. MUOS leverages commercial third generation (3G) WCDMA cellular technology to provide more communications capacity and improved performance than previous UHF SATCOM systems.  MUOS consists of five satellites (one is an on-orbit spare), four world-wide ground sites, and new or upgraded terminals with the WCMDA waveform.  MUOS satellites were launched from 2012 to 2016, and the Multi-Service Operational Test and Evaluation (MOT&E) occurred in the fall of 2015.  Call quality and performance was good during MOT&E, but concerns with planning and provisioning, situational awareness, network management, cybersecurity, ground system stability and maturity, and system ability to scale to full capacity resulted in a rating of not effective and not suitable. While the program office has worked to address these issues, there have also been several significant accomplishments over the past two years.  This panel would focus on key technical items like the Spectrum Agility of the waveform and Interference Mitigation in the UHF environment, while also highlighting the successes in conducting the IBS mission over MUOS.  The panel will also discuss other Emergent Warfighter Needs and challenges as they prepare for the next operational test.