Air Force kicks off AMTI program with competition for first ‘increment’

COLORADO SPRINGS — The Department of the Air Force (DAF) has launched a competition for satellites that can track airborne targets, according to Secretary Troy Meink, rebuffing skepticism over whether the technology known as airborne moving target indication (AMTI) is ready for prime time. 

“We’ve awarded the base contract for the new space-based airborne moving target indication capability, and are competing a contract for the first operational increment,” Meink said during a keynote address at the Space Symposium conference here.

In a later briefing with reporters, Meink explained that the AMTI program consists of an indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity contract issued to “multiple vendors” to kick off “development activities.” The Department of the Air Force will issue “multiple operational contracts” over time, Meink added, with one coming “fairly shortly” for “the first operational increment of those systems.” (Meink didn’t identify the winner(s) of the base contract, and a DAF spokesperson wasn’t able to immediately clarify.)

News of the AMTI contract comes on the heels of the Space Force’s fiscal 2027 budget request, which is seeking a whopping $7 billion to start buying space-based AMTI systems, after requesting no procurement money for those assets in FY26.

Asked about the maturity of space-based AMTI — which faces the daunting physics of an orbiting satellite keeping track of fast-flying aircraft — Meink said the technology has already been demonstrated, and asserted whatever the DAF buys will “far and away” be “the most capable AMTI system” ever fielded.

“There’s not a question anymore about whether or not the technology” works, Meink said. “We know it does. Now it’s just, how do we build it affordably and get it on orbit and make sure we have competition going forward.”

Gen. Chance Saltzman, Space Force chief, told reporters here today that because the service wasn’t looking to develop an exquisite capability for AMTI, “we have designed the requirements around scalability so we can use the procurement funding lines to actually achieve that economy of scale with industry.”

The Space Force is developing both AMTI space systems and satellites that can track ground targets (GMTI) with the National Reconnaissance Office, where Meink previously served as principal deputy director. The Pentagon’s bullishness on AMTI satellites in particular has helped fuel resistance within the department to the Air Force’s E-7 Wedgetail AMTI aircraft program, which lawmakers forced the Air Force to continue after the service attempted to cancel the radar plane last year. 

The Space Force’s new Objective Force plan projecting its future needs through 2040 characterizes moving target indication as an “emerging mission” for the service, required to meet the needs of US combatant commanders for warfighting in heavily contested contingencies.

“With the advent of autonomous vehicles, drone swarms, and hybrid force packages, the future battlefield demands the Joint Force act quickly across multiple domains with limited time for sense or decision making. As such, it requires the ability to identify, track, and engage numerous moving targets simultaneously, closing long-range kill chains on demand,” says the plan, revealed today by Saltzman.

Space-based moving target indication satellites “offer the persistent and global long-range sensing required for beyond line-of-sight (BLOS) targeting and fires against moving air, land, and sea targets. Lastly, they can connect with each other, providing global battlespace awareness of contested environments across Combatant Commands,” it adds.