BlueHalo has been awarded a $1.4B contract by the Space Rapid Capabilities Office (SpRCO), a direct reporting unit of the U.S. Space Force. The award is for the Satellite Communication Augmentation Resource (SCAR) program. This effort will include full lifecycle development from initial design through full rate production. The SCAR program will deliver premier satellite operations capability—maximizing automation, flexibility, and commonality while enabling continuous modernization.
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BlueHalo’s advanced radio frequency (RF) solutions will serve as the key enabling technology for the SCAR program. The foundation of the program is BlueHalo’s proprietary Multi-band Software Defined Antenna (MSDA) technology. BlueHalo’s MSDA is a phased array technology that simplifies mission operations through agile and re-configurable beamforming tiles. BlueHalo’s Broad Area Deployable Ground terminal enabling Resilient communication (BADGER) provides a multi-band and deployable ground communications system built upon the core MSDA technology. The system is extensible across multiple mission areas, enabling communications between multiple spatial, spectral, and temporal diverse targets.
“Between the rapid proliferation of new space satellite constellations at a relentless rate and the criticality of the U.S. maintaining its strategic advantage as a Nation in space in the face of advancing adversaries, new technologies had to be brought to bear,” said Jonathan Moneymaker, BlueHalo’s Chief Executive Officer. “I could not be prouder of BlueHalo’s talented engineers, scientists, and support staff for leading the development of our BADGER offering and the partnership we have forged with the Space Rapid Capabilities Office to bring the SCAR program to life. This program will redefine our national capabilities for decades to come.”
BlueHalo will partner with Kratos Defense & Security Solutions, Inc. on the SCAR effort. Kratos will provide their OpenSpace Platform, a software-defined satellite ground system. OpenSpace enables scalable deployments within an elastic, cloud-agnostic, fully virtualized environment built upon widely-accepted industry standards. With the OpenSpace Platform, customers can instantiate new services in minutes instead of the weeks, or even months, commonly required with traditional hardware-based ground systems. The Kratos award for this effort is valued at approximately $160 million, including a combination of software, services and other system elements.