The U.S. Space Force recently awarded two of its biggest satellite contracts to SpaceX, strengthening the company’s position in the military’s next generation space networks.
The awards, worth nearly $6.5 billion, put SpaceX at the forefront of efforts to build a global military surveillance network and a space-based communications backbone for missile defense. They are also raising questions about whether procurements of this scale should be concentrated with a single supplier.
One contract worth $4.16 billion will fund a constellation of satellites known as AMTI, or airborne moving target indicator, a capability sought by the Pentagon as an alternative to aircraft-based surveillance.
The other is a $2.29 billion award for the Space Data Network, a space-based communications backbone designed to move data among sensors, command systems and interceptor weapons. Both contracts were announced within days of each other in late May.
These procurements come at a pivotal moment for the space industrial base. The Pentagon is seeking to expand military space capabilities while simultaneously urging industry to invest in manufacturing capacity and scale production. The Pentagon’s efforts to create a competitive market for proliferated military satellites is running into rising operational urgency, resulting in an increased reliance on one company that has mastered industrial-scale production. Policymakers and observers worry those objectives could become difficult to reconcile if major programs gravitate toward a single supplier.
