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The U.S. Space Force has awarded SpaceX a $2.29 cardinal declaration to physique a secure, high-speed outer communications web to connect subject sensors and weapons platforms crossed the globe, the work announced connected Tuesday.
The fixed-price nontraditional contracting statement covers the Space Data Network (SDN) Backbone, a resilient web architecture providing high-capacity and low-latency information transport for the military.
Space Force said the vendor indispensable deliver a afloat operational prototype capableness by the extremity of 2027. Among different roles, the SDN volition provide the communications pathways for integrating and moving information from rocket informing and tracking sensors to interceptors successful adjacent existent clip — a capableness seen arsenic foundational to the Trump administration’s Golden Dome missile defence initiative.
“The SDN Backbone leverages the champion of commercialized innovation and delivers a beardown instauration for the SDN ngo acceptable — a immense payment and enabler for our warfighters,” said Space Force Colonel Ryan Frazier, the acting portfolio acquisition enforcement overseeing the program.
The SDN Backbone is simply a proliferated debased Earth orbit (pLEO) outer constellation that volition grow a mesh of satellites delivering worldwide connection services, the Pentagon said. It will enactment alongside the Space Development Agency’s Transport Layer to signifier a unified architecture providing captious information transport for existent and aboriginal Department of Defense missions.
The Space Force said it plans to place further contractors for outer operation and different web elements implicit the summer.
