Richard Sanford is the director of space initiatives for
Cisco Systems Inc. Global Defense and Space Group (GDSG). He works with leaders
from public and private sector space communities to develop advanced technology
solutions to meet the needs of next generation space communications systems.
Q: What are Cisco’s primary objectives in the space and
satellite arena?
A: The No.1 objective is to leverage terrestrial
communications technology and standards into the space market. By doing this,
we further the vision of a merged spaced ground infrastructure, where the
satellites become an active player in the networking element. Not surprisingly,
Cisco will look at space systems as networks first and foremost because that’s
what our company heritage is; but, we hope to open a new market for the company
to address, specifically infrastructure associated with network enabled space
systems. For the space market itself, we hope to reduce acquisition and
lifecycle costs by leveraging commercial technologies that exist and to help
the industry move away from the closed standards environments that exist in
space today to something that is more open standard based.
Q: What are some of the key programs and projects that will
help Cisco gain that leverage and market positioning?
A: There are a couple of programs that we’re working on
right now. In the military environment, the number one program of course is the
Transformational Communications Architecture Initiative. We are supporting the
integrators who are working on that program and looking at the networking
elements of it, the information assurance aspects of it, as well as the overall
architectural issues that are associated with the next generation systems for
the U.S.
There are a couple of other programs that we’re working on.
One that is pretty exciting for me right now is the U.K. disaster monitoring
constellation satellite built by Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd. in Guildford,
England, where we have taken a commercial off-the-shelf router from Cisco and
integrated it on-board the satellite. This project will enable us to test the
performance characteristics of the Internet protocol in space. We intend to
work with the MJPO (MILSATCOM Joint Program Office) as well as the academic and
integrator communities, to start testing and characterizing the performance of
commercial technologies in space to develop an empirical list of performance
characteristics. Then we will decide where we need to optimize and what things
need to be done in order to engender this standards in space concept that so
many people are interested in today.
Another project I would like to mention is really in the
commercial market space, where we look at end users’ customer premise equipment
and looking at ways to take pure commercial off-the-shelf technology in a CPE
environment and help with next generation end user terminals for consumer and
small office and home office users. It’s kind of cross spectrum as there’s an
international civil piece, a U.S. military piece and then there’s a commercial
piece as well.
Q: Are you able to do that technology development and
research in house? Do you have engineering capabilities within Cisco?
A: The short answer is yes and no. We do have the
technologies that are terrestrially based that we think we can leverage into
the market. I am saying leveraging because Cisco will never build a satellite,
nor will we build the radiation-hardened processors or any of those other
elements that are required in space systems. The market strategy is really to
work with the global integrator community and the aerospace community and team
with them to develop solutions and partnerships that will satisfy the space
market demands. So, while we do have the networking expertise in-house and the
capabilities to develop products for the terrestrial systems, we don’t have the
expertise to develop space-based platforms or anything of the sort today. That
really isn’t the focus—it’s leveraging what exists in the commercial world into
the space market.
Q: Was Cisco the lead on that program?
A: The program was done in partnership with NASA Glenn Research
Center under a space act agreement that we have in place with them. We are a
payload on the satellite itself, but did have the lead responsibility for
helping with the integration—working out the interface specifications to the
satellite bus that existed, as well as the test plan and the objectives overall.
Q: That brings me to a question about Cisco’s target
audience. It obviously includes commercial, government and military. Which of
those do you see Cisco moving more toward the future?
A: I think the intent is to move forward in all of them to
the greatest extent possible. But when you look at military systems, they are
the most demanding certainly from a technology perspective, from an information
assurance perspective and a reliability perspective. The work we’re doing in
the military environment will probably lead the things that happen in the other
markets. It’s interesting, from my perspective, space represents one of the
first true macro-level areas of convergence, where space systems no longer
support a specific mission or one specific purpose. There are plenty of
examples out there where, even in the U.S. military, we’re leveraging
commercial imagery and commercial capabilities to enhance or augment
capabilities that exist today.
