- IDIQ carries a $450 million ceiling with a $115 million initial task order
- Viasat will integrate systems across multiple satellite constellations
- The center supports Golden Dome for America connectivity requirements
Space Systems Command has awarded Viasat an indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contract with a $450 million ceiling to design, field and scale a mission operations center for the Space Data Network, or SDN, Backbone, positioning the company as an integrator across a growing roster of satellite vendors.
The initial task order is worth $115 million, the command said Thursday. The center will bring mission integration, network operations and data transport management together, serving as the hub that orchestrates systems across multiple constellations and providers for the Space-Based Sensing and Targeting, or SBST, portfolio.
Space Force Lt. Col. Alexa Eggert, materiel leader for the SDN Backbone program, said establishing the center is a “crucial step” in maturing the network into a fully operational, multi-vendor capability.
“By bringing the systems together in one place, it positions us to deliver a more integrated mission capability across multiple constellations and systems,” Eggert explained.
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How Does the Mission Operations Center Fit the SDN Backbone Program?
The ground architecture is built to support high-speed, low-latency and cyber-resilient data paths across air, land, sea and space and route data dynamically according to mission priority.
SpaceX holds the program’s foundational award, a $2.29 billion other transaction authority agreement issued in May that requires a fully operational prototype by the end of 2027. The backbone is a proliferated low Earth orbit constellation using optical intersatellite links. It will operate alongside the Space Development Agency’s Transport Layer as part of a hybrid mesh architecture.
The mission operations center builds on earlier delivery orders under the sensing and targeting portfolio that brought in Amazon LEO for Government, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Rocket Lab and York Space Systems.
Space Systems Command is executing the work in partnership with Golden Dome for America, the Department of War’s layered homeland defense initiative integrating sensors, data, command and control, and defensive systems to detect, track and defeat missile and aerial threats. The backbone’s bandwidth is expected to carry data between Golden Dome sensors and shooters.
What Is the Space Force Spending on the Network?
The Space Force requested nearly $1.5 billion for the SDN Backbone in a future fiscal 2027 reconciliation bill, including $685 million to accelerate the constellation’s expansion and $800 million to bring on additional vendors as commercial technologies mature to meet government requirements. The service also sought $1.6 billion in base budget procurement under its Proliferated Low Earth Orbit SATCOM effort.
Space Systems Command manages a $15.6 billion annual space acquisition budget.
What Other Space Contracts Does Viasat Hold?
Viasat’s latest award lands amid a run of satellite communications work. NASA selected Viasat on Wednesday for a Ka-band relay services contract worth up to $460.9 million, the largest of three awards covering spacecraft that cannot modify their equipment as the agency retires its Tracking and Data Relay Satellite fleet.
Viasat and Intelsat General Communications, now part of SES, secured a $437.7 million Space Force contract in May for Protected Tactical Satellite-Global space vehicles, joining Astranis Space Technologies, Boeing and Northrop Grumman on a program delivering anti-jam communications for tactical forces. Viasat’s Inmarsat Government business won a potential $307.1 million Marine Corps contract that month for enterprise commercial satellite services.
The company also holds a Space Force contract to build space laser communication terminal prototypes under the Enterprise Space Terminal program’s second phase, alongside CACI and General Atomics. In December, Viasat was named an awardee on the Missile Defense Agency’s potential 10-year, $151 billion Scalable Homeland Innovative Enterprise Layered Defense contract.
