Space Force Awards $60 Million to Five Companies for Multi-Vendor Satellite Network Tests

The U.S. Space Force has awarded $60 million to five companies to demonstrate how satellites from multiple vendors can connect to its Space Data Network, the military communications architecture whose core backbone is being supplied by SpaceX, SpaceNews reported August 13.

Twelve Million Each

Amazon LEO for Government, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Rocket Lab and York Space Systems each received $10 million in fixed-price contracts lasting up to nine months to prototype and demonstrate connections among multiple vendors across the SDN backbone, including ground-to-space and space-to-space data transport. Each company also received $2 million through six-month Other Transaction Authority agreements supporting the Space Force's planned space exchange point concept — orbital routers through which separate commercial networks and government systems could exchange data with the network.

Beyond a Single Supplier

The SDN is a planned mesh communications architecture in low Earth orbit designed to move large volumes of data among satellites and between space and the ground. SpaceX in May won a $2.29 billion contract to build the Space Data Network Backbone, a proliferated constellation using optical crosslinks, and the latest awards address how other systems will connect to it — part of the Space Force's effort to avoid locking the broader network into a single vendor. A mesh architecture with multiple pathways would allow military data to be rerouted if individual links or satellites are disrupted.