WASHINGTON — The U.S. Space Force has awarded contracts to five companies to develop satellite communications concepts for a new geostationary constellation, the service announced July 28.
Boeing, Northrop Grumman, Viasat, Intelsat and Astranis will receive a combined $37.2 million under six-month contracts to advance system designs and demonstrations for the Protected Tactical Satcom-Global (PTS-G) program. The awards were made by the Space Force’s Space Systems Command, which selected the companies from a field of eight bidders.
PTS-G is the spacecraft component of the broader Protected Tactical Satcom (PTS) initiative, which is aimed at providing secure, jam-resistant military communications in contested environments. The program is focused on building a distributed constellation of geostationary satellites that can operate in military Ka-band and X-band frequencies. These bands are reserved for military use and offer advantages in performance and resistance to interference.
The PTS-G effort seeks to leverage commercial small satellite platforms adapted for geostationary operations. Unlike traditional bespoke military satellites, which often require a decade or more to design, build and launch, PTS-G aims to field capabilities incrementally. Officials said the approach is intended to reduce cost and complexity while allowing faster deployment of new technologies.
The Space Force did not disclose individual contract values for each company. The current phase is scheduled to be completed by January 2026.
Officials said PTS-G represents a shift toward more agile space-based communications infrastructure. The future PTS-G satellites would be integrated with the Protected Tactical Enterprise Service (PTES) — the ground segment of the broader PTS system. While PTS-G will initially focus on providing coverage in select regions, it is expected to expand to global operations over time.
PTS-G is now the only satellite procurement in the PTS program after the service cancelled a parallel effort, known as PTS-R. That initiative had aimed to field additional protected communications satellites but was recently terminated.