Wednesday, June 28, 2023

US Space Force awards US$134 million to SES Space & Defense

SES Space & Defense will provide Global X-Band satellite capacity, teleport and network services over a highly secure global terrestrial network, and other ancillary services to the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD). 

The contract was awarded under a five-year X-Band Blanket Purchase Agreement (BPA) with an estimated value of US$134 million through Defense Information Systems Agency’s (DISA) Defense Information Technology Contracting Organization (DITCO) by the US Space Force.

To provide secure satellite communications service, SES Space & Defense will leverage the multi-mission GovSat-1 satellite, which features high-power X-band and Military Ka-band beams. GovSat-1 is a satellite operated by GovSat and is entirely dedicated to government and military missions.

“SES Space & Defense believes the BPA is one of the foundation blocks in accelerating MILSATCOM-COMSATCOM integration for the space enterprise. The US Space Force established this contract as a mechanism to enable access to commercial X-band capacity globally for the DoD,” said SES Space & Defense President and CEO David Fields. “We have partnered with industry-leading X-Band owners and operators as we understand the demand for secure, non-preemptible mission-assured capacity for critical operations. By combining satellite capacity, SATCOM services can achieve the highest availability with redundant X-Band coverage and diverse gateway connectivity within sovereign space.”