The Andromeda IDIQ contract vehicle will fund a replacement for the current GSSAP on-orbit inspection satellites as well as the classified SILENTBARKER space surveillance birds.
Interested firms have until Jan. 9 to respond to a Space Force request for information about new wide-field-of-view cameras for a SILENTBARKER replacement constellation.
Defending a country the size of the US from threats requires advanced sensing, communications and interception capabilities.
The idea behind the commercial reviews is to find potential alternatives for "getting us out of one-off, billion-dollar systems into a proliferated architecture," said Maj. Gen. Stephen Purdy.
Kelly Hammett, director of the Space Rapid Capabilities Office, said his organization risks being “inordinately impacted" by workforce reductions underway with the Trump administration.
Perhaps most intriguing is legislative language that calls into question Pentagon and IC plans to declassify data from classified remote sensing satellites that are part of a newly developed joint architecture called the "High-Capacity, Find, Fix, Track, Target and Engage and Assess Constellation," or "HCF" for short.
The SPACECOM list includes almost $704 million for three unnamed classified programs, as well as $90 million to fund a trio of classified Navy electronic warfare-based "counterspace" capabilities.
The challenge for Western democratic institutions is not a lack of capability — it is a structural one.
"This will be a modified mission from the Victus Nox mission," David Ryan, space portfolio manager at the Defense Innovation Unit said, noting that "there are two parts of the mission, and DIU is working on a single part with Space Safari."
The planned launches, which will take place starting in FY26, include sending a second SILENTBARKER watchdog satellite jointly developed by the service and the National Reconnaissance Office to geosynchronous Earth orbit (GEO).
"Providing space operators with relevant, timely data can help to prevent operational surprise and support efforts to protect and defend space assets," a recent report to Congress on Pentagon space policy and strategy says.
As the Space Force prepares to launch highly classified space domain awareness satellites, China calls foul on purported close approaches to its sats by existing US birds.
Answering the Pentagon’s call to bolster defense industrial base.
The NRO is planning to award new contracts for commercial satellite imagery, perhaps including that of other satellites, the spy-sat agency's head of commercial operations, Pete Muend, said today.
"The good news about this approach is this really fits my priority of speed, speed and speed," Frank Calvelli, space acquisition czar at the Department of the Air Force, said of the plan to have NRO take the lead with Space Force oversight and some funding.
Meanwhile, the Government Accountability Office is pushing the Space Force to move faster to actually integrate commercial SDA capabilities in order to fill capability gaps.
WASHINGTON: For the first time, Space Command is working with the operator and builder of America’s spy satellites, the NRO, to develop a shared “playbook” of pre-agreed actions to defend military and spy satellites during a conflict, SPACECOM and NRO officials say. The ‘playbook’ is a central part of a new joint concept of operations (CONOP) […]