Military & Defense
Golden Dome: Viasat to build the operations centre of the Space Force’s space data network – the contract value
The US Space Force has awarded Viasat a competitive IDIQ contract worth up to $450 million, with a first task order of $115 million, to build the ground operations centre of the Space Data Network backbone for Golden Dome.
Viasat is taking on the ground “brain” of the Space Data Network, the satellite network that will carry data from sensors to the weapons of the US missile-defence “shield” Golden Dome. The US Space Force’s Space Systems Command (SSC) announced on Thursday, November 5, in partnership with the Golden Dome office, that the company was awarded a competitive IDIQ framework contract with a ceiling of $450 million. The first task order is worth $115 million.
The contract covers the design, installation and gradual expansion of a Mission Operations Center (MOC) for the network’s “backbone,” the SDN Backbone. Viasat will take on the integration of the network and mission systems, as the SSC opens the architecture to more satellite manufacturers.
A “switchboard” for many constellations
The centre will bring together mission-systems integration, network operation and data-transport management in a multi-vendor architecture. The SSC describes three main functions: joining disparate satellite systems into a single communications network, fast, low-latency and cyber-resilient data paths for users in air, land, sea and space, and real-time routing based on mission priorities. In practice, if one constellation slows down because of congestion or hostile jamming, the data will automatically pass to another.
“The MOC creates the mission-operations layer needed to unify the various space transport and data-exchange systems being developed in related programmes,” said Lt. Col. Alexa Eggert, SDN Backbone programme lead at the SSC’s Space-Based Sensing and Targeting (SBST) acquisition office. In her words, creating the centre is a “critical step” for the Space Data Network to become fully operational with multiple vendors.
Viasat’s centre is the ground segment of a wider programme. SpaceX holds a $2.3 billion contract for a fully functional low-Earth-orbit prototype of the backbone by the end of 2027, while in August the Space Force selected Rocket Lab, Northrop Grumman, York Space Systems, Lockheed Martin and Amazon LEO for Government for demonstrations of data transfer between ground and space and between satellites of different manufacturers. Golden Dome already has its own joint command, NORTHCOM’s JTF-Gold.
Viasat is also one of the three companies NASA selected to succeed the TDRS satellites.