“The war in Ukraine has been a wake-up call,” said Todd Probert, president of national security and innovative solutions at CACI.
“This is a dramatically different threat landscape than we’ve seen in the last 20 years. But CACI is well positioned to navigate the increasingly adversarial space because of our focus on [electronic warfare], cyber capabilities and space.”
Across the Defense Department, there’s intense interest in the kinds of radio signals U.S. troops radiate, which the enemy could use against the nation, as well as the signals coming from the enemy side.
“We’re pivoting out of a counterinsurgency fight into a more contested environment and where any warfighter knows that those signals are an early indicator of what the enemy might be doing,” Probert said.
The radio-frequency contest has been especially apparent in the unmanned-systems space, as both Russia and Ukraine leverage drones for battlefield advantage. At CACI, “we’ve worked 20-plus years on foreign signals intelligence missions, regularly tracking drones and building effects that allow us to counter them,” Probert said. “We’ve got capability that goes from passive survey all the way through active attack.”
As the need for counter-UAS capabilities increases, Probert sees a window of opportunity. He’s looking to support the military as it seeks to understand the nation’s adversaries’ emerging capabilities, while at the same time bringing to the fore the need to shield the nation’s radio signals from prying eyes.
To understand CACI’s competitive differentiator in the arena, it’s helpful to shift the focus momentarily from the battlefield-EW contest to the space domain. In Probert’s view, a robust and competitive space capability is key to addressing the emerging EW challenge.
Signals intelligence isn’t merely a terrestrial operation. Typically, the military will lever one of its few multibillion-dollar satellites to relay key intelligence in support of EW operations. That’s proving problematic: Those comms links are slow, and they’re vulnerable to disruption. So, DOD is shifting to the use of micro-satellite constellations, supporting EW with many small satellites rather than a few big ones.
CACI is adapting in support of this shift.
“We are migrating the capabilities that we’ve developed on the ground into software payloads that we can deploy within that proliferated system,” Probert said.
With those proven capabilities available in the space domain “that commander in the field can accelerate their situational awareness timeline, getting critical insights in their hands in 1 to 3 minutes,” he said.
CACI is investing ahead of the need to support the military’s drive toward this vision of EW supported by proliferated space systems, with a demonstration capability set to launch in the first half of 2023.
“We’re taking some of the applications that we’ve honed for many years on the ground, and we’re going to demonstrate the concept of operations that will be employed as these proliferated systems go forward,” Probert said.
At the same time, CACI has made a number of recent acquisitions to bolster the communications link that will be critical to bringing to life a space-based EW capability. It has acquired a legacy Bell Labs optical-communications capability, along with photonics technology that will make more efficient laser communications scalable and affordable.
“In partnership with DARPA and others, we have the first system ⏤ and I believe the only system in the appropriate form factor ⏤ operating commercial optical communications on orbit today,” Probert said.
With small-sat constellations and robust communications, he said, the U.S. military can ensure not just the speed but also the resiliency of its EW capabilities.
Satellite constellations support resiliency goals for the military because they are made up of various smaller, more disparate spacecraft that are spread out and more difficult to target. Additionally, more satellites in orbit increase the chance of having one overhead when you need one on the battlefield.
This focus on resiliency is “one of the key building blocks” in CACI’s vision for national defense.
Probert took on his present role in July 2021. As a longtime veteran within GovCon, he is well positioned to drive CACI’s effort to build out this resilient, space-based portfolio.
“With our recent acquisitions, and with the inflection points we’re seeing in the defense strategy, CACI is poised for some great breakout opportunities,” he said. “Because we’ve listened, we’ve invested and we continue to invest ahead of need, CACI is poised to deliver what this nation needs from a national security standpoint. I’m personally very excited about that.”