Pentagon enters into contracts for $1.8 billion to create military satellite Internet

On February 28, 2022, the Space Procurement Development Agency, which is one of the units of the US Department of Defense, announced the conclusion of contracts worth about $1.8 billion with three companies. The objective of the project is to establish a next-generation military communications network with 126 satellites. This is stated in a statement by the Pentagon press service.

A pair of large aerospace companies Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman, as well as a private enterprise York Space, each of them will build 42 satellites. The transport-level network is the Pentagon's application for a large-scale satellite Internet system. Lockheed Martin signed a contract for $700 million, Northrop Grumman for $692 million, and York Space for $382 million.

Pentagon enters into contracts for $1.8 billion to create military satellite Internet

Companies such as SpaceX, OneWeb, Amazon, Telesat are pouring funds into the development of private broadband satellite networks in low Earth orbit. But the Pentagon seeks to create its own transport-layer mesh network with low latency and big data capability. The transport level is created in tranches, as the military wants to use iterative design with small, cheap satellites to make its network more reliable and adaptable.

The fact that the US Space Development Agency is leading in this area of ​ ​ the use of commercial ready-made satellites is a great achievement! York Space's revenue growth from year to year is from 40% to 100%, while the company continues to expand its production capabilities in Denver, USA, "said Charles Beames, chairman of the board of directors of York Space.

Lockheed Martin and York Space received their first contracts to work on this system back in 2020, each of the companies will build 10 satellites. The launch of satellites is scheduled for the end of 2022. Contracts for the first tranche, concluded at the end of February 2022, require mandatory execution until 2024.^[1]

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