Space Force awards SpaceX $2.29 billion contract for military data constellation
In what is intended as an upgrade to the Starshield military variation of SpaceX’s Starlink constellation, the Space Force yesterday awarded SpaceX a $2.29 billion contract to launch a “data transport constellation in low Earth orbit (LEO) for the Space Data Network (SDN), which the service is developing as its central communications network to link sensors to shooters.”
Under the Other Transaction Authority agreement, the company is to deliver “a fully operational prototype capability by the end of 2027,” Space Systems Command (SSC) said in a press release.
The SDN Backbone, formerly known as MILNET and based on SpaceX’s Starshield militarized variant of its commercial Starlink constellation, will serve as the backhaul data transport layer for the broader SDN. While the award to SpaceX is thus not a surprise, the size of the contract is.
It appears that the Pentagon has been so satisfied with its use of both Starlink and Starshield that it was quite willing to give SpaceX this new larger contract.
The good part of this story is that SpaceX is providing good service to the American people, through the Pentagon. The bad part of this story is that it is getting so little competition from the rest of the aerospace industry. This was work that Amazon could have won, had its Leo constellation been operational and competitive. It is not, as yet, and so it loses business. As the saying goes, “He who hesitates is lost.” And sadly a lot of old and even new aerospace companies have been hesitating.
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I am glad this went to Musk and not Bezos…in that I don’t believe the latter has the real commitment to the former. I’d prefer Space Force to have funded Starship to have avoided the IPO nonsense.
At present rates, this is about the same as what Anthropic pays SpaceX for two months of access to Colossus. A nice chunk of change to be sure. Maybe in five years there will be real competition.
Jeff Wright,
Bezos has been far more involved in Blue Origin ever since he stepped down. The USSF doesn’t need to fund Starship, and the IPO isn’t about funding Starship either, Starlink is more than sufficient for that.
Colossus!
Probably many readers of Behind The Black already know of the book and movie Colossus: The Forbin Project.
Did you know that it is the first book of a trilogy? The 2nd and 3rd are: The Fall of Colossus, and Colossus And The Crab
This award suggests that Sec’y. Hegseth’s War Department is serious about firewalling the throttle on US military capability acquisition. It never made a bit of sense to be trying to cobble together a mingy little constellation of a couple of hundred expensive low-volume-production sats with that small number further divvied among multiple suppliers when the Starlink and Starshield networks were already up and running and demonstrably invulnerable to attempts by major opponents to defeat them.
Now it’s time to do the same right thing anent Golden Dome. In fact, given current and imminently available capabilities, SpaceX should simply be handed the prime contractor role for the entire system.
I just found Colossus on Prime. Until recently it was only available on Euro DVD, which meant I needed a special DVD player just to watch the thing. I wonder why. Anyway, it’s available now on Prime and I urge you to watch it.
Patrick Underwood,
Saw it when it was in theaters back in the day. It was quite popular among Computer Science majors of my school because all of the computer equipment in the film was provided by the late Control Data Corporation, the same supplier who equipped the campus computer center.
Mr. Underwood, I’m betting that Colossus-The Forbin Project has fallen afoul of what affects many minor movies and TV shows of the 70’s-90’s: licensing. Particularly, licensing of the music used or sometimes the actual base materials (in this case Colossus by Dennis Jones). The residuals were negotiated for re-showing the movie and likely TV broadcast, but VHS, DVD and particularly Streaming were a ways off (and in streaming’s case, hardly even imagined). Music rights for movies and TV (called synchronization rights) are negotiated on a case by case basis not with a general rule like radio airplay. So when a new medium shows up you get to renogotiate the payments… A lot of 90’s tv shows have this issue for streaming and so are unavailable, though the DVD/Bluray rights were negotiated.
Also I think Colossus-The Forbin Project was United Pictures and ALL their stuff has been in flux.
I agree with Mr. Eagleson
I would like to see standardization of probes on the same bus as well. Have a bunch of these things on hand in case of another transient event like Oumuamua.
America needs one atop some Athena IIIs in silos for asteroid intercept on short notice.
Jeff Wright,
I think putting asteroid interceptors in a number of different Earth orbits would make more sense than siloing them. The problem with silos is you can only dig those on your own territory. An asteroid might come at Earth from anywhere and a rocket in a silo might have to wait most of a day to have a favorable trajectory. Put the interceptors in orbit and they not only don’t have to fight through atmosphere, the orbits can be designed so that at least one will always be favorably situated and can light off instantly as soon as the bogie is spotted.
Sending impactors at asteroids coming at Earth is a close-to-home mission for which both high acceleration and high end-of-burn speed would likely be critical. So you would want a vehicle more missile-ish than satellite-ish – powered by batteries, not solar arrays. Detachable solar arrays would be good for such vehicles when in patrol mode, but would best be jettisoned before lighting engines for an intercept.
Pursuit of something like Oumuamua is a fundamentally different type of mission and would, in general, involve very deep space environs, not cis-Terran space. The same general strategy as with asteroid intercepts – keep probes on patrol orbits near Earth until a quarry is spotted – but they’d have to be distance runners, not sprinters. Solar arrays would also be inappropriate if the intent was to intercept, then pace, the interstellar interloper. The probe would need power that wouldn’t fall off with distance from Sol. Something nuclear-electric like what Administrator Isaacman has in mind for that Mars probe would be the ticket.