The Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) and U.S. Space Force’s Space Systems Command (SSC) have awarded four contracts to Honeywell‘s [HON] aerospace division, AT&T [T], Iridium Communications [IRDM], and Lynk Global, Inc. for the proliferated low Earth orbit (PLEO) Satellite-Based Services program, DISA and SSC said on Oct. 12.
The four awards bring to 20 the number of companies involved in the DISA/SSC proliferated LEO effort. DISA and SSC said three awards to Honeywell, AT&T, and Iridium came on Aug. 3, while the award to Lynk was on Sept. 21.
In July, DISA and SSC awarded 16 companies five-year indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity (IDIQ) contracts with five-year options under the PLEO program, (Defense Daily, July 25).
The companies that received July awards were 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.
The awards “will allow the Department of Defense, other federal agencies and international coalition partners to procure fully managed satellite-based services and capabilities for all domains (space, air, land, maritime and cyber) with a consistent, quality-backed, low-latency offering,” DISA and SSC said.
In addition to DISA and SSC, the Space Force’s Space Development Agency (SDA) is pursuing the Transport Layer of proliferated LEO satellites to reduce satellite data transmission times to military forces (Defense Daily, Sept. 1).
Delays of 30 minutes to an hour and a half have occurred in radio frequency data exchange among satellites, as they must wait until they pass over a fixed ground station to downlink data.
SDA is moving toward intersatellite optical links, such as those carried by SpaceX’s Starlink satellites, to create an orbital mesh network of hundreds of satellites that are able to transfer data among themselves and to antennas on Earth.
Industry opportunities under the PLEO IDIQ contract range “from communications, which is probably the primary application, but also imagery and remote sensing and things like that,” Rick Lober, vice president and general manager of Hughes’ defense and government services division, said last month.
While SDA’s Transport Layer is to allow intersatellite communications between orbits, DoD, through the PLEO program, is making provision for commercial backups to military communications systems, if needed.
Starlink’s provision of rapid communications to Ukrainian military forces through its 5,000 LEO satellites is widely known, but DoD has not released the dollar amount nor the terms of an arrangement with SpaceX in June to fund the continued provision of Starlink to Ukrainian forces.