Home >> October 2011 Edition >> Command Center: Thomas M. Pirrone
Command Center: Thomas M. Pirrone
V.P., SSC Universal Space Network


PirroneHead Thomas M. Pirrone is the Vice President of Customer Development for SSC Universal Space Network (USN) and North America’s chief customer service officer. He joined USN in 1997, which was acquired by Swedish Space Corporation (SSC) in 2009 and today serves as a vital partner in the Company’s global satellite ground station network. During this time, Mr. Pirrone led marketing, business development and customer service programs that helped USN achieve a leadership position in the commercial and civil space markets. Prior to joining USN, he served for eight years as general manager of GDP Space Systems, a ground station products manufacturer serving NASA, the commercial space industry and the Department of Defense (DoD). Other career highlights include engineering, sales and management positions with Aydin Corporation (now L-3 Communications), where he played a critical role in the design and implementation of satellite ground station equipment for NASA and the DoD.

MilsatMagazine (MSM)
What are your responsibilities and what previous duties and work experience prepared you for these challenges?

Thomas Pirrone
The entire SSC organization is rooted in the customer interface with regard to operations and engineering. My job is to ensure we develop business well, provide exceptional products and services and continue to grow and thrive as an organization. I have spent my entire career in engineering, sales and management roles with aerospace companies. I have a strong pulse on the industry and where it is headed. This knowledge allows me to uniquely understand our customers’ needs and develop solutions to meet those demands.

PirroneFig1 MSM
How challenging is your work with government agencies and how do you prepare and overcome such regimented acquisition processes?

Thomas Pirrone
SSC is a very disciplined company and we know how to navigate the regimented acquisition process. But, this process is not our biggest hurdle. Sometimes our primary competitor is the very government agency we are trying to support. They are committed to the use of commercial services and weaning themselves off of expensive and declining infrastructure. However, they find it difficult to let go for reasons ranging from political to fear of losing control to loss of career advancement opportunities for government employees. Despite these difficulties, SSC is committed to growing our government agency clients by continually demonstrating how our solutions meet their mission-critical needs while saving substantial sums of money. We’re going to have to keep the pressure on ourselves to deliver exceptional service while reminding the government customer that buying services may be more advantageous than acquiring a stove-piped solution. We believe this paradigm shift will result in a win-win for everyone.

MSM
What product lines do you represent? How important are those product lines to warfighters and why are they so crucial to their mission success?

Thomas Pirrone
USN represents the entire suite of SSC products and services, which are designed to help people make better use of space. Our three biggest services include PrioraNet, the largest commercial network for ground station services in the world, Nanospace, which produces Micro Electro Mechanical Systems (MEMS)-based products for space application, and ECAPS, which focuses on green propulsion-based products for space application.

Our products and services help the DoD save money, while enhancing operations for warfighters. Normally troops would have to wait 90 minutes for a satellite orbit to occur in order to retrieve data. With our worldwide satellite management system that uses mid-latitude locations, we can reduce this time to 15 to 30 minutes, allowing data to be more readily available to commanders in directing troop movements and enhancing ground communications.

MSM
Please delve deeper into PrioraNet and the benefits associated with this system.

Thomas Pirrone
PrioraNet was built with the vision that the customer’s data is the most important part of a satellite mission. With contact from any orbit, PrioraNet offers unparalleled high-latitude coverage and equatorial stations in strategic locations, assuring greater than 99 percent reliable global comprehensive satellite access. It’s responsive and secure. Furthermore, with today’s environment of reduced budgets, it is an extremely cost-effective alternative to the high life-cycle costs associated with ground station ownership. Infrastructure and maintenance costs are shared between multiple customers.

MSM
What does SSC bring to the table, as far as technologies and capabilities?

ComtechXi_ad_MSM1011.jpg Thomas Pirrone
It’s about expertise and global reach. Through our subsidiaries, we offer satellite management services, sounding rocket and balloon launch services, microgravity experiment equipment, airborne maritime surveillance systems and propulsion systems. We integrate new technologies and talents that result in proven, reliable, responsive and cost-effective solutions for our customers.
We have the ability to make key infrastructure purchases in strategic locations to fulfill our goal of becoming the dominant, worldwide provider of satellite communications services. Furthermore, we are investing heavily in green propulsion, which I believe is going to eventually to become a game-changer at launch ranges.

MSM
Given the history of the Department of Defense as a prime customer for USN, how does the SSC acquisition of USN strengthen the company and enhance its value to the customer?

Thomas Pirrone
SSC has greatly enhanced USN’s ability to serve our DoD customers by providing a broader spectrum of global assets that can be applied to a specific U.S. government need. We provide daily support to several on-orbit DoD missions, and recently, we participated in the orbit-raising efforts for two new DoD communications satellites. The merger of our capabilities allows SSC to provide global tracking station assets the DoD can use to augment its in-house capabilities.

MSM
What are your key differentiators when working with DoD markets?

Thomas Pirrone
Protecting their data is key and critical. If you are not paying attention to information assurance (IA), you aren’t paying attention. Once that IA piece is satisfied, we save the customer money because costs are shared between multiple owners. But, even more important, we enhance operations because we oversee the largest commercial network for ground station services in the world. As a result, we can reduce the latency of products, radar and imagery, reconnaissance and communications. Warfighters get the information they need much faster. And, in times of war, that can mean life or death.

MSM
How does SSC’s ability to share resources and upgrade space operations assets offer customers greater value?

Thomas Pirrone
Two words … cost-effectiveness. Why own, operate and maintain your own resources when they aren’t used to capacity? By sharing resources, customers pay a fraction of the cost and gain access to more technology than ever before. I equate it to airplanes. Instead of a company owning an airplane and having to bear the cost and time of maintaining it, they can do the equivalent of buying a ticket on OUR airplane by buying access to our network and only use it when they need the resources. It’s just good business sense.

MSM
How can SSC help customers deal with changing infrastructure needs in a dynamic geopolitical environment?

SatFinder_ad_MSM1011 Thomas Pirrone
The answer is simply, “Our customer don’t have to.” As their partner, we take care of building new infrastructure and maintaining existing ones, based on their needs. We can provide services ranging from hosting to full outsourcing, including ground communication around the globe. The primary challenge with the DoD customer is they are overly “requirements based,” sometimes even to a fault. They would be better served if they let go of the design and simply focused on buying capabilities. Additionally, the U.S. might realize quicker returns if sustainment budgets were invested in R&D.

MSM
How can SSC help customers meet new mission requirements to LEO without large infrastructure investments?

Thomas Pirrone
There are more resources available with current infrastructure to better serve LEO, including increased contact with more satellites. However, instruments that fly on LEO satellites tend to generate large volumes of data that need to be downlinked rapidly by high-frequency bands, such as X-and Ka-band in the future. Currently, such high-frequency bands don’t exist on current infrastructure, but SSC is making investments to offer this upgrade. In fact, we are already working with the DoD to support its X-band expansion. Another example is the recently mandated space/ground-link subsystem (SGLS) frequency sell-off. Should the country build and sustain a new offshore tracking station for decades or simply lease that capability?

MSM
How can SSC help reduce O&M costs? What is a tailored utilization model?

Thomas Pirrone
Customers have been used to building infrastructure for peak needs. Instead, SSC offers tailored service provisions or a tailored utilization model. We help customers reduce their infrastructure needs below peak, and then have them tap into us only during peak times. Then, they don’t have to carry the additional capacity and reduce their operations costs, while not missing any passes. The result … an infrastructure cost reduction by as much as 65 percent.

MSM
With government agency and military budgets being reduced, how does SSC plan to counter such effects and remain a top provider of product?

Thomas Pirrone
As SSC provides services that reduce the cost of spacecraft operations and communications, this new era of austerity in government agency budgets is actually an opportunity for us. In times of plenty, it is easier for government agencies to prioritize in such a way that cost-savings on operations is not the primary objective. However when everyone is tightening their belts, our ability to effectively reduce space operations and communications services budgets becomes an attractive alternative to institutional infrastructure. Our customers pay for our services as they are used, on a per-pass or per-hour basis, as opposed to maintaining a standing army of people and hundreds of millions of dollars of equipment and systems. By expanding the use of commercial services to supplement in-house capabilities, the DoD could reap similar savings that the world’s civil space agencies are currently enjoying.