Space Force Betting on commercial participants in $ 4B SatCom competition | Techcrunch

American war fighters need jam-proof communication and the Space Force plans to spend hundreds of millions to ensure that they have them.

As part of that effort, the service has set up the protected tactical satcom program to build secure Battlefield Communications via satellites. The Space Force has already awarded contracts to Defense Primes Boeing and Northrop Grumman to develop prototype charges for satellites on their way to a distant geostationary job.

Now the program enters a new phase. On Tuesday, the Space Force awarded five additional contracts for the design and demonstration of specially built satellites to deliver jam-resistant Comms to tactical forces. The winners include earlier winners Boeing, Northrop Grumman, Viasat and Intelsat, plus a relative newcomer: Astranis, a startup supported by the company in San Francisco. (Intelsat buys his satellite bus from K2 Space, another startup of the company.)

The initial prices are relatively small, a total of $ 37.3 million combined. But the program has a $ 4 billion ceiling, so the winners can sign up for a much more lucrative defense deal.

Each company will develop its architectures until January 2026. Then the Space Force will select one design and grant an additional contract for the first satellite, with a launch planned in 2028. Additional production prices will be handed out, also in 2028.

The PTS-G contracts are a remarkable deviation from how the army obtained historical geostationary satellites, who generally had an extremely long time lines of contract to launch, and would cost hundreds of millions of up to more than a billion dollar per spacecraft.

The Space Force, on the other hand, clearly tries to use the speed of commercial participants and competition by selecting multiple suppliers for the initial phase of the program.

“Our PTS-G contract transforms how SSC SatCom options acquires for the Warfighter,” said Program Executive Officer Cordell Delapena Jr. In a press release. “The absorption of commercial basic designs to meet military capacities increases the speed and efficiency of the Space Force considerably to add the ability to satisfy emerging threats.”