Photo: NASA

U.S. Space Force’s Space Systems Command (SSC) said on Wednesday that it has awarded 14 companies more than $1.8 billion in firm fixed price “Andromeda” contracts for the Geosynchronous Reconnaissance & Surveillance Constellation (RG-XX) satellites, which are to be a successor to the Northrop Grumman-built Geosynchronous Space Situational Awareness Program (GSSAP)

The companies include Anduril Industries, Lockheed Martin; Boeing‘s Millenium Space Systems; Northrop Grumman; L3Harris Technologies; BAE Systems; Sierra Space; Redwire; General Atomics; Astranis Space Technologies Corp.; True Anomaly; Turion Space; Intuitive Machines LLC; and Quantum Space LLC.

“This contract provides for the procurement of space-based space domain awareness capability,” the Defense Department said. “Work will be performed at various vendor facilities as indicated above and is expected to be completed by April 8, 2036. These contracts were competitive acquisitions and 32 offers were received.”

Five GSSAP satellites maneuver to conduct rendezvous and proximity operations to monitor and inspect other satellites, and the RG-XX constellation may be significantly larger.

SSC has said that it views the trimming of requirements in RG-XX and the incorporation of commercial technology as a guide for future acquisitions.

Under the RG-XX commercial approach, Space Force operators would be “accomplishing the same GSSAP mission” and “using the same GSSAP system with the same ground systems and data they do now, but these would be using faster, cheaper commercial build times and less expensive parts in order to bring that together faster,” Space Force Maj. Gen. Stephen Purdy said last year.

This story was first published by Defense Daily