ARLINGTON, Va. — Telesat U.S. Services, a subsidiary of Ottawa-based satellite operator Telesat, announced today it has been awarded a contract by DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) for the development and in-orbit demonstration of commercial low-Earth-orbit (LEO) spacecraft buses in a LEO constellation network as part of DARPA’s Blackjack program.
Telesat was initially contracted in 2018 to undertake system engineering and interface definition under Phase 1 of the Blackjack program. With the awarding of this new contract, Telesat U.S. Services will develop and demonstrate the Blackjack Phase 2/3 Track B technology, including in-orbit testing of the capabilities of Optical Inter-Satellite Links (OISLs).
As part of Phase 2, Telesat U.S. Services will deliver two spacecraft buses to DARPA in less than one year for a “risk reduction” flight to test OISL communications with government payloads in orbit and to demonstrate OISL interoperability with different hardware, says Telesat’s press release.
According to the release, the Phase 2 base contract represents a US$18.3-million program for Telesat U.S. Services. Subsequently, additional Telesat LEO spacecraft may be procured to fully populate the Blackjack constellation, representing a total contract value of up to US$175.6 million if all options are exercised, says the release.
“This next phase of the Blackjack program will showcase the powerful capabilities that commercial LEO networks bring to a hybrid architecture for government space communications,” said Don Brown, general manager of Telesat U.S. Services, in the release. “With OISLs and advanced networking native to the Telesat LEO constellation architecture, we are uniquely positioned to deliver interoperable mesh connectivity between government and commercial constellations. We look forward to continuing our work with DARPA to prove out the game-changing nature of hybrid commercial-government networks.”
DARPA’s Blackjack program is a demonstration of LEO satellites in hybrid commercial-government constellations offering highly resilient space systems, global persistence, low-latency communications and rapid technology refresh. The Telesat LEO constellation includes a number of features that align with the Blackjack program vision, including spacecraft buses with native OISL capability, mesh networking, onboard processing, and a full global network architecture backed by global priority spectrum allocations, says the release.
