An illustration of protected military communications satellite. Photo: Lockheed Martin

SEAKR Engineering has been selected to join Lockheed Martin’s team to help design and build a prototype payload for the U.S. Space Force’s Protected Tactical Satellite Communications, or PTS, program.

SEAKR Engineering will collaborate with Lockheed Martin on the system’s space digital processor. The company aims to demonstrate PTS anti-jam capabilities and requirements by building on the advanced Radio Frequency (RF) processing technologies in its Wolverine RF processing platform. 

PTS is a next-generation capability to give warfighters jam-resistant satcom. The complete system will deploy a constellation of dedicated Geostationary (GEO) satellites, commercially hosted payloads, and coalition partner satellites integrated through a ground control network. Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and Northrop Grumman are the prime PTS contractors. The Space and Missile Systems Center (SMC) announced on March 3 that Lockheed Martin was awarded $240 million for PTS payload development. 

“SEAKR’s processing systems span four generations of architectural capabilities supporting the full spectrum of payload processing performance requirements, with the highest level of on-orbit reconfigurable processing performance,” the company said in a news release.