Under the programme, the British, French and Italian governments are providing NATO, through what is known as "Capability Provision", with advanced satellite communication capabilities for 15 years as of January 2005.
The benefits include increased bandwith, coverage and expanded capacity for communications and data, including with ships at sea, air assets, and troops deployed across the globe.
What does this mean in practice?
The programme provides NATO with access to the military segment of three national satellite communications systems - the French Syracuse, Italian Sistema Italiano di Communicazioni Riservate ed Alarmi (Italian Classifed and Emergency Communications System, abbreviated SICRAL), and British Skynet 4/5 - under a Memorandum of Understanding.
This new system replaces the two existing NATO IV communications satellites, which were launched in 1991 and 1993, respectively, and were designed to last 10 years.
The Satcom Post-200 programme gives NATO access to two components: super high frequency (SHF) and ultra high frequency (UHF) communications. UHF (300-3,000 MHz) is used for tactical communications, SHF (3-300 GHz) for ground stations with larger radar dishes.
All three systems (Syracuse, SICRAL, and Skynet 4/5) can provide SHF communications, while SICRAL and Skynet provide UHF communications.
NATO still has a requirement for extended high-frequency (EHF) communications. Once this requirement has been quantified, there will be another competition between the available national programmes.
How did it evolve?
In May 2004, the NATO Consultation, Command and Control Agency (NC3A) selected a Franco-British-Italian proposal to provide SHF and UHF communications.
The proposal submitted by the European consortium was determined by NATO to be the lowest priced, technically compliant bid. It came in below the Alliance’s funding ceiling of 457 million euros for SHF and UHF.
What NATO bodies play a central role?
Satcom Post-2000 is controlled through a Joint Programme Management Office(JPMO) in Paris staffed by officials from the British, French and Italian governments, who report to the NC3A, which administers the Memorandum of Understanding on behalf of NATO.
The NC3A, in conjunction with the Command, Control, Communications, and Computer Systems (J6) Branch of NATO's Allied Command Operations, plans and provides NATO requirements to the JPMO to ensure suitable satellite capacity is made available to meet NATO’s requirements.
Day to day communications requests are handled by a NATO Mission Access Center, manned by national contractors, co-located with the NATO Communications and Information System Support Agency at NATO's Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe in Mons, Belgium. This centre is the point of contact between national satellite control centres and the operators of the NATO network to manage and gain access to the allocated capacity.