Audio of this article is brought to you by the Air & Space Forces Association, honoring and supporting our Airmen, Guardians, and their families. Find out more at afa.org<\/p>\n
Weeks after canceling a major satellite communications program, the Space Force announced contracts July 29 with five companies to showcase how their commercial designs could meet military requirements in the Protected Tactical Service-Global program.<\/p>\n
PTS-G is envisioned as a constellation of small satellites in geosynchronous orbit that possess anti-jamming capabilities and offer a secure communications link worldwide. \t\t<\/p>\n
Space Systems Command, the Space Force\u2019s main acquisition arm, awarded contracts totaling $37.5 million to Viasat, Northrop Grumman, Astranis, Intelsat, and Boeing. All five will \u201cmature a design and provide demonstrations based upon their established commercial product lines,\u201d SSC said in a statement. \u00a0<\/p>\n
A winning bidder will be selected in 2026, according to a release<\/a>. Details in the service\u2019s 2026 budget request indicate that first contract will include four space vehicles, two for operating in Ka-band and two using X-band. Launches are envisioned for 2028, with a second round of satellite contracts expected that year and subsequent launches in 2031.\u00a0<\/p>\n According to budget documents, PTS-G will provide \u201ca moderate degree of assured access communications\u201d using \u201csets of lower-complexity satellites.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Lower complexity appears to mean using commercial technology as a baseline. \u201cOur PTS-G contract transforms how SSC acquires SATCOM capability for the warfighter,\u201d said Cordell DeLaPena Jr., program executive officer for military communications and positioning, navigation, and timing. \u201cThe incorporation of commercial baseline designs to meet military capability significantly enhances the Space Force\u2019s speed and efficiency to add capability to meet emerging threats.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n PTS-G will complement both existing Wideband Global SATCOM spacecraft and commercial SATCOM constellations like SpaceX\u2019s Starlink.\u00a0\t\t<\/p>\n Initially, it\u00a0was also envisioned as complementing an even more secure SATCOM constellation called PTS-R, for Resilient. Northrop Grumman and Boeing had both been tapped to launch prototypes in 2026, but Space Systems Command cancelled<\/a> the planned $2 billion PTS-R program earlier this summer. \u00a0<\/p>\n Indeed, the entire military satellite communications enterprise is in a state of change<\/a>. The Space Development Agency is developing hundreds of data transport and communications satellites for low-Earth orbit, and the Space Force revealed\u00a0a secretive new MILNET program in its budget request \u201cthat will provide global, integrated, and resilient capabilities across the Combat Power, Global Mission Data Transport, and Satellite Communications mission areas,\u201d according to a spokesperson. USSF\u2019s Commercial Space Office<\/a>, which handles requests from across the Pentagon, has aggressively expanded its contract pool for commercial satellite communications.\u00a0<\/p>\n Separately, the Space Force has also awarded a contract<\/a> to Boeing to build up to four satellites for Evolved Strategic SATCOM, a new constellation of four satellites to be placed in \u201cproliferated\u201d orbits. That system, one of the biggest in the Space Force budget<\/a>, would replace the Advanced Extremely High Frequency constellation that was fielded in the 2010s.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n Audio of this article is brought to you by the Air & Space Forces Association, honoring and supporting our Airmen, Guardians, and their families. Find out more at afa.org<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Audio of this article is brought to you by the Air & Space Forces Association, honoring and supporting…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":107199,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[67036,18819,22768,18436,68678,68679,68680,68681,1869,68682,159,783,48984,67,132,68,28255],"class_list":{"0":"post-107198","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-astranis","9":"tag-boeing","10":"tag-intelsat","11":"tag-northrop-grumman","12":"tag-protected-tactical-enterprise-service","13":"tag-protected-tactical-satcom","14":"tag-pts-g","15":"tag-pts-p","16":"tag-satcom","17":"tag-satellite-communications","18":"tag-science","19":"tag-space","20":"tag-space-systems-command","21":"tag-united-states","22":"tag-unitedstates","23":"tag-us","24":"tag-viasat"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114947150722131250","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107198","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=107198"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107198\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/107199"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}