Government documents show a lineup of defense contractors joining SpaceX to create a satellite network to track airborne threats
The U.S. government is tapping both of the country's biggest launch providers, Rocket Lab and SpaceX, for its Space-Based Airborne Moving Target Indicator (SB-AMTI) program.
Rocket Lab, Lockheed Martin and L3 Harris Technologies are among a group of eight aerospace and defense companies sharing a multibillion-dollar military vendor pool with SpaceX for a new space defense program, government documents show.
Last month, Space Systems Command - an organization under the U.S. Space Force - announced that it had awarded SpaceX $(SPCX)$ a $4.16 billion contract for the Space-Based Airborne Moving Target Indicator (SB-AMTI) program. The Space Force, a branch of the U.S. Armed Forces under the Department of the Air Force, had previously indicated that there were a total of nine vendors in the pool.
According to government records posted on the federal government's procurement portal managed by the General Services Administration, Rocket Lab (RKLB), York Space Systems $(YSS)$, Visto 360 AI, Wildstar and Systems & Technology Research received contracts valued at $10,000 each under the SB-AMTI initiative. The records were first flagged on social media by space investor Jacob Keeton and a user of the social-media platform X posting under the handle @trypto_tran.
Government records also showed that Northrop Grumman $(NOC)$, Lockheed Martin (LMT) and L3 Harris $(LHX)$ received contracts for $6,666 each under the SB-AMTI initiative. All nine SB-AMTI contracts were signed between March 23 and March 25 of this year and run until March 2031.
A Space Force spokesperson told MarketWatch that Space Systems Command could neither confirm nor deny the vendor identities due to national-security interests.
Representatives for SpaceX, Rocket Lab, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, L3Harris Technologies, Systems & Technology Research, Wildstar and Visto 360 AI did not immediately respond to requests for comment from MarketWatch. York Space Systems said that it could not confirm or deny any information about the contract posted on the government website.
SpaceX's contract shows that the ultimate scope of the SB-AMTI program - which aims to implement a space-based sensing layer to track and target airborne threats - extends far beyond the Pentagon's initial $4.16 billion disclosure. SpaceX secured $2.637 billion in total obligations in March, with the agreement's maximum potential contract value capping at $9.34 billion. The other eight vendors' total obligations of $10,000 and $6,666 are placeholder allocations designed to grant them a position in the vendor pool.
Traditionally, the U.S. military has tracked airborne threats, such as missiles and drones, by flying aircraft over areas of interest. However, the rapid proliferation of advanced antiaircraft missiles by foreign adversaries has diminished the effectiveness of this strategy.
This SB-AMTI award is projected to deploy a constellation of satellites in low-Earth orbit by 2028 to continuously monitor global airspace and eliminate operational blind spots. Satellites with advanced sensors will sweep through airspace to pick up information that traditional airborne radars can't read, then beam the data through a laser-linked orbital mesh network directly to meet warfighter needs.
SpaceX and Rocket Lab are the two biggest launch-services providers in the U.S., and also provide end-to-end satellite manufacturing services.
In the May announcement, Space System Command shared that "Space Force anticipates issuing multiple awards in the coming year to drive a vendor-diverse expansion" - a signal that the nine-vendor pool anchored by SpaceX is only the beginning of a larger pipeline.
-Christine Ji
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June 24, 2026 19:47 ET (23:47 GMT)
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