U.S. Air Force funds research into orbital combat tools

The U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory has awarded BlueHalo a contract worth up to nearly $100 million for research and development work under a program called Leveraged Orbital Battlespace Optimization. The five-year, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract runs through August 29, 2031, and came out of a competitive process in which BlueHalo was the only company to submit a bid.

Only a small fraction of that ceiling is funded so far. The Air Force obligated roughly $1.7 million in fiscal 2026 research and development funds at the time of the award, covering two initial task orders with a combined value of up to roughly $20.2 million. Work will be split between BlueHalo’s site in Huntsville, Alabama, and Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico, home to AFRL’s Space Vehicles Directorate, which is managing the contract.

The contract notice describes the work only in broad terms, as research meant to advance scientific knowledge and state-of-the-art technology for space systems. AFRL has not published a detailed public description of what the Leveraged Orbital Battlespace Optimization program is meant to produce, and neither the lab nor BlueHalo has said what the first two task orders will cover.

BlueHalo, based in Huntsville, Alabama, and Arlington, Virginia, builds systems across space superiority, directed energy, counter-drone technology, autonomy and signals intelligence. The company has a running relationship with the Air Force Research Laboratory beyond this new contract. On September 2, 2026, the Air Force added $11.2 million to a separate BlueHalo research contract called Aiman Improved Readiness, bringing that deal’s total value to $41.2 million, with work performed in Beavercreek, Ohio, near AFRL’s headquarters at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. The Air Force has not disclosed what the Aiman Improved Readiness program is meant to develop.

BlueHalo has also built up a track record in space communications specifically. In March 2025, the company said it had successfully demonstrated a long-haul, two-terminal laser communication system built to simulate conditions across low-Earth, medium-Earth and geosynchronous orbit, advancing the technology to Technology Readiness Level 6, a designation indicating a system has been proven in a relevant environment and is ready for accelerated development. Mary Clum, president of BlueHalo’s Product & Space Systems Portfolio, said at the time that the terminals were meant to support rapid production for satellites “across all echelons of space.” When U.S. Space Force Chief of Space Operations Gen. Chance Saltzman toured BlueHalo’s Albuquerque facility in June 2024, the Air Force described the company’s focus there as improving orbital warfare, space domain awareness, resilient communications and command-and-control processes, the same general areas the new contract’s title points toward.

What remains unclear is how the new program differs from BlueHalo’s existing space work at Kirtland, and how large the eventual body of task-order work might grow within the contract’s nearly $100 million ceiling.