Jane Edwards 
- The Space Force has awarded contracts and OTAs to five companies for SDN development
- The two-part effort funds multivendor interconnectivity demo and SEP satellite development
- The 2026 Navy Summit will explore AI, autonomous systems and more
The U.S. Space Force has awarded fixed-price contracts and other transaction authority agreements to five companies to develop a resilient, open-architecture Space Data Network, or SDN.
As the Department of War advances multi-domain network resilience across the joint force, government and industry leaders will gather at the Potomac Officers Club’s 2026 Navy Summit on Aug. 27 — the organization’s final DOW summit of the year — to discuss artificial intelligence, digital engineering, shipbuilding, autonomous systems, network modernization and other priorities shaping the future maritime force. Sign up now!
Space Systems Command said Thursday the awards were issued under the space-based sensing and targeting, or SBST, portfolio acquisition executive, in coordination with SSC, to establish the technical groundwork for the SDN.
Who Are the Awardees?
The Space Force selected five companies to receive the complementary sets of awards, each valued at $12 million per set:
- Amazon LEO for Government
- Lockheed Martin
- Northrop Grumman
- Rocket Lab
- York Space Systems
What Does the Space Data Network Effort Involve?
The awards are structured in two parts. The first part consists of five fixed-price contracts, each valued at $10 million, with a six-to-nine-month period of performance. These contracts fund prototyping and demonstration of multivendor interconnectivity across the SDN Backbone, allowing diverse industry systems to connect to and communicate with the core network infrastructure.
The second part consists of five OTA agreements, each valued at $2 million, with a six-month performance period. These agreements fund development and fielding of Space Exchange Point, or SEP, satellites, which function as orbital routers connecting other networks and government satellite systems to the SDN Backbone.
The SEP initiative supports fielding of prototype payloads from the Enterprise Space Terminal program, which the Space Force said pairs commercial satellite bus providers with optical terminal developers to establish a repeatable technical baseline for future procurement.
What Did Space Force Officials Say About the Effort?
Col. Ryan Frazier, acting portfolio acquisition executive for SBST, said the effort moves the Space Force away from reliance on single-source vendors.
“By investing in standardized interfaces now, we are creating a clear runway for any capable and innovative company to come in and compete,” Frazier said. “It keeps the playing field level and ensures we can constantly bring the best commercial technology to our missions.”
Lt. Col. Alexa Eggert, materiel leader for the SBST SDN Backbone program, said the integration work is intended to reduce technical and onboarding risk before the network scales.
“We need to leverage mature commercial production lines that already know how to build at scale,” Eggert said. “This current integration work lets us burn down technical and onboarding risks in labs and small-scale prototypes, which will completely change the timeline and economics of how we will buy SDN space systems in the future.”
What Other Space Force Acquisition Efforts Are Underway?
The Space Data Network awards follow a series of other acquisition moves across the Space Force’s sensing, testing and launch portfolios. The service has awarded three firm-fixed-price OTA agreements worth a combined $615 million to advance Space-Based Airborne Moving Target Indicator capabilities under the same SBST portfolio, and awarded 15 companies positions on a potential $981 million indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract for test and range capabilities at the National Space Test and Training Complex.
On the launch side, the Space Force has awarded seven companies contract modifications for launch services under the National Security Space Launch program’s Phase 3 Lane 1, raising the program’s ceiling from $5.6 billion to $17 billion. Space Delta 7 has also activated the 77th Surveillance Squadron to manage and deliver space-based moving target indication intelligence to joint warfighters.
Separately, Space Systems Command has issued a request for proposals for the Hybrid Architecture and Development for Experimental Systems contract, a potential $300 million satellite ground system support vehicle.
