Arthur McMiler
Astranis has secured a $13.2 million contract from the U.S. Space Force’s Space Systems Command and U.S. Space Command to incorporate military Ka-band frequency compatibility to the company’s new Omega satellites.
Granted under the Strategic Funding Increase, or STRATFI, vehicle, the contract value includes a $3.3 million SSC contribution and other support from SpaceWERX and other venture capital sources, the command said in a statement Thursday.
The Astranis project seeks significant improvement in the resiliency of the Department of Defense and USSF’s tactical satellite communications in contested, beyond-line-of-sight environments of warfighters, sensors and weapons systems, Charlotte Gerhart, director of the Tactical SATCOM Acquisition Delta, said.
The contract also calls for Astranis’ delivery of a hardware design capable of supporting protected tactical waveform, or PTW, operation on the company’s Omega satellites. The government-developed PTW provides military users an anti-jam communication tool to secure sensitive data transmission.
In February 2023, John Gedmark, Astranis co-founder and CEO, disclosed that the company will help the Space Force’s PTW deployment as a commercial satellite payload under a potential $10.5 million Small Business Innovation Research Phase III award.
In April this year, Gedmark announced Omega as the company’s next-generation broadband satellite communications system offering more than 50 gigabits per second per spacecraft.
