The U.S. Defense Department uses commercial satellite communications to keep in touch with UAV, such as the RQ-4 Global Hawk unmanned aircraft show here.

As we begin the New Year, commercial satellite providers have never had greater opportunities to support the U.S. Department of Defense’s ever-growing need for innovation in communications technology and service delivery.

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Brian Berger is editor in chief of SpaceNews.com and the SpaceNews magazine. He joined SpaceNews.com in 1998, spending his first decade with the publication covering NASA. He was named senior staff writer in 2004, a position he held until being named...