{"id":138393,"date":"2022-04-21T10:02:49","date_gmt":"2022-04-21T15:02:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2022\/04\/nasa-enlists-spacex-and-amazon-to-help-develop-next-gen-space-communications"},"modified":"2022-04-21T10:02:49","modified_gmt":"2022-04-21T15:02:49","slug":"nasa-enlists-spacex-and-amazon-to-help-develop-next-gen-space-communications","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2022\/04\/nasa-enlists-spacex-and-amazon-to-help-develop-next-gen-space-communications","title":{"rendered":"NASA enlists SpaceX and Amazon to help develop next-gen space communications"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/nasa-enlists-spacex-and-amazon-to-help-develop-next-gen-space-communications2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>NASA has <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/press-release\/nasa-industry-to-collaborate-on-space-communications-by-2025\" target=\"_blank\">picked<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.engadget.com\/delta-starlink-satellite-internet-trial-081226116.html\">SpaceX<\/a>, Amazon and four other American companies to develop the next generation of near-Earth space communication services meant to support its future missions. The agency started <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/feature\/glenn\/2021\/nasa-seeks-partners-for-near-earth-communications\" target=\"_blank\">looking<\/a> for partners under the Communication Services Project (CSP) in mid-2021, explaining that the use of commercially provided SATCOM will reduce costs and allow it to focus its efforts on deep space exploration and science missions.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAdopting commercial SATCOM capabilities will empower missions to leverage private sector investment that far exceeds what government can do,\u201d NASA wrote in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www1.grc.nasa.gov\/space\/communications-services-program\/\" target=\"_blank\">official project page<\/a>. By using technology developed by commercial companies, the agency will have continued access to any innovation they incorporate into the system. At the moment, NASA relies on its Tracking and Data Relay Satellite (TDRS) system for near-Earth space communications. Many of its satellites were launched in the 80\u2019s and 90\u2019s, though, and it\u2019s set to be decommissioned in the coming years.<\/p>\n<p>The funded agreements under NASA\u2019s Communication Services Project has a combined value of $278.5 million, with SpaceX getting the highest cut. NASA expects the companies to match and exceed its contribution during the five-year development period. SpaceX, which proposed a \u201ccommercial optical low-Earth orbiting relay network for high-rate SATCOM services,\u201d has been awarded $69.95 million. Amazon\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.engadget.com\/amazon-project-kuiper-test-2022-190551476.html\">Project Kuiper<\/a> is getting the second-highest cut and has been awarded $67 million, while Viasat Incorporated has been awarded $53.3 million. The other three awardees are Telesat US Services ($30.65 million), SES Government Solutions ($28.96 million) and Inmarsat Government Inc. ($28.6 million).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>NASA has picked SpaceX, Amazon and four other American companies to develop the next generation of near-Earth space communication services meant to support its future missions. The agency started looking for partners under the Communication Services Project (CSP) in mid-2021, explaining that the use of commercially provided SATCOM will reduce costs and allow it to [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":396,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1490,2028],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-138393","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-government","category-satellites"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138393","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/396"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=138393"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138393\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=138393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=138393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=138393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}