Space Force Awards $437.7M to Viasat and Intelsat for First Two PTS-G Satellites in Multi-Year Anti-Jam Program

U.S. Space Force awarded contracts to Viasat and Intelsat for production of the first two operational satellites under the Protected Tactical SATCOM – Global program. 7 million and cover manufacturing, integration, test, launch, and on-orbit checkout.

The satellites are collectively called Swarm-1 and will operate in geosynchronous Earth orbit. They will deliver limited regional connectivity in the X and military Ka-bands. Space Systems Command initiated the PTS-G program in 2025 with a $248 million budget.

The program forms a new tier within the Protected Anti-Jam Tactical SATCOM family of systems. 5 million to Boeing, Viasat, Northrop Grumman, Astranis, and Intelsat. The Space Force aimed to launch the first PTS-G satellite in 2028.

The fiscal year 2026 research and development budget allocated almost $237 million to PTS-G. The fiscal year 2027 request includes $150 million. PTS-G satellites will assume the encrypted tactical SATCOM portion of the Advanced Extremely High Frequency System mission.

The AEHF satellites currently supply highly encrypted communications for strategic and tactical needs. The broader PATS program develops a disaggregated satellite architecture to replace the AEHF tactical mission.

U.S. And allied military satellites as well as commercial satellites. "PTS-G is a key component of the USSF’s resilient SATCOM architecture, designed to provide tactical warfighters with a worldwide, transponded system, leveraging both Protected Tactical Waveform (PTW) and non-PTW waveforms, to provide critical communication to existing legacy wideband users while also deploying PTW to provide anti-jam satellite communications to counter emerging threats and ensure connectivity in denied environments," the SSC press release stated.