WASHINGTON — The House Growth Company chosen 19 corporations from the house trade to take part in its Hybrid Acquisition for Proliferated Low Earth Orbit (HALO) program, an effort to speed up the event of satellite tv for pc applied sciences.
Beneath this system, the chosen distributors will compete for contracts to hold out experimental house missions, offering the company a testing floor for superior applied sciences which will later be built-in into future satellite tv for pc networks.
The aim is to check and refine applied sciences earlier than integrating them into the SDA’s Proliferated Warfighter House Structure (PWSA) — a big satellite tv for pc community designed to reinforce army communications and missile monitoring capabilities.
“By way of HALO, we now have a good sooner and extra versatile contracting mechanism in place,” stated SDA Director Derek Tournear throughout remarks on the MilSat Symposium Oct. 23 in Mountain View, California. “The thought is to rapidly compete, construct, and fly demonstration missions to burn down threat for the longer term PWSA.”
Tournear stated 40 proposals had been acquired for the HALO program. The next corporations had been chosen: Airbus U.S. House & Protection, Apex Expertise, AST House Cell, Astro Digital, Capella House, CesiumAstro, Firefly Aerospace, Geneva Applied sciences, Impulse House, Kepler Communications, Kuiper Authorities Options, LeoStella, Momentus House, Muon House, NovaWurks, SpaceX, Terran Orbital, Turion House, York House Methods.
These corporations will compete beneath an indefinite-delivery-indefinite-quantity (IDIQ) contract mannequin, which permits flexibility in awarding contracts over time with no fastened quantity or schedule. They’ll bid for particular person activity orders for speedy prototyping and demonstration missions.
Every of the 19 distributors will obtain an preliminary $20,000 fee to cowl administrative and journey bills.
The primary activity orders will concentrate on constructing and launching two satellites inside the subsequent 12 to 18 months. These early missions will check applied sciences equivalent to tactical information hyperlinks and optical communication, essential parts of the PWSA’s data-sharing capabilities. Tournear stated the HALO demonstrations will assist scale back the technological threat earlier than techniques are deployed in full operational capability.
“As quickly as a prototype order is issued, we wish groups to begin forming primarily based on the very best expertise, finest functionality inside the construction of HALO,” Frank Turner, SDA’s technical director, stated Oct. 23 on the AFCEA House Trade Days convention in Los Angeles.
Turner described the HALO program as a “fly earlier than we purchase” method, wherein SDA will check promising applied sciences in house earlier than committing to large-scale deployments. “If we’re not 100% certain a couple of expertise, let’s go determine it out with these demonstrations,” he stated.
The chosen corporations vary from established trade giants like SpaceX and Airbus U.S. House & Protection to newer gamers equivalent to Apex Expertise and Muon House, reflecting the SDA’s aim of diversifying its vendor base and incorporating rising applied sciences from throughout the business house sector.
This system additionally gives a platform for collaboration among the many chosen distributors, with SDA encouraging groups to kind partnerships in pursuit of prototype orders. Tournear indicated that the pool of distributors might increase over time, relying on program wants and the success of early missions.
