SDA Awards Contract for Tactical SATCOM Demo
The U.S. Space Development Agency (SDA) has awarded a $30 million contract to AST SpaceMobile to demonstrate direct-to-device tactical satellite communications for military radios. The award is the first under the SDA's HALO program, which aims to use commercial LEO satellite constellations for resilient battlefield connectivity. The initiative signals that future unmanned systems will need to integrate with commercial SATCOM networks.
- The HALO program is an Other Transaction (OT) agreement that pre-qualifies a pool of 19 vendors, including non-traditional companies like AST SpaceMobile, to compete for rapid prototype demonstrations. These demonstrations aim for a 12-18 month timeline from award to launch to quickly test new capabilities. - This initiative is part of the SDA's broader strategy to build the Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture (PWSA), a layered mesh network of hundreds of small satellites in Low Earth Orbit. The PWSA is designed to provide resilient, low-latency military communications, data transport, and missile tracking capabilities. - AST SpaceMobile's core technology uses large phased-array antennas on its satellites—its BlueWalker 3 prototype has an array of 693 square feet—to connect directly to standard, unmodified smartphones and other devices. - The company has already demonstrated this capability, achieving download speeds of over 10 Mbps in 4G tests and 14 Mbps in 5G tests from its BlueWalker 3 satellite to off-the-shelf smartphones. - The demonstration for the SDA will utilize AST SpaceMobile's next-generation "BlueBird" satellite constellation. A key technical goal is to validate seamless connectivity between the LEO satellites and existing military-grade handheld radios. - This "direct-to-device" capability is intended to augment, not replace, traditional military SATCOM by providing a resilient, alternative communication path for forces on the ground. - Other companies developing direct-to-device satellite services include Lynk Global and Starlink (in partnership with T-Mobile), indicating a competitive commercial landscape for these capabilities. - The SDA operates as a "constructive disruptor" within the Department of Defense, focused on leveraging commercial technology and rapid acquisition cycles to field new space-based capabilities faster than traditional procurement methods.
