Space Force spends $60M to plug third-party satellites into SpaceX-built network
The U.S. Space Force has awarded $60 million to five companies to demonstrate how satellites from different vendors can link into the Space Data Network (SDN), the military communications architecture whose core backbone is being built by SpaceX.
Amazon LEO for Government, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Rocket Lab and York Space Systems each received $12 million in contracts and prototype agreements, the Space Systems Command announced on Aug. 13. The work will test connections between commercial satellite systems and the SDN, covering on-orbit data transport and standardized interfaces that would let multiple providers operate across the same network.
The SDN is a planned mesh communications architecture in low Earth orbit designed to move large volumes of data among satellites and between space and the ground. In May, SpaceX won a $2.29 billion contract to build the Space Data Network Backbone (SDN-B), a proliferated constellation using optical crosslinks to route data from satellite to satellite.
The latest awards address how systems supplied by other companies will connect to that backbone — a key part of the Space Force's effort to avoid locking the broader network into a single vendor. The projects are intended to "validate integration methodologies and demonstrate that diverse commercial systems can seamlessly connect to and transport data across the core SDN system," Col. Ryan Frazier, acting portfolio acquisition executive for Space Based Sensing and Targeting, said in a statement. He added that investing in standardized interfaces lays the groundwork for future interoperability.
The contracts mark a step toward a multi-vendor military satellite ecosystem, where the Pentagon can mix and match commercial capabilities rather than rely on one prime contractor for the entire network. The demonstrations are expected to inform how the Space Force procures and integrates satellite communications services in the years ahead.
