The U.S. Space Force is likely to expand its contract for low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite services, driven by growing demand from military branches for high-speed satellite internet, primarily supplied by SpaceX\u2019s Starshield and OneWeb.<\/p>\n
The\u00a0Proliferated Low Earth Orbit (PLEO) Satellite-Based Services program began in 2023 with a $900 million cap over 10 years and is approaching its projected spending limit much sooner than anticipated. The program aggregates demand from various military departments and provides access to low-latency satellite communication services from multiple commercial vendors.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt some point, we are going to have to raise the ceiling on the PLEO contract,\u201d Col. Richard Kniseley, head of the Space Systems Command\u2019s Commercial Space Office, told\u00a0SpaceNews<\/em>.<\/p>\n \u201cThe ceiling is $900 million, and we\u2019re at about $660 million right now, just over a year since we started this contract. So the appetite is there,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The PLEO contract allows the military to procure satellite services without managing separate deals for each military unit. Instead, the military combines multiple orders to achieve cost savings. \u201cThe great thing about the PLEO contract is that we\u2019re able to group the requirements of many different entities to get the best price possible for the government,\u201d Kniseley added.<\/p>\n SpaceX\u2019s Starshield, a military-optimized version of its Starlink satellite internet service, and OneWeb have won most of the task orders under the contract. Iridium Communications, a long-standing player in satellite communications, has received one task order so far.<\/p>\n Kniseley said his office also is supporting the U.S. Army\u2019s procurement of satcom services separately from the PLEO program.\u00a0 The Army recently completed a\u00a0one-year pilot program\u00a0evaluating commercial options and is now conducting market research to identify future satcom procurement strategies beyond the PLEO framework.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The U.S. Space Force is likely to expand its contract for low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite services, driven by growing demand from military branches for high-speed satellite internet, primarily supplied […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1595,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[61,69],"class_list":["post-970","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-satellite","tag-us-space-force"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/SPACE-FORCE-SATELLITE.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/970","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=970"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/970\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1596,"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/970\/revisions\/1596"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1595"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=970"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=970"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=970"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}