Under a Proliferated Low Earth Orbit (LEO) Satellite-Based Services program that may be worth $900 million, the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) and the U.S. Space Force’s Space Systems Command (SSC) have awarded 16 companies five-year contracts to establish commercial communications for military use.
The July 18 DISA contract awards came via SSC’s Commercial Satellite Communications (SATCOM) Office (CSCO), which received 25 bids.
The companies, receiving the awards, which include a five-year option, are SpaceX; Capella Space‘s Capella Federal, Inc.; BlackSky Technology Inc.’s [BKSY] BlackSky Geospatial Solutions, Inc.; SES‘ [SESG] DRS Global Enterprise Solutions, Inc.; EchoStar Corp.‘s [SATS] Hughes Network Systems, LLC; Viasat Inc.‘s [VSAT] Inmarsat Government, Inc.; Amazon‘s [AMZN] Kuiper Government Services (KGS) LLC; Intelsat‘s Intelsat General Communications LLC; OneWeb Technologies, Inc.; ARINC, Inc.; Artel, LLC; PAR Technology Corp.‘s [PAR] PAR Government; RiteNet Corp.; Satcom Direct, Inc.’s Satcom Direct Government, Inc. (SDG); Trace Systems Inc.; and UltiSat, Inc.
“This multiple partner/multiple award contract model is a first for government SATCOM procurement and promises to deliver capabilities to the warfighter faster and at lower cost compared to traditional one contract per mission partner/task order,” SSC said in a July 24 statement. “Proliferating SATCOM services in LEO is part of an overall DoD strategy of bolstering resilience by diversifying orbits. The 16 contracts awarded by DISA cover a broad scope of service capability development based on satellites in LEO. Areas within scope may include, but are not limited to, high-speed broadband, synthetic aperture radar imaging, space domain awareness, and alternative positioning, navigation and timing.”
Last month, the Space Force’s Space Development Agency (SDA) solicited 100 satellites for the Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture (PWSA). The SDA is looking for industry proposals for 100 “Alpha” satellites that will be part of the Tranche 2 Transport Layer (Defense Daily, June 30).
PWSA Transport Layer and Tracking Layer satellites in LEO and medium Earth orbit are to provide beyond line-of-sight targeting and advanced missile detection and tracking, respectively. The SDA has said that the Tranche 2 Transport Layer will provide “global communications access and deliver persistent regional encrypted connectivity in support of warfighter missions around the globe.
“This is a transformational strategy that will allow government and industry to partner more quickly and more broadly to take advantage of the rapid innovation that’s happening in the commercial SATCOM sector,” Clare Hopper, chief of SSC’s CSCO, said in the July 24 SSC statement.
Col. Richard Kniseley, senior materiel leader of the CSCO, said that the contracts represent the continuing “game-changing advances in commercial SATCOM.”