WASHINGTON— The Pentagon’s technology arm is expanding an initiative to tap commercial satellites and infrastructure to deliver battlefield data faster and more securely.
The Defense Innovation Unit, an organization based in Silicon Valley that works with the tech industry to help fill military needs, announced May 12 it had added more than a dozen new companies to its Hybrid Space Architecture (HSA) project.
The HSA initiative, launched in 2022, brings together Earth imaging satellite operators, broadband providers, and companies specializing in cybersecurity, cloud computing, and quantum encryption. The goal is to create an infrastructure that ensures data from satellites is delivered to military users securely and without disruptions.
DIU is working on the project in collaboration with the Air Force Research Laboratory, the U.S. Space Force and other military organizations.
The latest round of companies added to the project includes Capella Space, EdgeCortix, Eutelsat America Corp. OneWeb Technologies, Fairwinds Technologies and AST Space Mobile, Illumina Computing Group, Lockheed Martin Space, MapLarge, SES Space & Defense, Skycorp, SkyFi, Ursa Space, and Viasat.
They join eight other firms that were brought on board in 2022: Aalyria Technologies, Amazon Web Services, Amazon Kuiper, Anduril, Astranis, ATLAS Space Operations, Enveil, Google, Palantir, Planet Labs, Microsoft, and SpiderOak.
Instead of traditional defense contracts, the Defense Innovation Unit uses “other transaction agreements” — a type of public-private partnership that requires companies to prototype and test technologies upfront, often sharing development costs with the government.
In this case, vendors are being asked to build and demonstrate ways to gather, transmit, and process data securely across the globe—and deliver it to military units.
“DIU’s ability to rapidly integrate and deliver a hybrid space network architecture is testament to its process of allowing commercial innovators to solve complex problems at speed and scale by applying their solutions to DoD’s problems,” said Steve Butow, who leads DIU’s space portfolio.
Butow has championed the project as a way to give military commands around the world easier and secure access to tactical intelligence, without the burden of carrying multiple radios or specialized satellite terminals.
‘Real time access to information’
The companies in the hybrid space network project will take part in live demonstrations starting this summer, supporting key regions where U.S. military forces operate, including the Indo-Pacific, Europe, Central Asia, and South America. DIU says the goal is to have a working version of the hybrid network ready by 2026.
To support that timeline, DIU said it plans to activate a live version of the network to test in exercises and wargames.
The promise of the hybrid architecture lies in its ability to route data through multiple commercial and military channels, which DIU says can help overcome problems such as bad weather, cyber threats, or equipment failures.
“HSA seeks to integrate commercial persistent sensing, data fusion, high-performance edge compute, and resilient data transport capabilities to significantly enhance real-time access to information,” DIU said in a statement.
