By Stephanie Dwilson | 2025-09-16

US Space Force (USSF) is investing $37.5 million in anti-jamming satellite technology, with five US companies paving the way.

The contracts, awarded in late July, will see the military expand its work with commercial institutions to enhance efficiency in developing resilient satellite communications (SATCOM) that support tactical warfighters.

Defense contractors Viasat, Northrop Grumman, Astranis Space Technologies, Intelsat General Communications and Boeing have been tasked with developing satellites for a new Protected Tactical SATCOM – Global (PTS-G) constellation.

The new satellites will augment the existing satellite and ground systems USSF uses for military communications, and will incorporate advanced protected tactical waveform (PTW) designed to provide anti-jamming capability.

Each of the five companies will design satellites based on their established commercial product lines, and will provide demonstrations to Space Systems Command (SSC).

The results will inform a competition for follow-on production orders.

Contract awardee Northrop Grumman has said it plans to use its GEOStar3-satellites to provide X-band and military Ka-band communications in a rapid, low-cost manner.

Astranis will base its PTS-G program submission on a pre-existing commercial design.

"The initial six-month contract will mature the system design for PTS-G culminating with a system design review and demonstrations of PTS-G hardware in a lab environment," the company said in a statement.

"The Astranis PTS-G program is based on a common Astranis spacecraft design used for commercial missions and leverages Astranis’s focused technical investment in small GEO communications systems going back nearly a decade."

Partnering with the commercial industry will help USSF respond faster to new threats, according to Cordell DeLaPena, Jr., program executive officer for SSC Military Communications and Positioning, Navigation and Timing.

"The incorporation of commercial baseline designs to meet military capability significantly enhances the Space Force’s speed and efficiency to add capability to meet emerging threats," he said.

Evolving business model

US Space Force plans to make more contract awards in 2026, for the production of PTS-G space vehicles, "with a projected launch in 2028, putting the first PTS-G satellite in orbit," SSC said in a statement.

"A second wave of production awards for additional PTS-G satellite capability is planned for 2028, with launch planned for 2031."

Jamming technology is a concern that must be taken seriously, top military officials have warned.

In a May 14 statement to the US House Armed Services Committee’s Subcommittee on Strategic Forces, USSF Maj. Gen. Stephen G. Purdy pointed to the progress other countries are making in this sphere.

"Peer adversaries have demonstrated their willingness to either violate international norms of behavior or conduct themselves irresponsibly in space in an increasingly unsafe and unprofessional manner," he cautioned.

This includes "by developing and/or fielding systems such as nuclear weapons in space, direct ascent weapons, nesting dolls, robots, directed energy, and jammers,” he said.

"We must continue to evolve our way of doing business to provide timely and relevant capabilities to the joint warfighter."