HUNTSVILLE, Ala. ― The Space Force has announced awards to five companies, as part of a project to demonstrate that its emerging Space Data Network (SDN) will be able to establish connectivity to multiple commercial satellite networks.
The award packages, which include fixed-price contracts and Other Transaction Authority (OTA) agreements, are worth $12 million each and are being managed by Space Systems Command’s (SSC) Space-Based Sensing and Targeting Portfolio Acquisition Executive office, according to a Thursday release from SSC.
The five winners are Amazon LEO for Government, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Rocket Lab and York Space Systems. With the exception of Amazon LEO, the companies are all under contracts for development of the Space Development Agency’s low Earth orbit Transport Layer for data relay.
“The primary objective of this effort is to validate integration methodologies and demonstrate that diverse commercial systems can seamlessly connect to and transport, data across the core SDN system,” the SSC announcement said. “By combining on-orbit testing of high-speed optical communications routing with rigorous physical, electrical, and data interface standards, the Space Force aims to build a repeatable, secure baseline which allows different commercial satellite offerings to contribute to the network.”
As first reported by Breaking Defense, the SDN is the Space Force’s emerging satellite network-of-networks designed to provide low-latency, high-speed connectivity between US military sensors and shooters ― in particular to support the Pentagon’s ambitious Golden Dome missile defense initiative. In may, the service announced it has awarded SpaceX a $2.9 billion contract to build the SDN “backbone” communications constellation, formerly known as MILNET, in low Earth orbit to ferry data between other types of satellites.
In its announcement, SSC made clear these awards are designed as a two-step process.
The first step in the new effort will concentrate on “demonstrating both ground-to-space and space-to-space data transport” between systems provided by the various contractors, and interconnectivity with the SDN backbone. This sub-program is being undertaken via fixed-price contracts, with six-to-nine-month performance periods valued at $10 million each.
The second step, SSC said, “operationalizes these connections in orbit” via OTA agreements, each worth $2 million, that are designed to “seed the development and fielding of Space Exchange Point (SEP) satellites.”
The SEP birds are “specialized spacecraft [that] act as orbital routers, allowing disparate networks and government satellite systems to connect directly” to the SDN backbone, the release added. “This SEP initiative lays a path to field prototype payloads from the multi-year, multi-vendor, Enterprise Space Terminal (EST) program, which designed optical terminals utilizing a government-owned communications standard” that can be used across orbital regimes.
“The core objective of these combined investments is to ensure future communication payloads can integrate seamlessly with competing spacecraft buses, eliminating the need for costly, custom redesigns. By establishing and operationalizing these interface standards early, the Space Force is laying the foundation for a plug-and-play environment which lowers the barrier to entry for proven and innovative commercial baselines,” SSC said.
