On May 29, the acting U.S. Space Force (USSF) Portfolio Acquisition Executive (PAE) for Space Based Sensing & Targeting (SBST) announced that it has awarded a competitive Other Transaction Authority (OTA) agreement for $4.16 billion to SpaceX for the Space-Based Airborne Moving Target Indicator (SB-AMTI) program. This award accelerates the delivery of a space-based sensing layer designed to track and target airborne threats globally.
The long-standing method of military airborne platforms to track moving targets faces continued challenges as adversaries develop increasingly sophisticated anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) systems. To compliment traditional airborne sensing, the requirement for a layered, highly resilient tracking architecture is evident. SB-AMTI aims to enhance the Space Force’s capabilities to the Joint Force through the establishment of a persistent, global capability to sense and track airborne targets from space.
“By focusing these capabilities to the space domain, we are providing the Joint Force with sustained battlespace awareness of contested airspace,” said USSF Col. Ryan Frazier, acting Space Force portfolio acquisition executive for SBST. “We are beginning development and integration efforts immediately to meet the program’s rapid deployment milestones and address emerging national security requirements.”
Designed as a complex system-of-systems, the SB-AMTI architecture integrates advanced space-based sensors, secure and rapid communication links, and resilient ground processing, reflecting a rapid and strategic shift toward deeper collaboration within the government space industrial base.
To successfully execute this complex mission set, the acting SBST PAE is using a layered, hybrid acquisition model by combining the flexibility of an OTA agreement with the scalable, rapid-ordering structure of an Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity (ID/IQ) acquisition approach. The office has also established a new SB-AMTI vendor pool, which leverages mature commercial innovations to meet urgent warfighter needs at the speed of relevance.
“By utilizing this multi-vendor framework, we are capitalizing on established industry capacity and continuously evaluating and onboarding the best tech to field this essential capability at speed and scale,” Frazier said. “We will not leverage any one single provider; instead, we are partnering with a highly diversified pool of traditional and non-traditional vendors, each bringing various capabilities to support the SB-AMTI architecture, ensuring the Joint Force has access to a strong, competitive industrial base well into the future.”
Source: SSC
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