Floor SpeechNeutral2026-06-24

Text of Senate Amendment 6275

EnvironmentDefenseInfrastructure

Context

On 2026-06-24, Senator Angela D. Alsobrooks (D-MD) delivered a floor speech titled "Text Of Senate Amendment 6275" in the Senate.

Full Text

Text of Senate Amendment 6275

Congressional Record, Volume 172 Issue 106 (Wednesday, June 24, 2026) [Congressional Record Volume 172, Number 106 (Wednesday, June 24, 2026)] [Senate] [Page S3430] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [ www.gpo.gov ] SA 6275. Ms. ALSOBROOKS submitted an amendment intended to be proposed by her to the bill S. 4784, to authorize appropriations for fiscal year 2027 for military activities of the Department of Defense, for military construction, and for defense activities of the Department of Energy, to prescribe military personnel strengths for such fiscal year, and for other purposes; which was ordered to lie on the table; as follows: At the appropriate place in title II, insert the following: SEC. ___. MODERNIZATION OF RESILIENT SATELLITE COMMUNICATIONS GATEWAY ARCHITECTURE. (a) Program Required.--The Secretary of the Army shall, acting through the Combat Capabilities Development Command C5ISR Center, carry out a program to develop, demonstrate, and transition to operational use of a resilient, virtualized satellite communications gateway capability. In carrying out the program, the Secretary shall-- (1) demonstrate cloud-hosted satellite communications gateway operations capable of restoring service to deployed forces within hours of the loss or degradation of a fixed gateway; (2) develop a deployable, government-owned gateway appliance providing equivalent virtualized capability for disconnected, classified, or contested environments in which commercial cloud connectivity is not available; (3) demonstrate the carriage of live operational traffic at a regional hub node, including seamless handover between the virtualized capability and legacy gateway infrastructure; (4) ensure that the resulting capability operates alongside, and does not require the wholesale replacement of, existing gateway equipment; and (5) develop and demonstrate a deployable satellite communications teleport solution that uses digital intermediate frequency in combination with cloud-hosted satellite communications services to replace reliance on expensive, difficult-to-replace large-aperture antennas with a distributed architecture of multiple smaller antennas, each not greater than five meters in diameter, capable of being rapidly deployed, reconfigured, and restored following loss or degradation of a fixed teleport site. (b) Milestone.--The Secretary of the Army shall structure the program required by subsection (a) to achieve a demonstrated operational capability carrying live Department of Defense traffic not later than September 30, 2027. (c) Report.--Not later than 180 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Secretary of the Army shall submit to the congressional defense committees a report on the plan of the Secretary to carry out the program required by subsection (b), including a description of milestones, anticipated transition partners, and the resources required within amounts authorized to be appropriated by this Act. (d) Funding.--The Secretary shall carry out the program required under subsection (b) using amounts authorized to be appropriated for the Network C3I Advanced Technology Program. ______

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Text of Senate Amendment 6275 Congressional Record, Volume 172 Issue 106 (Wednesday, June 24, 2026) [Congressional Record Volume 172, Number 106 (Wednesday, June 24, 2026)] [Senate] [Page S3430] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [ www.gpo.gov ] SA 6275. Ms. ALSOBROOKS submitted an amendment intended to be proposed by her to the bill S. 4784, to authorize appropriations for fiscal year 2027 for military activities of the Department of Defense, for military construction, and for defense activities of the Department of Energy, to prescribe military personnel strengths for such fiscal year, and for other purposes; which was ordered to lie on the table; as follows: At the appropriate place in title II, insert the following: SEC. ___. MODERNIZATION OF RESILIENT SATELLITE COMMUNICATIONS GATEWAY ARCHITECTURE. (a) Program Required.--The Secretary of the Army shall, acting through the Combat Capabilities Development Command C5ISR Center, carry out a program to develop, demonstrate, and transition to operational use of a resilient, virtualized satellite communications gateway capability. In carrying out the program, the Secretary shall-- (1) demonstrate cloud-hosted satellite communications gateway operations capable of restoring service to deployed forces within hours of the loss or degradation of a fixed gateway; (2) develop a deployable, government-owned gateway appliance providing equivalent virtualized capability for disconnected, classified, or contested environments in which commercial cloud connectivity is not available; (3) demonstrate the carriage of live operational traffic at a regional hub node, including seamless handover between the virtualized capability and legacy gateway infrastructure; (4) ensure that the resulting capability operates alongside, and does not require the wholesale replacement of, existing gateway equipment; and (5) develop and demonstrate a deployable satellite communications teleport solution that uses digital intermediate frequency in combination with cloud-hosted satellite communications services to replace reliance on expensive, difficult-to-replace large-aperture antennas with a distributed architecture of multiple smaller antennas, each not greater than five meters in diameter, capable of being rapidly deployed, reconfigured, and restored following loss or degradation of a fixed teleport site. (b) Milestone.--The Secretary of the Army shall structure the program required by subsection (a) to achieve a demonstrated operational capability carrying live Department of Defense traffic not later than September 30, 2027. (c) Report.--Not later than 180 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Secretary of the Army shall submit to the congressional defense committees a report on the plan of the Secretary to carry out the program required by subsection (b), including a description of milestones, anticipated transition partners, and the resources required within amounts authorized to be appropriated by this Act. (d) Funding.--The Secretary shall carry out the program required under subsection (b) using amounts authorized to be appropriated for the Network C3I Advanced Technology Program. ______