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U.S. Space Force Prepares For Big Jump In Satcom, Navigation Spending
Rendering of the WGS-11+ satellite.
ORLANDO, Florida—The U.S. Space Force is preparing for a dramatic increase in its acquisition of military satellite communications and position, navigation and timing systems, with a tenfold jump in funding over less than two years.
The service over the next 18 months will release 19 solicitations to industry for this mission area, representing a total contract value of $22 billion, says Cordell DeLaPena, program executive officer for military communications and positioning, navigation and timing for Space Systems Command. This compares to 17 major contract actions with a total value of $1.9 billion over fiscal 2023.
Four of these 19 solicitations will be sole source, with the rest open for competition, DeLaPena said during a presentation at a Space Force Association conference here.
Included in these programs are a $579 million competitive award for Command and Control System-Consolidated Sustainment and Resiliency, a $2.2 billion award for the Mobile User Objective System sustainment and modernization contract, a $442 million sole-source award for Wideband Global Satcom-12, and a $300 million award for LuxMEO, a collaboration with Luxembourg’s defense ministry on protected satellite communication.
Investments will broadly focus on worldwide strategic command and control of nuclear forces, to include the North and South Pole, along with the regional protected tactical satcom constellation to address the ability of an adversary to jam today’s assets “in a region,” DeLaPena says.
Draft requests for proposals for most of these programs are out now and expected to be finalized “soon,” he says.
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