American warriors need jam proof communications, and the space force plans to spend hundreds of millions to make sure they have them.
As part of that effort, the service established the SATCOM Protected Tactical program to build safe communications on the battlefield through satellites. The space force has already granted contracts to the Boeing and Northrop Grumman defense prices to develop useful prototype for satellite prototype that are directed to the distant geostational orbit.
Now, the program is entering a new phase. On Tuesday, the space force granted five additional contracts for the design and demonstration of satellites specially designed to provide communications resistant to JAM to tactical forces. The winners include the previous winners Boeing, Northrop Grumman, Viasat and Intelsat, in addition to a relative newcomer: Astranis, a startup backed by the company based in San Francisco. (Intelsat will buy its satellite bus from space K2, another startup backed by the company).
The initial awards are relatively small, for a total of $ 37.3 million. But the program has a $ 4 billion ceiling, so winners could sign a much more lucrative defense agreement.
Each company will develop its architectures until January 2026. After that, the space force selects a design and will grant an additional contract for the first satellite, with a launch planned in 2028. The additional production awards will be distributed in 2028.
PTS-G contracts are a remarkable deviation of how the military have historically acquired geostational satellites, which generally have long deadlines for the contract award to the launch, and would cost Sinkcraft of millions of dollars to Spacraft.
In contrast, the space force, clearly, trying to take advantage of is the speed of commercial participants and foster competition by selecting multiple suppliers for the initial phase of the program.
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“Our PTS-G contract transforms the way SSC acquires the capacity of Satcom for the Guerrero,” said the executive officer of the Cordell Delpena Jr. program into a press release. “The incorporation of commercial baseline designs to comply with military capacity significantly improves the speed and efficiency of space force to add ability to comply with emerging threats.”
