Space Force picks two companies to build new ‘space-to-space’ satellites by 2028

KYIV, Ukraine — The Space Force and the Pentagon have commissioned two companies to build new reconnaissance satellites capable of delivering high-resolution “space-to-space imagery” of objects more than 22,000 miles above Earth.

Space Systems Command awarded the prototype contracts to Northrop Grumman and True Anomaly under the Geosynchronous High-Resolution Optical Space-Based Tactical Reconnaissance program, or GHOST-R, on Sept. 18.

The deal pairs a veteran American defense prime with a four-year-old space tech company – both of which are already under contract with the Space Force to develop space-based interceptors for the Pentagon’s Golden Dome missile defense initiative.

“To be able to negate threats in space, we must be able to find, fix, track, and target those threats,” Gen. Stephen Whiting, head of U.S. Space Command, said Sept. 16 at the AMOS Conference in Maui, Hawaii, just days before the announcement.

“Targeting in the space domain is maturing, but it still has a long way to go.”

GHOST-R is meant to address some of these problems by using “commercially developed space vehicles, buses, and electro-optical payloads to deliver high-resolution, space-to-space imagery for characterizing resident space objects in [geostationary Earth orbit] GEO,” according to the command announcement.

The new contracts are the latest major development in the RG-XX program, the Space Force’s next-generation orbital tracking initiative aiming to field a fleet of agile, low-cost reconnaissance satellites in geosynchronous orbit to help build out U.S. defense capacity in space by the end of the decade.

“Collaborating with DIU on GHOST-R is a true force multiplier. We are leveraging rapid prototyping to push the envelope of what commercial tech can deliver to the RG-XX program,” Col. Bryon McClain, acting Portfolio Acquisition Executive (PAE) for Space Combat Power, said in the release.

Northrop will deliver a prototype the size of a “small suitcase” built on its ESPASat-L spacecraft, using a commercial optical sensor, and produced on “an accelerated 24-month timeline.”

“Space is becoming more congested and contested every day, and our joint forces depend on clear, timely insight into what’s happening on orbit,” Ryan Tintner, Northrop’s vice president, said in a company announcement about the deal.

True Anomaly will deliver its Jackal autonomous orbital vehicle and Mosaic command-and-control system, a dynamic operations sensor suite, through the initiative, according to the company’s release.

“As agile, maneuverable adversary platforms become more capable, the reconnaissance architecture can no longer rely on a handful of exquisite assets,” company CEO and co-founder Even Rogers said in the announcement.

Neither the Pentagon nor the companies have so far disclosed the value of the contracts or the source of their funding – although the money did not come from Andromeda, the Space Force’s up to $6.2 billion contract pool for RG-XX, an SSC spokesperson told Breaking Defense.

The new GHOST-R prototypes are set to launch directly to geosynchronous orbit by 2028 and fly government-owned and operated missions by 2029, officials said.