WASHINGTON — In a departure from recent guidance, the Space Force will use cost-plus contracts for its high-priority strategic communications satellite program.
Space Force acquisition executive Frank Calvelli said Feb. 23 that the service has decided to not use fixed-price contracts for the Evolved Strategic Satellite Communications System (ESS), a critical component of the U.S. military’s nuclear command, control, and communications (NC3) network that provides nuclear-survivable communications.
Calvelli has previously indicated a preference for fixed-price contracts as a means to control costs and incentivize efficiency in satellite procurements. However, he said that an exception will be made for the ESS program.
Boeing and Northrop Grumman were selected in 2020 to build ESS satellite prototypes but Calvelli suggested that these designs are not mature enough to transition to fixed-price production.
“It’s not as far along as I would like for us to probably use fixed price,” Calvelli said at an event hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
The ESS program is estimated to be worth $8 billion. These new satellites are intended to augment and eventually replace the Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF) network of nuclear-hardened satellites made by Lockheed Martin.
Draft solicitation in the works
Calvelli said the Space Systems Command is still working on a draft solicitation for ESS proposals, expected to be released this year.
He said he had expected the ESS payload designs to be more mature by now and nearing the prototyping stage. ESS was one of the programs selected for rapid-prototyping under a Pentagon initiative known as “middle tier acquisition”
“But it seems like we spent a lot of time in MTA just doing tech risk reduction or technology maturity,” said Calvelli. “Had we built a real payload or actually built the prototype, then maybe we could actually go off and do…
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