U.S. Space Force’s Space Systems Command has awarded Viasat and Intelsat General, the U.S. division of Luxembourg’s SES, a nearly $438 million contract for satellites under the Protected Tactical Satellite-Global (PTS-G) program, according to a Friday Pentagon contracts announcement.
The Space Force has said that production for the PTS-G bus and payload is to begin this fiscal year, as well as the purchase of parts for PTS-G ground integration.
Viasat has said that it will demonstrate what its dual-band X/Ka-band geostationary Earth orbit (GEO) satellite design will offer for PTS-G by the second quarter of this year.
In July last year, SSC said that it had awarded up to $4 billion in PTS-G development contracts to Viasat, Intelsat General, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, and Astranis.
Viasat has said it “will mature a design for a dual-band X/Ka-band satellite and anchor station architecture, inclusive of tracking, telemetry, and command, satellite and network operations, and cybersecurity requirements.”
SSC has said that the 2026 PTS-G production will meet initial operational capability (IOC) “with a projected launch in 2028, putting the first PTS-G satellite in orbit.”
“A second wave of production awards for additional PTS-G satellite capability is planned for 2028, with launch planned for 2031,” according to SSC. IOC of PTS-G is to occur in fiscal 2029, followed by full operational capability in fiscal 2031.
PTS is the follow-on to Lockheed Martin’s Advanced Extremely High Frequency communications satellite constellation. The program includes PTS-G, PTS-Resilient (PTS-R), and PTS-Prototype payloads.
“Lower complexity” PTS-G GEO satellites in Ka-band and X-band are to fill a gap between the “more focused” PTS-R and the “broadly-available but also the lower assured access capabilities provided by existing/emerging milsatcom and commercial services,” Space Force has said.
PTS-G was a new start in the Department of the Air Force’s fiscal 2025 budget request.
The Space Force and U.S. Strategic Command have worked on PTS and the Protected Tactical Enterprise Service ground system program to counter adversaries’ satellite jamming through the use of a Protected Tactical Waveform.
Last year, the Space Force decided to delay the start of PTS-R engineering and manufacturing development until fiscal 2028 and to accelerate PTS-P as an interim toward fielding PTS-R.
The service requested about $449 million for PTS in fiscal 2027, including $150 million for PTS-G.
