Astranis wins new Phase III contract with U.S. Space Force expected to be worth over $10 million
Implementing DoD’s Protected Tactical Waveform Using Astranis Satellite Assets
At Astranis, we have decided to say “yes” to the U.S. Government’s call to help secure our future in space. And today, we’re excited to announce a new chapter in our work with the Department of Defense.
Astranis has been awarded a new Phase III SBIR development contract with the U.S. Space Force that we expect to be worth over $10 million.
The contract includes a $4.5 million award to implement the Protected Tactical Waveform using the existing Astranis Software-Defined Radio satellite payload, and comes with a $6 million option for an on-orbit demonstration using a future Astranis satellite asset.
Protected Tactical Waveform is a government-developed waveform that offers anti-jam capabilities.
It offers more security than the typical, commercial waveforms, which means that it’s better-suited for sensitive military communications. We will use PTW with our commercially developed Software-Defined Radio in this effort, enabling the small, agile MicroGEO platform to serve as a future PTW over Commercial node in the Space Force’s Space Transport force design.
This award was made in record time: Gen. Guetlein recently visited the Astranis satellite factory at Pier 70 in San Francisco, and just 46 days later, we were on contract. This speed-to-contract speaks volumes to the U.S. Space Force’s improvements in their efforts to find ways to work with commercial companies like Astranis, and to their desire to drive towards the goal of resilience on orbit.
Resilience is increasingly important as space is becoming a contested domain. Up until now the United States has only been launching a small number of massive, multi-billion dollar satellites for US national security missions, which has left America vulnerable to aggressive acts by our adversaries.
That is, until General Hyten, one of the most respected military leaders in space and former Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, drew a line in the sand.
Simply put, it’s far harder for an adversary to degrade or deny multiple, smaller assets in geostationary orbit, and that is the core of our work in this contract and in past efforts with the DoD. Astranis is the world’s only provider of small geostationary communications satellites, and we see a massive opportunity to help our country keep space secure for generations to come.
This is an important building block towards Astranis becoming a new prime. We anticipate a future where dozens of Astranis satellites dispersed across geostationary orbit provide resilient, high-throughput communications to the Department of Defense — a service that is more costly for our adversaries to deny than it is for our Government to field.
That’s what we’re building towards at Astranis: a future where space is secure based not on the goodwill of our adversaries, but on the strength of our capabilities.
We’re excited to take the next step in this direction with Space Force today, and in follow-on work over the years and decades to come.
