Space Force bets on commercial entrants in $4B satcom contest

American war men need pointed contacts, and space strength plans to spend hundreds of millions to ensure that they get them.

As part of this effort, the service created the protected Satcom Program to build safe satellite battlefield communications. The space force has already granted contracts to the first defense in Boeing and Nortrop Grumman to develop the raw satellite loads of satellites heading to the distant army orbit.

Now, the program enters a new stage. On Tuesday, space force has given five additional decades for the design and appearance of satellites designed for this purpose to supply COMS to the tactical forces. Among the winners of the former winners Boeing, Northop Grumman, Viasat and Intelsat, as well as the relative new expatriate: Astranis, a creative young woman in San Francisco. (Intelsat will buy a satellite bus from K2 SPACE, another start -up company supported by the project.)

Initial prizes are relatively small, with a total of $ 37.3 million. But the program has a $ 4 billion prize ceiling, so that the winners can sign a more profit defense deal.

Each company will develop its structures until January 2026. After that, the space force will choose one design and give an additional contract for the first satellite wires, with the launch of a scheme in 2028. Additional production prizes will be eliminated, in 2028 as well.

PTS-G contracts are a remarkable exit from the way the army has historically bought geological satellites, which usually have very long time schedules of the contract prize, and will cost hundreds of millions to more than a billion dollars per satellite Celsius.

On the other hand, space strength is clearly trying to take advantage of the speed of commercial participants and encourage competition by choosing multiple sellers for the initial stage of the program.

“The PTS-G contract is how SSC is desirable for Satcom’s ability to Warfighter,” said Cordele Dilabina Junior, CEO of the program in a press release. “Merging the branding foundation designs to meet the military capacity greatly enhances the speed and efficiency of space power to add the ability to meet the emerging threats.”