Space Force awards $1B ground system software contract

Space Force's organization responsible for developing and acquiring technologies on a faster turn has selected 20 small businesses for a potential seven-year, $1 billion contract vehicle focused on software development.

The Space Rapid Capabilities Office sought to hire a pool of companies in support of the service branch's effort to further develop a next-generation ground system that leans on a commercial cloud architecture.

Awardees will vie for task orders to perform work under the Rapid Resilient Command and Control program also known as R2C2, the Space RCO said in a Thursday release. R2C2 was a small business set-aside contract with an initial five-year base period and a single two-year options.

Companies selected for the program are as follows:

• Aalyria Technologies
• A.i. solutions
• Defense Unicorns
• FTI – Frontier Technology
• Giuseppe Engineering
• Infinity Systems Engineering
• IS4S – Integrated Solutions for Systems
• NewSat North America
• Northstrat
• Omitron
• Omni Federal
• Pacific Crest Alliance
• Picogrid
• Quantum Research International
• Raft
• Rogue Space Systems
• Sphinx Defense
• Systems & Technology Research
• TapHere! Technology
• True Anomaly

Space Force will use the contract to acquire the software systems in what the office calls "bite-size" pieces, or in a more incremental and iterative approach versus larger-scaled implementations.

The idea is to more rapidly bring in systems engineering, integration and software solutions that Space Force can use to scale up its capacity for prototype integration across multiple satellite programs.

R2C2 is also designed as a mechanism to help Space Force and its mission partners deliver more capabilities in automation and common user experience to operators, all with the goal of being able to move space assets faster when new threats emerge.