Weeks after canceling one major satellite communications program, the Space Force took early steps in the development of another July 29, announcing contracts for five companies to showcase how their commercial designs can meet the military’s requirements
satellite communications
While the U.S. and its allies up their efforts to build out multi-orbit, multi-constellation satellite communications that are harder for an enemy to disrupt, officials noted technical and cost challenges, particularly for the user in the field.
In the Space Force’s push to increase its consumption of commercial satellite capabilities, satellite communications stands out as the template. The question now is how broadly the Space Force will look to leverage additional SATCOM providers.
Space Force acquisition leaders were already looking to see if they could shift some of their biggest programs to use commercial services or technology, but one of President Donald Trump's executive orders, signed April 9, that could super-charge that effort.
The Space Force’s Commercial Satellite Communications Office is forecasting a busy 2025, with somewhere around $2.3 billion dollars in contracts not only for USSF, but also combatant commands and every other military service.
Competing prototype payloads developed by Northrop Grumman and Boeing meant to demonstrate secure, jam-resistant tactical communications for the Space Force are set to launch in 2025.
The Space Development Agency awarded contracts for the final 20 satellites in the second tranche of its proliferated low-Earth orbit constellation on Aug. 16, setting the stage for hundreds of satellites to launch in the next three years or so.
When a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket blasted off from Vandenberg Space Force Base, Calif., on Aug. 9, it carried to orbit a historic collaboration between the Space Force and a foreign country—two satellites procured by Space Norway hosting USSF payloads for Arctic communications.
Medium-Earth orbit—the range of space 2,000 to 35,786 kilometers above the surface mostly known as the home of GPS satellites and not much else—has been getting more and more attention from the Space Force in recent years. In its latest move, the service is eyeing ...
The Space Force is working on a “hybrid” satellite communications terminal that can use multiple frequencies to connect warfighters with military and commercial constellations alike across orbits. But key lawmakers are concerned the effort is too focused on just the Department of the Air Force and ...
The Space Force is ready to integrate commercial satellites and systems into a broad range of missions, starting with satellite communications and space domain awareness, according to the service’s newly released Commercial Space Strategy. The strategy, unveiled April 10 after months of waiting, reaffirms what the Pentagon’s ...
News last fall that SpaceX owner and CEO Elon Musk restricted the Ukrainian military’s use of his Starlink satellite broadband service to stymie an attack on Russian forces highlighted the extraordinary power wielded in that war by a single business owner with some outlandish ideas. But ...
