Space Force awards $437M to Viasat, SES for swarm-based military satellites

The U.S. Space Force awarded contracts totaling about $437.6 million to Viasat and SES to build four small geostationary satellites for the Protected Tactical Satcom-Global (PTS-G) network designed to resist jamming and cyberattacks. The four satellites (Swarm 1) will be split evenly between Viasat and SES and delivered by March 2029 to enable X-band and Ka-band military communications in a swarm architecture to improve resilience. A second procurement of four additional satellites is planned for 2028, with deployment targeted for 2031; other contractors in the program include Astranis, Boeing, and Northrop Grumman.