Two Puget Sound-region space heavyweights were awarded $137 million by NASA last week to help create next-generation satellite communication services to potentially support the agency’s missions.
All told, NASA awarded $278.5 million to six satellite communications providers, with the lion’s share going to SpaceX ($70 million) and Amazon.com Inc. ($67 million), both of which have satellite divisions based in Redmond.
NASA, though its Communication Services Project, wants to seek multiple private-sector contracts to acquire services for near-Earth operations by 2030 as it decommissions its own satellite fleet. The move allows NASA to free itself up to devote more time and resources to its moon landing and deep space efforts, the agency said in a press release.
Each of the six companies are to complete technology development and in-space demonstrations by 2025 to prove their proposed solution will deliver robust, reliable, and cost-effective mission-oriented operations, the agency said.
Awardees are expected to match or exceed agency contributions during the five-year development and demonstration period, totaling more than $1.5 billion of cost-share investment.
“We are following the agency’s proven approach developed through commercial cargo and commercial crew services,” said project manager Eli Naffah, adding that the agreement formats will incentivize companies to demonstrate technologies that will lead to viable projects.
Amazon’s (Nasdaq: AMZN) Kuiper satellite division will handle the work through its Kuiper Government Solutions subsidiary in Arlington, Virginia. The company’s satellites are produced at its facility in Redmond.
“We’re designing Project Kuiper to deliver high-speed, low-latency broadband service to a wide range of customers, and this award is an additional vote of confidence that we’re on the right path,” Rusty Thomas, director of Kuiper Government Solutions, told the Business Journal in an email statement.
SpaceX did not respond to requests for comment about the grant.
The other four awards went to Inmarsat Government Inc. ($28.6 million), SES Government Solutions ($28.96 million), Telesat U.S. Services ($30.65 million) and Viasat Inc. ($53.3 million).
As of Jan. 1, SpaceX had around 1,815 Starlink satellites on orbit, more than a third of the 4,852 satellites currently orbiting Earth, according to data from the Union of Concerned Scientists. Kuiper, meanwhile, signed a deal earlier this month with three launch partners to lift its competing constellation of 3,236 satellites into orbit over the next five years.
Washington state employment as of March 2022
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