SpaceX awarded $4.1B tracking satellite contract

Space Force has awarded a $4.16 billion contract to SpaceX for a constellation of satellites that the company will build to track airborne targets as part of a space-based sensing layer.

The Space-Based Airborne Moving Target Indicator is a program the service branch established to counter adversaries’ anti-access/area-denial systems, which are often moving targets that present challenges to established airborne platforms. SB-AMTI’s goal is to create a more persistent, resilient tracking architecture for mitigating these threats.

Space Force awarded the contract as an Other Transaction Authority agreement that tasks SpaceX with providing the constellation as an early operational capability by 2028, the service branch said Friday.

Once fully built out, SB-AMTI will function as a combination of space-based sensors and communication links into a single network. Ground processing systems will be a part of that network as well.

“By focusing these capabilities to the space domain, we are providing the Joint Force with sustained battlespace awareness of contested airspace,” Space Force Col. Ryan Frazier, acting portfolio acquisition executive for space-based sensing and targeting, said in a release. “We are beginning development and integration efforts immediately to meet the program's rapid deployment milestones and address emerging national security requirements.”

More awards to other companies are in the works for later this year as Space Force works to further grow the pool of participants in SB-AMTI.

This award comes less than a week after Space Force finalized a separate $2.29 billion OTA contract with SpaceX for satellites to act as the backhaul layer for the Space Data Network, which is being set up to move data across different satellite constellations.