WASHINGTON ― Eight NATO countries plan to link their military satellites into a “mega-constellation” to enable “high-speed communications, intelligence and missile tracking,” the alliance announced on Tuesday at its Summit Defence Industry Forum in Ankara, in a move that joins a number of other a new initiatives aimed at improving NATO space capabilities.
Connecting multiple national satellites will “overcome the cost, time and coverage limitations of single-nation satellite fleets,” a NATO press release said.
The new network, called the Hybrid Alliance Layered Operations in Space (HALO), initially will involve Denmark, Canada, Finland, Germany, Norway, the Netherlands, Sweden and Turkey, a NATO official told Breaking Defense today.
“But we expect more to come,” the official added, explaining that NATO is “in the early stages of the initiative.”
HALO “focuses on the procurement of both transport satellites and sensors, as well as the development of software and standards,” the NATO official said. It is “primarily designed to address national needs; what the constellation architecture will be and how it will be funded will be determined as the project unfolds,” the NATO official added.