Space Force Bets on commercial participants in $ 4B Satcom -Competition

American warriors need jam-proof communication, and space force plans to spend hundreds of millions to make sure they have them.

As part of this effort, the service established the protected Tactical Satcom program to build secure battlefield communications via satellites. Space strength has already awarded contracts for Defense Primes Boeing and Northrop Grumman to develop prototype payloads for satellites leading to far away geostationary orbit.

Now the program is entering a new phase. On Tuesday, the space force allocated five additional contracts for the design and demonstration of custom -built satellites to give jam essential mates to tactical powers. Winners include former winners Boeing, Northrop Grumman, Viasat and Intelsat, plus a relative newcomer: Astranis, a venture-supported start-up based in San Francisco. (Intelsat will buy its satellite bus from K2 Space, another Venture-Supported Startup.)

The original prices are relatively small, a total of $ 37.3 million together. But the program has a $ 4 billion price ceiling, so winners could sign up for a much more lucrative defense agreement.

Each company will develop its architectures through January 2026. Then Space Force will select a design and assign an additional contract for the first satellite with a launch planned in 2028. Additional production prices will be awarded, even in 2028.

The PTS-G contracts are a remarkable deviation from how the military has historically acquired geostationary satellites, which have typically had extremely long timelines from the contract award for launch, and would cost hundreds of millions to over a billion dollars per year. Spacecraft.

In contrast, space strength is clearly trying to utilize the speed of commercial participants and encourage competition by choosing more suppliers for the initial phase of the program.

“Our PTS-G contract transforms how SSC acquires SATCOM capacity for the war leader,” said the program’s director Cordell Delapena Jr. in a news message. “Incorporation of commercial baseline design to accommodate military capacity increases the speed and efficiency of space strength to add capacity to accommodate new threats.”