Amid demand for satellite support, Space Force leans on commercial
Space Systems Command said Monday it awarded contracts to two firms — Auria, formerly Boecore, and Sphinx Defense — to establish the cloud-based marketplace prototype, dubbed JAM, which will connect satellite operations centers with government and commercial antennas.
The service said Monday it's using the Pentagon's software acquisition pathway to create the marketplace, a tailored procurement method meant to help programs buy software more quickly. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth recently mandated that all military software be developed and purchased through the pathway.
'The program is currently in the planning phase of the Software Acquisition Pathway and is accelerating commercial capability delivery via prototype development,' SSC said in a statement.
JAM will expand the Space Force's existing globally dispersed Satellite Control Network, or SCN, which provides critical launch support, satellite tracking and control, and emergency assistance for spacecraft.
The Defense Department and other federal agencies rely on the network for operations support, and demand for the capability has grown significantly in recent years. For the last decade, utilization rates have surpassed the industry standard, according to a 2023 Government Accountability Office report. Space Force officials have said the current SCN architecture on its own may not meet the military's capacity needs during a conflict.
The antennas in line to augment and eventually replace SCN's aging infrastructure through a program called Satellite Communications Augmentation Resource, or SCAR, are expected to increase satellite communications capacity by ten-fold for spacecraft in geosynchronous orbit, the Space Force estimates.
The new phased-array antennas are being built by BlueHalo. The systems, dubbed Badger, provide multi-beam, multi-orbit mission operations and are designed to make it easier to track and manage satellites. They can also be easily transported around the world.
The Space Force awarded the company $1.4 billion in 2022 to deliver 12 units by the early 2030s.
However, under its current schedule, the first units won't deliver until the end of this year – a timeline that the service's acting acquisition executive says is not fast enough.
Maj. Gen. Stephen Purdy told lawmakers Thursday that while SCAR is making progress, the program is moving 'too slow for my taste and too slow for the need.'
Speaking at a House Armed Services Committee hearing, he said that along with helping the Space Force better leverage commercial systems, JAM provides a 'backup plan' for SCAR that provides the extra support in the near term.
JAM builds on experimentation the service has conducted with the Space Development Agency and the Space Rapid Capabilities Office to integrate commercial capabilities through a cloud-based SCN. The marketplace 'is going after full-up commercial,' Purdy said, and will open up significant new capacity.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Fox News
5 hours ago
- Fox News
SCOOP: Top Hegseth aide resigns from Pentagon after 6 months of service: 'Incredibly inspiring'
A top advisor to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has left the Pentagon after six months of service, the Department of Defense (DoD) confirmed to Fox News Digital on Saturday. Justin Fulcher told Fox News Digital he formally resigned on Thursday evening, describing the decision as entirely his own. Fulcher said he had originally planned to serve six months in government and, having reached that point, chose to move on "amicably." He also emphasized what he described as the "great work" being done by Hegseth "for our troops and country." "The Department of Defense is grateful to Justin Fulcher for his work on behalf of President [Donald] Trump and Secretary Hegseth. We wish him well in his future endeavors," chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said in a statement. In addition to advising Hegseth on personnel and policy, Fulcher played a role in several defense initiatives during his tenure, he told Fox News Digital. Fulcher said he contributed to reviews of major acquisition programs aimed at strengthening lethality and the U.S. industrial base, and helped streamline software procurement timelines "from years to months," modernizing key IT systems across the department. He also said he supported Hegseth in high-level meetings across the Indo-Pacific, including the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, and participated in efforts that redirected nearly $50 billion from non-lethal line items into readiness and more impactful defense programs. Fulcher praised the "dedicated men and women of the Department of Defense," cited progress in "revitalizing the warrior ethos" and "rebuilding the military," and thanked both Hegseth and Trump for their leadership. "Still, this is just the beginning," Fulcher added. Fulcher, who had served as a senior advisor to Hegseth since April, announced his departure Saturday afternoon in a message posted to X. "As planned, I've completed 6 months of service in government to my country," he wrote, calling the experience "incredibly inspiring." "None of this could have happened without Secretary Hegseth's decisive leadership or President Trump's continued confidence in our team," he wrote. "I will continue to champion American warfighters in all future endeavors." Fulcher joined the DoD earlier this year as part of Hegseth's inner circle, a cohort of loyal advisers appointed after Hegseth took the helm at the Pentagon in Trump's second term. His departure comes amid a broader reshuffling of senior personnel inside Hegseth's office. At least six aides have left since January, though defense officials have downplayed the moves as standard transitions. It's unclear what Fulcher's next step will be, though his statement suggests he intends to remain active in national security circles. The Pentagon has not yet named a replacement.
Washington Post
9 hours ago
- Washington Post
Another Hegseth aide exits as Pentagon churn continues
Another senior aide to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is leaving the Pentagon, officials said Saturday, marking at least the sixth departure of a top adviser in Hegseth's first six months in office. Justin Fulcher, who was named a senior adviser to the defense secretary in late April, said in a text message to The Washington Post that his departure is 'perfectly amicable' and that he planned all along to complete just six months of government service. He said he is grateful to Hegseth, President Donald Trump 'and to the extraordinary civilians and service members who turn vision into action every day.' 'Working alongside the dedicated men and women of the Department of Defense has been incredibly inspiring,' Fulcher said. Sean Parnell, a Pentagon spokesman, acknowledged Fulcher's departure in a text message, after CBS News first reported that Fulcher had been fired. Parnell said it was 'not fair' to characterize the exit as a firing and called Fulcher a 'great guy.' The Pentagon also issued a short statement from Parnell that said the Defense Department is grateful to Fulcher 'for his work on behalf of President Trump and Secretary Hegseth. We wish him well in his future endeavors.' Hegseth, a former Fox News personality, came to the Cabinet job with little prior managerial experience and has struggled to achieve cohesion among his inner circle of aides. The staff churn, along with Hegseth's other early missteps, has drawn sharp scrutiny from Congress and, at times, the White House. The latest shake-up follows a report by The Post published Tuesday that detailed an unusual situation ahead of his appointment in April in which Fulcher — then a member of billionaire Elon Musk's U.S. DOGE Service — stormed out of a meeting with the Pentagon's DOGE team lead, Yinon Weiss, and sought help from Hegseth's front office. As The Post reported, Fulcher told Hegseth and other senior officials in the secretary's office that he thought the Pentagon Force Protection Agency, an internal police and security organization, was looking for him. That upset Hegseth, who then summoned Weiss to his office and confronted him, raising his voice at times, people familiar with the altercation said. Weiss, a tech entrepreneur who had just taken over as the Pentagon's DOGE team lead, denied having called law enforcement, telling Hegseth that instead he had reported Fulcher to a government official with the Defense Department transition office that assists newly arriving political appointees, a person familiar with the encounter said. Hegseth brought Fulcher onto his team days later, after he fired three other senior advisers and accused them of leaking information to the news media. They have emphatically denied the accusation, and the Pentagon has disclosed no evidence backing the allegations. Fulcher was embroiled in additional controversy last month after the Guardian reported that he told Hegseth's personal attorney, Tim Parlatore, and Hegseth's chief of staff at the time, Joe Kasper, that he knew of surveillance measures that could be used to find leakers in the Pentagon. Fulcher joined Parlatore in the search for suspected leakers, but officials at the White House and in the Pentagon later determined that Fulcher had exaggerated his usefulness and the purported evidence he had alluded to did not exist, people familiar with the matter said. In light of that, some of Hegseth's other advisers began to cast doubt on Fulcher's standing in the administration. Within the Pentagon, there was speculation for days that Fulcher's departure was imminent, but on July 11 administration officials said in a statement to The Post that he was still a senior adviser to the secretary and gave no indication that was changing. Fulcher, too, said then that he was still on the team without disclosing that he would be leaving soon. Fulcher's workspace had recently been relocated outside of Hegseth's main office to a desk down the hall, but he previously told The Post the move was temporary and occurring because of maintenance work. Others familiar with the situation affirmed that the move appeared to be temporary, but some said that it had raised new questions as Hegseth has worked to suppress any perception of persistent dysfunction. Other members of Hegseth's team who have departed include Dan Caldwell, Colin Carroll and Darin Selnick, the three fired in April; Kasper, who voluntarily left his role for the private sector that month, and John Ullyot, who served for a few months as the Pentagon's top spokesman.
Yahoo
10 hours ago
- Yahoo
Microsoft says it will no longer use engineers in China for Department of Defense work
Following a Pro Publica report that Microsoft was using engineers in China to help maintain cloud computing systems for the U.S. Department of Defense, the company said it's made changes to ensure this will no longer happen. The existing system reportedly relied on 'digital escorts' to supervise the China-based engineers. But according to Pro Publica, those escorts — U.S. citizens with security clearances — sometimes lacked the technical expertise to properly monitor the engineers. In response to the report, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth wrote on X, 'Foreign engineers — from any country, including of course China — should NEVER be allowed to maintain or access DoD systems.' On Friday, Microsoft's chief communications officer Frank X. Shaw responded: 'In response to concerns raised earlier this week about US-supervised foreign engineers, Microsoft has made changes to our support for US Government customers to assure that no China-based engineering teams are providing technical assistance for DoD Government cloud and related services.'
