Government/Military

As U.S. Space Force looks for new entrants beside Blue Origin for Phase 3 of National Security Space Launch (NSSL), the service on July 19 awarded more than $1.7 billion in Phase 2 contract modifications to the Space Force’s established rocket providers — United Launch Services, LLC – a subsidiary of United Launch Alliance (ULA) —...

The way more non-traditional defense companies will grow their business with the Defense Department is for more of them to be successful in doing so, which will provide more courage for acquisition organizations within the department to accept the risk of working with startups, the head of the DoD unit focused on accelerating the use...

The U.S. Space Force began an operational trial of L3Harris Technologies Consolidated Operational Data Archive (CODA) system on July 8, the service’s Space Systems Command (SSC) in El Segundo, California said. The trial will evaluate CODA’s integration of data from ExoAnalytics and the Air Force Research Laboratory’s Wide Area Search telescope system. The automated CODA system...

The United States and Saudi Arabia signed a framework agreement to open the door to cooperation with NASA in space science, exploration, aeronautics, space operations, education, and Earth science. NASA announced the agreement on July 16. The agreement, signed by NASA Administrator Bill Nelson and Saudi Space Agency CEO Mohammed bin Saud Al-Tamimi, establishes the...

Planet Labs has signed a new seven-figure pilot program with an international ministry of defense (MoD) customer for PlanetScope data enhanced with SynMax artificial intelligence. Planet announced the deal with the unnamed customer on July 15.  Planet and SynMax are providing a maritime domain awareness solution for vessel detection and monitoring. The customer also expanded...

General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems (GA-EMS) has won a new contract from US Space Force’s (USSF) Space Systems Command (SSC) in the area of space weather. The deal aims to help alleviate U.S. government on-orbit risks through delivery of a second weather satellite and to provide three years of operations services for each of the two...

Commercial satellite radar providers are ready to meet the operational needs of U.S. government users but plans to develop a program of record for these capabilities in fiscal year 2026 are behind in finishing requirements and identifying funding, the U.S. chief for one of these companies said on Wednesday. Capella Space; a U.S. division of...

Iceye will work more closely with the Ukraine Ministry of Defense amid Russia’s war in the country, signing a memorandum of cooperation to ensure the company’s imagery captured over Ukraine will not be shared with hostile countries or entities. Iceye, based in Finland, operates a synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellite constellation. The company said that...

The U.S. Space Force’s Space Systems Command awarded the second on-ramp to its Orbital Services Program (OSP)-4 contract to Blue Origin and Stoke Space Technologies on July 3. This brings the number of launch providers to 12 that are eligible to compete for task orders under the potential $986 million indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contract. So far, the Space...

Airbus has won a large new military contract in Europe. The German Armed Forces, the Bundeswehr, has awarded Airbus the SATCOMBw 3 prime contract for the next generation secure military satellite system which includes Geostationary (GEO) satellites as well as ground segment, launch, and operation for 15 years. Airbus announced the 2.1 billion euros ($2.3...