MILSATCOM Systems Wing Organization: Groups

4/24/2012

0 Comments

 
The United States Air Force (USAF) is the aerial warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven American uniformed services. Their Military Satellite Communications Systems Wing (MCSW) is an organization headquartered at Los Angeles Air Force Base, located in El Segundo, California, a state located in the West Coast of the United States.  The Space & MIssile Systems Center established the MILSATCOM Systems Wing on August 1, 2006. MCSW is previously known as the MILSATCOM Joint Program Office (MJPO).

Air Force Space Command (AFSPC) is a major command of the United States Air Force, with its headquarters at Peter Air Force Base, Colorado. MCSW is one of its several wings and other units that make up its Space and Missile Systems Center (SMC).

MCSW has five groups and one squadron which deliver three primary Satellite Communications (SATCOM) product lines:
The Protected Communications Group Provides the United States Department of Defense (DoD), the US federal department charged with coordinating and supervising all agencies and functions of the government relating directly to national security and the United States armed forces, survivable, global secure, protected, jam-resistant communications for high priority military ground, sea, and air assets. 

They provide operations and sustainment to the on-orbit Milstar Communications satellite constellation in geostationary orbit, originally Military Strategic and Tactical Relay, operated by the United States Air Force, and provide secure and ham resistant worldwide communications to meet the requirements of the Armed Forces of the United States. 

In addition, the group executes the $6.7B Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF), a series of communications satellites operated by the United States Air Force Space Command, and $1.2B Enhanced Polar SATCOM (EPS) programs. Ther user equipment or terminals for the DoD protected communication systems in the currently operational Milstar Command Post Terminal (CPT) and $3.2B Family of Advanced Beyond-Line-of-Sight Terminals (FAB-T) development program.  

The Wideband Communication group provides worldwide, high-volume, voice and data communications to the warfighter. They provide operation and sustainment support for the on-orbit Defense Satellite Communications system (DSCS) constellation, which provides the United States with military communications to support globally distributed military users. 

In addition, the group executes the $1.9B Wideband Global SATCOM system (WGS), a high-capacity satellite communications system planned for use bin partnership by the United States Department of Defense (DoD) and the Australian Department of Defence, and $0.9B Global Broadcast Service (GBS), a combined United States space and Command, control, Communications, and Intelligence (C3I) system, that provides a one-way Wideband/High-Throughput of Information to forces garrisoned, deployed, or on the move. Wideband communication terminals include the Ground Multi-band Terminal (GMT), the High Data Rate - Radio frequency (HDR-RF) ground terminal program which is an evolutionary upgrade to the GMT, and the FAB-T Increment 2.

The Transformational Satellite Communications System (TSAT) program, a United States Department of Defense (DOD) program sponsored by the US Air Force for a secure, high-capacity global communications network serving the Department of Defense, NASA and the US Intelligence Community, was the DoD’s future MILSATCOM System. The $24.0B TSAT system was meant to provide real-time connectivity of all Global Information Grid (GIG) assets; provide Battle Command-On-The-Move capability for Small Mobile Units; worldwide persistent connectivity of high/low resolution Intelligence Surveillance and Reconnaissance; and survivable communications for Strategic Forces. The Global Information Grid (GIG) is an all-encompassing communications project of the United States Department of Defense. The TSAT program office consisted of the TSAT Network Integration Group, the TSAT Space Group and the TSAT Mission Operations Group. This program currently appears to have been cancelled.  

See: NewSat Teleports
0 Comments

What is Beyond the 40 Years of the Offshore Technology Conference?

4/15/2012

0 Comments

 
Despite a global economic recession and initial scares about swine flu back in 2009, attendance at the 2009 Offshore Technology Conference (OTC) reached 66,820 strong. 

There are more than 120 energy professionals at the world’s largest offshore resources industry event, May 4-7, at its usual venue at Reliant Park, Houston. It was a little less than the attendance in 2008, however, exceeded the expectations given the situation stated above. It was actually the second largest in OTC’s 40-year history, with more than 557,000 square feet of exhibition area filled to capacity by 2,500 companies from 38 countries.

Don Vardeman, 2009 OTC chairman stated: “This year’s attendance levels underscore that in a downturn, energy professionals come to OTC to learn about technologies and innovative approaches to reduce their costs and improve performance. OTC is known for presenting new and proven technologies that will help companies find and produce more oil and gas in deeper waters, and for sharing lessons learned on global projects that advance the offshore industry.”  

On the other hand, the OTC Awards Luncheon keynote speaker Thierry Pilenko, chairman and CEO of Technip, said that the challenge in a lower oil price environment is to reduce costs while preserving human capital. Furthermore, he said that they can stack rigs, and they cannot stack people, so they should avoid “stop and go” attitude which is detrimental to the industry’s image, and continue to hire university graduates to avoid future generation gaps and maintain credibility.

The 2009 technical program offered four full days of sessions on the Arctic, as well as special panel sessions on operating in a volatile market. Their Spotlight on New Technology program focused on 14 innovative technologies that are already making the industry more effective.

OTC -still continues to grow and will extend its reach to Brazil to participate in the Brazil Offshore Conference, held on 16-19 2010. This is when they presented the first Arctic Technology Conference, a separate new conference focused on both offshore and onshore technology for Arctic exploration and development.


See: Petroleum Industry: Instrumentation
0 Comments

Petroleum Disaster: Oil Spill

4/1/2012

0 Comments

 
An oil spill is the release of a liquid petroleum hydrocarbon into the environment, especially marine areas, due to human activity. The liquid petroleum hydrocarbon is a naturally occurring flammable liquid (form of matter with a definite volume but no fixed shape) consisting of a complex mixture of hydrogen and carbon of various molecular weights and other liquid organic compounds, that are found in geologic formations beneath the Earth’s surface.

The term is mostly used to describe marine oil spills, where oil is released into the ocean, or the body of saline water that comprises a large part of the planet’s hydrosphere, or coastal waters, which as defined by the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, is a belt of coastal waters extending at most 12 nautical miles (22 km; 14 mi) from the baseline, usually the mean low-water mark, of a coastal state.


Oil spills may be due to release of crude oil from: oil/petroleum tankers; a merchant ship designed for the bulk transport of oil; offshore platform (oil platform), incorrectly called “oil rig,” a large structure with facilities to drill wells, to extract and process oil and natural gas, and to temporarily store product until it can be brought to shore for refining and marketing; drilling rigs, a machine which creates holes in the ground; and oil wells, a general term for any boring through the Earth’s surface that is designed to find and acquire petroleum oil hydrocarbons. This could also be due to the spills of: refined petroleum products, an industrial process plant where crude oil is processed and refined into more useful petroleum products, like naphtha, gasoline (a transparent petroleum-derived liquid that is primarily used as a fuel in internal combustion engines), diesel fuel (any liquid used in diesel fuels), asphalt base, heating oil, kerosene, and liquefied petroleum gas, and their by-products, heavier fuels used by large ships such as bunker fuel, or the spill of any oily refuse or waste oil, defined as any petroleum-based or synthetic oil that, through the use or handling, has become unsuitable for its original purpose due to the presence of impurities or loss of original properties. 

Another significant route by which oil enters the marine environment is through natural oil seeps, a place where natural liquid or gaseous hydrocarbons escape to the Earth’s atmosphere and surface, normally under low pressure or flow.  

Oil spills can be controlled by chemical dispersion, combustion, mechanical containment, and/or absorption. Spills may take weeks, months or even years to clean up.


To: Newsat: Australian Satellite Commuications
0 Comments