One of the primary considerations for anyone I talk to on the defense side of the satellite world (and the biggest consideration for many) is network resilience. Regardless of the mission—whether satcom, sensing or something else—reliability, availability and survivability across satellites, signals and network are critical. And with active DIFI member organizations including the U.S. Space Force, DISA, DoD CIO and NATO, the subject comes up a lot.
In fact, NATO recently tested DIFI standard 1.2.1 for their evolution to digital ground concluding that while enhancements would be valuable, today’s benefits include supporting diversity & resilience, smaller footprint, scaling and management. Angelo Ricciardi, NATO’s satcom space segment lead engineer, is the showcase speaker at DIFI’s 2025 DIFI PlugFest Europe happening this week in Holzkirchen, Germany, where devices from 12 companies are being evaluated.
A significant enhancement supporting resiliency has already been added in the just-released version 1.3 of the DIFI standard. The addition of Inbound Link Establishment Query & Response enables DIFI-compatible devices to negotiate parameters with each other.
How does this make the network more resilient? The standard is now “stateful,” meaning the status of the links between devices can be monitored continuously and can automatically recover from errors as operating conditions change. For example, suppose the link between a digitizer and a software modem were to lose connection due to a hardware or network failure. The situation would be detected automatically, and a new modem spun up on different hardware in just seconds to minimize the impact
I’m sure we’ll also be hearing more about resiliency requirements and solutions at the DIFI Workshop on The Digital Transformation of Satcom during MILCOM 2025 coming October 6-10 in Los Angeles. This will be the third year for a full day of interoperability and transformation topics at MILCOM. DIFI Workshop Day will be on October 6, including a keynote presentation from Archie Kujawski, chief engineer for the U.S. Army’s PdM Satcom. We are inviting paper, poster and demo submissions for the event now.
