NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — The U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory awarded Northrop Grumman a $54.7 million contract to develop satellite communications antennas for military aircraft, the Department of Defense announced Sept. 16.
The three-year contract falls under the Defense Experimentation Using Commercial Space Internet (DEUCSI) program, an effort to create military networks leveraging commercial space internet constellations like Starlink, OneWeb, SES’s O3b and others.
Under the contract, Northrop Grumman will develop multi-band, high-throughput satellite communications antennas that can be integrated onto various military aircraft. A similar contract was awarded last month to Raytheon.
The DEUCSI program is part of a broader initiative to enhance the U.S. military’s ability to share information seamlessly across land, sea, and air forces.
Several defense contractors, including L3Harris Technologies, Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and BAE Systems, are developing antennas and supporting technologies to give military users access to commercial internet services in low, medium, and geostationary orbits using a common set of user terminal hardware.
Sandra Erwin writes about military space programs, policy, technology and the industry that supports this sector. She has covered the military, the Pentagon, Congress and the defense industry for nearly two decades as editor of NDIA’s National Defense…
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