The Pentagon, headquarters for the U.S. Department of Defense. Photo: DOD.

Northrop Grumman will proceed with its Protected Tactical Satcom (PTS) rapid prototype program for the U.S. Space Force, with a flight demonstration set for 2024. 

The program involves the space component of the Space Force’s Protected Anti-jam Tactical Satcom family-of-systems architecture to provide resilient, worldwide, beyond line-of-sight, anti-jam communications. In 2020, the Space and Missile Systems Center (SMC) announced Northrop Grumman, Boeing, and Lockheed Martin as the prime contractors. The contract Northrop Grumman was awarded in 2020 was worth $253.6 million. 

Northrop Grumman said Thursday that it completed preliminary design review in December 2020 and validated the anti-jam performance of its design using the Protected Tactical Waveform, an anti-jam communications waveform. This continuation enables Northrop Grumman to proceed with the completion of the detailed design, manufacturing, and testing of the payload. The company will also integrate its payload onto a host space vehicle and conduct an on-orbit demonstration.

“Our digital engineering approach has enabled the rapid pace of our analysis and demonstrations, which have validated that the Space Force can deliver significantly enhanced anti-jam performance to the warfighter,” said Cyrus Dhalla, vice president of Communication Systems for Northrop Grumman.