Dubbed “Dragoon,” the satellite was one of the multiple payloads launched from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on Monday via a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket as part of the company’s Transporter-14 smallsat rideshare mission, according to SDA. The spacecraft is the first of 12 prototype satellites developed by York Space Systems under SDA’s Tranche 1 Demonstration and Experimentation System (T1DES) program to go on orbit.

In 2022, York Space Systems received a $200 million other transaction agreement from SDA to develop and deliver 12 T1DES platforms that were slated for launch beginning in fiscal 2026. However, the company accelerated delivery of the first payload to prepare it for Monday’s mission “in response to an identified agency need,” York said in a statement.

“The Dragoon mission showcases exactly why our rapid mission delivery model matters,” Melanie Preisser, York’s general manager and executive vice president, said in a statement. “When SDA needed this capability sooner, we didn’t just accelerate, we delivered. That kind of responsiveness is what today’s defense posture demands.”

SDA did not provide many details about the specific demonstration that the recently deployed Dragoon satellite will conduct on orbit, but noted in a statement that the payload will enable “tactical data delivery to warfighter platforms to support capabilities like targeting, missile warning and tracking of advanced missile threats” and “support integration with tactical [SATCOM] system capabilities from low Earth orbit.”

Broadly, birds developed under the T1DES program will augment the Tranche 1 transport layer of the agency’s future mega-constellation known as the Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture (PWSA) and inform requirements for future programs.

“T1DES will demonstrate mission payloads and configurations for potential proliferation through future tranches of the Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture in an effort to lower latency of tactical data delivery and enhance beyond line-of-sight targeting capability,” SDA Director Derek Tournear said in a statement. “We’re very pleased to see this prototype space vehicle launch four months ahead of the original T1DES baseline schedule and before the first launch of Tranche 1’s operational space vehicles.”

The PWSA is a planned LEO constellation comprising hundreds of satellites carrying data relay, communications, missile warning and missile-tracking capabilities that will be launched in increments — known as tranches — every two years. The first operational batch of PWSA payloads known as Tranche 1 were expected to launch in September 2024, but supply chain bottlenecks and recent leadership instability have forced the agency to push the mission to late summer 2025.

The remaining 11 T1DES satellites are on track to launch sometime in fiscal 2026, SDA said in a statement. Once deployed, the constellation “will conduct demonstrations and experimentation of TACSATCOM, advanced waveforms, and Integrated Broadcast Service (IBS) capabilities, which are key for future connectivity of joint warfighters around the globe,” according to the agency.

SDA is also pursuing a second batch of experimental birds for Tranche 2 of the transport layer — an effort known as Tranche 2 Demonstration and Experimentation System (T2DES). The agency intends to leverage its new vendor pool established by the Hybrid Acquisition for Proliferated Low Earth Orbit (HALO) program to contract the effort.

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Col. Rich Kniseley, director of the Commercial Space Office (COMSO), told reporters Thursday that the service will stand up CASR pilots across three mission areas in 2025. One program will focus on small launch and is anticipated to kick off before the end of fiscal 2025, while the other two — satellite communications, and tactical surveillance, reconnaissance and tracking — are expected to be ready by December, Kniseley said.

The program’s growth comes just two years after the Space Force first conceived it as its own version of the Air Force’s Civil Reserve Air Fleet. Under CASR, the service can contract space-based services from commercial vendors during peacetime, which could then be used to augment and support military operations in the event of crisis or conflict.

In March, the Space Force launched CASR’s pilot phase when it awarded contracts to four commercial vendors to provide space domain awareness capabilities. The agreements cover an initial three-month period of performance and include peacetime and pre-priced surge capabilities, as well as the ability to conduct wargames with vendors, Kniseley said.

“What that allowed us to do is to start exercising some of the processes while we are still working in the background with some of the more challenging aspects of CASR, whether that’s prioritizing capabilities for US government use [or] denial of service,” he said during a media roundtable at the annual Space Symposium.

For the small launch pilot, the office will look to commercial launch providers already part of the Space Force’s Orbital Services Program-4 (OSP-4) program, which focuses on fast-turnaround launches of small payloads, Kniseley said. COMSO is partnering with Space Systems Command’s Assured Access to Space (AATS) directorate and the Space Safari program office for the pilot.

“It’s formulating a framework around launch, but small launch specifically,” Kniseley said. “Think of a call-up at a given point and some of the ongoing pieces. It will be a tabletop exercise more than anything, instead of an operational call.”

The pilot will align closely with the Space Force’s ongoing Tactically Responsive Space (TacRS) initiative that aims to improve the service’s ability to respond to new threats on-orbit, such as by reducing time taken to launch payloads or prepositioning assets in space, Kniseley said.

He added that while the small-launch effort isn’t quite ready to serve as a mechanism for TacRS, the program’s managers are learning from COMSO’s pilot — including supply chain management and how it’s building the contracts to “surge and scale.”

Similarly, COMSO is looking to leverage the pool of vendors under the Space Force’s larger Tactical Surveillance, Reconnaissance and Tracking (TacSRT) program for its upcoming surveillance, reconnaissance and tracking pilot, Kniseley said.

Broadly, the service’s TacSRT effort allows combatant commanders to quickly and directly purchase unclassified data from imagery and sensors collected by commercial satellites — but COMSO’s pilot will be framed through the CASR concept.

“What if we were to put a company on to provide X number of products during peacetime? If I want to scale that up, and as things go on and I’m going to be getting more and more requirements from the combatant commands — that’s the type of model and framework I’m seeing for that,” he said.

And while Kniseley didn’t provide specifics for the service’s SATCOM pilot plans, he said the mission area was the focus for the office’s first CASR wargame completed recently. The event was critical, as it gave COMSO a slew of action items and topics it needs to work on with commercial vendors as it builds out the program.

During the wargame, Kniseley exercised a forceful activation of CASR — representing a real-life scenario in which industry would be required to turn off capabilities to other customers to fully support U.S. military operations. The event allowed companies to coordinate together, while also giving them the opportunity to think about how they would work with their investors and other customers.

“I viewed that as a complete success because it wasn’t 100% successful,” Kniseley noted. “What I wanted to do was have nothing but commercial capability or vendors in there, and I wanted to start exercising the framework for CASR. I really wanted to key in on some of the aspects that we have questions on, and to have that dialog back and forth.”

As COMSO prepares to launch the three new pilot programs, the office is also conducting a study with the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy and the legal community on financial protection options for CASR vendors, Kniseley said. The results of the study should be released in the next few months to provide guidance on how the office plans to proceed, he added.

Overall, Kniseley said his office’s efforts to integrate commercial capabilities on a larger scale have garnered positive support from Congress. Before receiving $40 million in funds from the yearlong continuing resolution passed in March, lawmakers added $50 million to the 2024 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for commercial space services, which was critical to getting COMSO initiatives like CASR off the ground.

He also pointed to President Donald Trump’s recent executive order calling for prioritization of commercial capabilities within the Defense Department as validation for COMSO’s work.

“[When] I look at the executive order, I look at it more as an exclamation point on a lot of the things that we’re doing,” he said. “But it will require additional budget. It will also require additional resources, and that usually means people, as well.”

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Though the service declined to identify which vessels were equipped with the terminals or where they’re operating, two officials briefed DefenseScoop in a conversation over email regarding what they refer to as those “shipboard Navy Starlink efforts.” 

All associated work falls under the Navy’s program of record for Proliferated low Earth orbit (P-LEO) within Naval Information Warfare Systems Command’s program executive office for command, control, communications, computers and intelligence and PEO Digital.

The efforts are referred to as Satellite Terminal (transportable) Non-Geostationary, or STtNG, and the Sailor Edge Afloat and Ashore (SEA2) pilot.

“I’ve seen first-hand the tremendous transformational capability that STtNG has brought to the Fleet. The small footprint, high bandwidth system allows the Fleet to download cybersecurity patches, send large files across the globe, and conduct critical Navy administrative functions faster than ever using a terminal the size of a pizza box,” Capt. Kristine De Soto, program manager for NAVWAR PEO C4I PMW/A 170, said. 

While the service would not discuss recent or current on-ship deployments for security reasons, a May 2023 press release stated that in February of that year a “WiFi-enabled Starlink system was installed aboard USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78), allowing the crew that opportunity to quickly and easily communicate with their loved ones.”

Commercial satellite terminals can be quickly integrated with the Navy’s afloat, expeditionary and shore platforms, to supply satellite-internet capabilities that can enable sailors to see quicker performance improvements and connectivity.

Elon Musk’s company SpaceX has long been beaming broadband service to customers worldwide through its still-growing Starlink constellation — and in 2022, it unveiled Starshield, which is designed for use by the government and national security sector.

According to Genie Chaiken, principal assistant program manager within the Navy’s communications and GPS navigation office, Starlink capabilities provide “greater broadband internet access to sailors to increase warfighter operational readiness through shipboard systems, and use of personal devices over both military and non-military networks.” 

“Starlink satellite service is game-changing technology available now that creates operational advantage by providing persistent, secure, global access to resilient, high-speed, low-latency, higher-bandwidth, and increased resiliency at sea to enable tangible warfighting impact,” she told DefenseScoop.

For the Navy, so far, specific impact areas span recruitment and retention, mental health, cloud services, and work stoppages due to slow and inaccessible websites, Chaiken noted. She and her team have observed in real-time how Starlink can help augment existing Naval programs of record that provide the primary communication pathways for ships.

“Feedback from ships: game-changer in terms of flexibility, additional bandwidth and ease of use,” she wrote in an email — adding that it’s all part of the sea service’s aim to embrace “new concepts that ensure we can rapidly adapt to the needs of the future.”

The Navy has decades of experience transmitting communications via satellite, and now Starlink provides another tool for the fleet. 

“Simply put, PLEO is an additional transport path,” Chaiken said. 

With the proliferation of low-Earth orbit systems such as Starlink, the military now has more — and in some cases, cheaper — options to provide communications coverage and data to personnel abroad. 

They also enable greater resiliency and diversity in communications pathways, something the military has been pursuing as it expects to operate in contested environments where certain accesses might either not be available or jammed by the enemy.  

These LEO systems, which orbit at altitudes of 1,200 miles or less, require smaller terminals than geosynchronous orbit systems, which orbit at over 22,000 miles above Earth, providing the Navy with the ability to place them on all ship classes for higher throughput than ever before.

These new technologies also enable forces to operate in a more dispersed manner — something that is expected against sophisticated adversaries across vast distances in the Pacific — while still maintaining connectivity.

Navy officials said the Starlink capability will contribute to and enable its distributed maritime operations concept. 

The tech will support a global Navy presence through modernized, flexible and durable networks aligned to Joint All-Domain Command and Control priorities, the two officials said, referring to the Pentagon’s vision for how systems across the entire battlespace from all military services and key international partners could be more effectively and holistically connected to provide the right data to commanders for better and faster decision-making.

It will also provide greater broadband internet access and ubiquitous coverage to enhance joint operations with other services, allies and partners.

How the terminals are used depends on the needs of the ships where they are deployed, but they can support a wide range of maritime operations.

“STtNG demonstrated successful shipboard performance in FY22 and moved to full fielding. Both STtNG and SEA2 field Starlink based on Fleet demand for up to 200 ships based on the current design. STtNG combined with SEA2, provided users with significant performance improvements, including the ability to easily access distance learning and training courses, update social media pages, download cybersecurity patches, provide reach back for mission support contractors, and access large files stored in the cloud and medical and dental records,” Chaiken said. 

She added: “STtNG demonstrated successful shipboard performance in FY22 and moved to full fielding. Again, all systems field based upon the needs of the fleet and budgets.”

Looking to the future, Chaiken and the PEO C4I team are looking forward to multiple competing constellations on the horizon, including Amazon Kuiper, One Web, and Telesat. Such capabilities will also enable more modernized, flexible and durable network options that align to Joint All-Domain Command and Control priorities.

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As part of the initiative, AFRL plans to conduct a set of demonstrations that will aim to provide military aircraft with ubiquitous connectivity using commercial spacecraft and networks.

The Pentagon announced the $9 million deal with Intelsat on Wednesday.

“This contract provides for efforts to develop and experimentally test satellite communications (SATCOM) systems capable of operating with multiple commercial space internet constellations operating in low, medium, and geostationary earth orbits offering a new low size, weight, power, and cost (SWaP-C) terminal that easily integrates onto aircraft platforms to provide resilient, high throughput, globally available, and highly reliable SATCOM,” per the announcement.

It was a competitive acquisition and 11 offers were received, according to the department.

The company’s work on the DEUCSI resilient multi-orbit airborne module (ROAM) effort is expected to be completed by Nov. 26, 2024.

Earlier this year, the Air Force awarded an $80 million contract to Northrop Grumman and an $81 million deal to L3Harris for DEUCSI.

The Defense Department previously inked agreements with Raytheon ($13 million), Lockheed Martin ($17 million), Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. ($10 million) and L3 Technologies ($18 million) to work on the program.

A key goal of DEUCSI is to establish “path agnostic communications,” or the ability to “reliably communicate to any location on the globe without explicitly specifying which nodes of a communication network to use,” according to a call for proposals.

The program could aid the Pentagon’s Combined Joint All-Domain Command and Control (CJADC2) initiative, which seeks to connect the various platforms and data streams of the U.S. military services, allies and international partners under a more unified network to enable more effective decision-making.

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So-called blue force tracking allows units to keep tabs on the whereabouts of other friendly forces on the battlefield for command and control.

Project manager for mission command within the Army’s program executive office for command, control and communications-tactical released the request for information Nov. 16. It asks vendors to describe recent experience within the last three years and capabilities providing certain requirements for LEO.

The effort is part of the Army’s network modernization efforts as it moves to improve communications both within the tactical sphere and all the way back to the enterprise level. The service has been undergoing a multiyear effort it describes as the unified network, which merges the prior tactical and enterprise instantiations into a singular entity in which troops can access data all over the world regardless of theater or echelon.

The next-generation blue-force tracker capability, called Mounted Mission Command-Transport, will provide improved situational awareness and command-and-control message delivery as well as satellite communication capabilities by increasing resiliency and integrating additional communications pathways, according to the Army. That program is scheduled for low-rate initial production in fiscal 2025 and full-rate production in fiscal 2026.

The RFI is part of market research the Army is conducting to help inform possible technical advances in the commercial sector and integration with LEO capabilities. The notice will cover modules inside the new MMC-T transceivers as well as commercial constellations readiness that could support blue-force tracker transport as part of the overall Mounted Mission Command program.

Specific characteristics highlighted in the notice include, among others, user terminal size options, can terminals operate on the move, do they include proprietary software and can terminals support multiple constellations.

The Army wants resiliency when it comes to position, navigation, and timing (PNT) capabilities. The service desires tech that doesn’t rely on GPS for the ground terminal to function, the RFI noted.

Responses are due Dec. 22.

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DRS Global Enterprise Solution and Intelsat won contracts under the effort with a scope spanning six months of turnkey, end-to-end managed subscription services. The two companies will support connectivity to commercial teleports and internet services that will enhance Army units’ SATCOM as well as their broader communication pathways, referred to in service parlance as Primary, Alternate, Contingency and Emergency, or PACE.

Officials told DefenseScoop that the SATCOM-as-a-Managed-Service effort will help to augment capability for units that might not have certain systems within their existing kits. Not every capability is fielded to every unit in the Army, resulting in what officials described as haves and have-nots. An as-a-service model could help remedy this, provide a backup and a surge capability for units deploying in a crisis in a hurry.

“If there’s a surge requirement for a unit to push up the door and they don’t have a certain amount of kit, we’re looking … at the option for said unit that says ‘I have this mission, this is what I need to be able to do’ and a particular vendor provides him the kit, they provide them the airtime and then we don’t have to worry about the sustainment tail, if you will, or procuring new systems like we would in a traditional acquisition,” Col. Stu McMillan, project manager for tactical network at program executive office command, control, communications-tactical, told DefenseScoop at Aberdeen Proving Ground on Tuesday. “Maybe there’s a capability that [a unit] needs for a particular mission set. This provides an opportunity for us to use a SATCOM-as-a-Managed-Service to enable that unit that doesn’t have that kit because we only have so many systems that are out there in the Army [to] enable them to be given a certain capability for them to accomplish their mission.”

McMillan said this is a good opportunity to perform analysis, conducted by Johns Hopkins University, to see if the traditional model versus managed service will complement capability in the field now, stressing this is not meant to replace capability.

The pilot could potentially realize real cost savings for the Army.

“It would allow us to invest or reinvest those dollars that we would spend on the development to fielding the training and then sustaining of the system. There could be substantial cost savings,” McMillian said, noting that’s why they’re asking Johns Hopkins University to do the analysis. “Then based upon that analysis, we’ll present that to senior leaders.”

But, they first have to conduct the pilot and test the concept in order to see if “the juice is worth the squeeze,” McMillan said.

The broad promise that as-a-service models portend has the PEO as a whole looking at this paradigm.

Mark Kitz, PEO for C3T, told DefenseScoop that they will be looking at other areas for as-a-service pilots and experiments where they make sense, mentioning cloud as one potential example.

“If we go to that on-demand model – not for everybody, but for parts of the Army – can we get a higher return on investment?” Kitz said.

As-a-service is getting to an on-demand model now, he said, that can have broad application across many portfolios to serve as a backup or surge to existing systems.

The initial creation and fielding of the Security Force Assistance Brigades provided a perfect use case for a potential as-a-service model, Kitz said. These units were created in 2018 and are a specialized group designed solely to advise and assist local, indigenous forces.

“When we stood up the SFABs, we had to move equipment. We had to get them equipment. That meant we were taking from somebody, because we didn’t have a production line that we could just pull things off of,” he said. “The SFABs are a great model of ‘you’re standing up a capability that needs something. OK, industry — can you deliver in 90 days the capacity that’s needed on demand for this unit?’ I think it’s a great way for us to supplement our current capacity or the capacity that we buy.”

In the SATCOM example, Kitz said if operations in a particular part of the world are increasing, they could go to industry, request a number of terminals and in 90 days, have those delivered.

The Army last year began looking at the prospect of a radio-as-a-service model, issuing a request for information to industry.

The RFI asked questions in a broad manner: If the Army were to do an as-a-service model, how would industry do it, Col. Shermoan Daiyaan, project manager for tactical radios at PEO C3T, told DefenseScoop.

The responses included a full network in a box providing everything for a network, including sustainment; a hybrid approach where companies would provide some radios and some support; a management or broker approach for the Army’s process; and only the support work.

Since Kitz took over C3T at the end of June, he’s been prioritizing running a radio-as-a-service pilot in 2024, Daiyaan said. The PEO will be getting a final decision from the acquisition leadership with the next step on issuing another RFI to tighten the question to industry.

Kitz said the Army currently spends a lot of money on radios. But an as-a-service model wouldn’t just realize cost savings — it could also be more efficient for the Army.

“You take the radio portfolio, a typical radio, much like a weapon, you don’t use it for 30, 40 days at a time,” Daiyaan said. “Let’s say we’re going to do a division, three or four brigades, what if we only fielded two brigades, kept a stock, and then the other we rotate. But now that last brigade, we can go forth to the next division. That’s where it’s about efficiency, using the capabilities you have more and potentially being able to allow industry to keep them up to date, service the unit and provide that support.”

Kitz noted that the tradeoff with an as-a-service model broadly is the potential capital investment that must be made with industry in order for them to have the necessary capacity.

“I think we’re going to learn whether that return on investment is really there or not,” he said. “The SFAB example I used is pretty atypical, right? Standing up whole new units is not something the Army does all the time. In this case, we needed to, so we did it. Well, is that OPTEMPO a feasible thing so we can get that return on investment? I think that’s what we want to learn with industry.”

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Command-and-control on the move is a key area the Army is turning its attention to as it continues its phased approach for modernizing its battlefield and communications networks. In future conflicts, military leaders anticipate that units likely won’t have time to stop and establish communications or command posts the way they had in the past. As a result, forces are going to require technologies that allow them to perform their missions and communicate while on the go.

“We’ve got to look at the command post as a holistic capability, not just a truck, not just a vehicle, not just an application, not just data. We’ve got to look at the command post as something that is living, breathing and evolving,” Mark Kitz, program executive officer for command, control, communications-tactical, told DefenseScoop at the TechNet Augusta conference last week. “Within the next year, you’re going to see a couple of opportunities to industry for them to provide us options and how we would architect a command post in a much smaller footprint for the armored brigades, for the infantry brigades, even for our divisions that need to jump in a much more rapid way.”

These efforts are associated with his office’s Command Post Integrated Infrastructure (CPI2) initiative, which aims to improve the mobility, scalability and survivability of Army command posts.                                                                                                                 

Kitz said over the next year, there will be opportunities for industry to design and potentially prototype how to deliver a command post in line with the lessons learned in Ukraine, which is to say how to organize around large-scale combat operations.

Command-and-control on the move will be a focus area at the Army’s upcoming technical exchange meeting in December, which will be the 11^th iteration. These biannual events gather members of industry, the Army acquisition community, Army Futures Command and the operational community to outline priorities and capabilities to modernize the service’s network.

When it comes to reducing the infrastructure in command posts to make units of all sizes more mobile, Kitz described an eventual desirable end state of compute on demand.

“One of the things that we’re going to embark on also this year is a first instance in a cloud-first strategy,” he said. “How we would leverage a cloud-first capability so that when I’m at the halt I can use the network to get to my data, [and] when I’m on the move I can use the network to get to my data. When I need to stand up a [tactical operations center] and I need that edge compute, I can do it in a much more smaller form factor, rather than procuring all these server stacks and giving them to all the units that they’re only using them in certain scenarios in certain situations.”

Kitz continued: “What I’d like to get to is more of a compute-on-demand model where they can service out their applications when they need to in the edge and operate on the cloud as their primary means of getting serviced applications and data.”

The Army is planning a pilot to test on-the-move capabilities for armored units. The event is a follow on from a pilot conducted last February with 1st Armored Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division at Fort Stewart, Georgia. These units must maneuver quickly on the battlefield, but current communications architectures can prohibit them from doing so.

The next pilot, which is still out for bids, will involve a brigade from 1^st Armored Division and look at specific formations and technologies.

At the last pilot, “we tested on the move and at the halt. I think the results of that came back that the wireless radio type solutions work great from the move, [but] SATCOM not so much. But at the halt and the tree line, SATCOM solutions work the best. Now I think we want to expand upon that,” Matt Maier, project manager for interoperability, integration and services at C3T, told DefenseScoop. “If we go after specific formation appropriate vehicles with specific vendor solutions, I know there’s a lot of interest in things like the new [low-Earth orbit and medium-Earth orbit] constellations, for example, how can we enable those types of technologies? Then could those be integrated into the larger CPI2 baseline? Those are some of the things I think we’re looking for.”

Other officials said the pilot will be looking at what is in the realm of the possible today regarding form factors and technologies that industry can bring forward now.  

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The move came as the Pentagon and the Space Force increasingly looks to commercial providers for space capabilities, including those that use spacecraft in LEO.

The new awards, issued July 18, were facilitated by Space Systems Command’s Commercial Satellite Communications Office, DISA noted in a release on Friday.

“According to Space Systems Command, this multiple award contract model is a first for government SATCOM procurement and can deliver capabilities to the warfighter faster and at lower cost,” per the release.

The indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity (IDIQ) contracts are part of a contracting vehicle with a total cumulative value of $900 million across a five-year period of performance, with one five-year option.

The strategy will allow the Pentagon and other federal agencies — as well as international 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,” per the release.

Bidding for the initiative was intense and the Defense Department received 25 proposals from industry. Following a full and open competition, the following vendors were awarded: ARINC; Artel; Capella Federal; BlackSky Geospatial Solutions; DRS Global Enterprise Solutions; Hughes Network Systems; Inmarsat Government; KGS; Intelsat General Communications; OneWeb Technologies; PAR Government; RiteNet Corporation; Satcom Direct Government; SpaceX; Trace Systems; and UltiSat.

According to Space Systems Command, services under the contracts may include high-speed broadband, synthetic aperture radar imaging, space domain awareness, alternative positioning, navigation and timing, and others.

Updated on July 25, at 3:50 PM: This story has been updated to include additional details from Space Systems Command about the services that could be provided under the contracting vehicle.

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“The capabilities that we need that address the resilience, that address the capacity, that address the very specific needs — we have laid that out. That is an investment area that we, in the Space Force, need to address as we go into future budgets. There’s not enough of it there yet,” Vice Chief of Space Operations Gen. David “D.T.” Thompson said Thursday at Defense One’s annual Tech Summit.

The analysis underpinning those assessments was recently completed by the Space Warfighting Analysis Center (SWAC) — a Space Force organization dedicated to designing the nascent service’s future space architectures and force designs.

Although Thompson did not go into specific details about the SWAC’s findings, he said the technology the service needs is available with the right investments.

“We’ve thought very carefully about the types of services required — where you can and should rely on commercial, where you can and should rely on specific military capabilities, how they integrate together,” he said. “I think we’ve got that design work done, but that design work has shown us we need more investment.”

Thompson did note that part of the SWAC’s force design will include the Space Development Agency’s upcoming transport layer of satellites. The satellites are part of a larger architecture — the Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture (PWSA) — that is expected to feature hundreds of spacecraft in low-Earth orbit (LEO) carrying critical warfighting capabilities.

The plan will also include newer commercial constellations in LEO, as well as more traditional commercial satellite services that reside in higher orbital regimes such as geosynchronous orbit, Thompson said. 

“The technologies and the capabilities are there, we just have to invest in them to deliver the integrated capability,” he said.

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The Pentagon has previously disclosed that “SATCOM terminals and services” have been included in U.S. security assistance packages, although it hasn’t been identifying the companies providing them.

However, on Thursday a defense official revealed that the department is contracting with Starlink.

“We continue to work with a range of global partners to ensure Ukraine has the resilient satellite and communication capabilities they need. Satellite communications constitute a vital layer in Ukraine’s overall communications network and the department contracts with Starlink for services of this type. However, for operational security reasons and due to the critical nature of these systems, we do not have additional information regarding specific capabilities, contracts, or partners to provide at this time,” the defense official said in a statement to DefenseScoop on condition of anonymity.

Commercial space technologies have had a big impact on the Ukraine-Russia war, officials say.

SpaceX had been providing Starlink capabilities to Ukraine on its own dime and from non-DOD funding sources after the war kicked off last year. However, concerns had been raised that at some point Ukraine could lose access to Starlink over funding issues or other complications, and in the fall the company reportedly tried to pressure the Pentagon to start footing the bill.

Starlink satellite internet terminals and associated capabilities have enabled Ukranian troops to stay connected even when their usual comms networks are hindered during the conflict with Russia.

“It’s been huge in terms of their ability to communicate, and then to coordinate planning and operations,” a senior U.S. military official told reporters during a background briefing in October.

“In terms of its employment, I mean, well, I don’t think you can overestimate or overemphasize the impact that being able to communicate has. You know, one of the first things you try to do in a fight is to reduce your opponent’s ability to communicate, and in this case, you know, Starlink has proven exceptionally effective on the battlefield because it’s allowed the Ukrainians multiple connections, and in that regard, has been very, very helpful in their efforts at the tactical and strategic level,” the official added.

Starlink has been able to quickly update its systems to counter Russian jamming attempts.

“When we compare that to the kind of the latency of our ability to get capability out there, how long it takes us to make capability upgrades, the process we have to go through to do the analysis of what happened, what’s the appropriate way to fix it, how do we then acquire the system, how do we get the contract in place — we’re talking about a significant timeline to make those types of corrections,” Dave Tremper, director of electronic warfare supporting the platforms and weapons portfolio manager in the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment, has said.

A communications director at SpaceX did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Starlink contracts with DOD.

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