Space News: LONDON — U.S. Air Force satellite communications experts on Nov. 9 deployed to London to persuade an international audience that the U.S. Defense Department, despite a painful slowness, is making progress on bringing international partners into the design and operation of military telecommunications satellites. Deanna Ryals, chief of the international military satellite communication division at the U.S. Air Force’s MilSatCom Systems Directorate, said the U.S. Defense Department fully understands that when it says it wants “resilience” as a feature in its assets, international partnerships are part of the equation. Ryals: Military + commercial + allies = improved resilience Addressing the Global Milsatcom conference here organized by SMi Group, Ryals said the 10th Schriever Wargame 2016 exercise at Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama, this year, run by the U.S. Air Force Space Command, concluded that supply diversity improves resilience. “If we can move between our own milsatcom capabilities, commercial capabilities and allied capabilities, it makes it difficult for our adversaries to know where we are,” Ryals said. She said a half-dozen allied nations participated in this year’s exercise. In another example of U.S. willingness to engage internationally, she said the U.S. Defense Department has sent letters to 16 allied governments asking ...