UAV
SATCOM Link
Satellite communication links that let drones be controlled far beyond line of sight, at the cost of latency and infrastructure.
A SATCOM link routes command and sensor traffic between an unmanned aircraft and its operators through a communications satellite rather than a direct terrestrial radio path. This is what makes beyond-line-of-sight operations possible: an aircraft flying over one continent can be flown by a crew on another, with the satellite acting as the relay. Large long-endurance platforms are built around this architecture, and smaller tactical systems increasingly carry compact satellite terminals for the same reason.
The capability comes with structural trade-offs. Signal travel time to geostationary orbit and back introduces latency of roughly half a second or more, which is tolerable in cruise flight but shapes how takeoffs, landings, and terminal maneuvers are handled. Bandwidth is expensive and finite, so sensor feeds are compressed and prioritized. And the link depends on a ground segment — teleport antennas, network operations centers — that is itself fixed, targetable infrastructure.
Satcom links are also an electronic warfare concern. Uplinks and downlinks can be interfered with, and the positioning signals the aircraft uses for navigation are a separate and famously weak satellite dependency, which is why navigation systems now treat jamming as the baseline case rather than the exception.