The Space Force awarded a major contract July 27 as part of its competition to develop the core mission planning software that will manage its future fleet of nuclear command and control satellites.
Space Systems Command announced a $287 million award to Sphinx Defense to develop a mission planning prototype for the ground segment of the Evolved Strategic Satellite Communications program. The application will help the service manage the network, share bandwidth among users, and provide stable, secure communications to the president and other heads of state.
“This award provides the ESS with critical mission planning capability and ensures the ground segment is fully prepared to address complex global scenarios,” SSC said in a statement. “By leveraging competitive prototypes in the earlier phases, Space Systems Command is delivering an application that is both extremely capable and ready to integrate seamlessly into the larger enterprise.”
ESS will eventually take over the nuclear mission carried out today by the Space Force’s Advanced Extremely High Frequency satellite constellation. The program is an important part of the Pentagon’s broader work to modernize the nuclear enterprise.
The ESS ground segment, also called the Ground Resilient Integration Framework for Operational NC3 or GRIFFON, will manage the strategic communications satellites and the capabilities they provide once they are in orbit. The Space Force’s goal is to field GRIFFON much more quickly than it has historically delivered ground segments, which have traditionally lagged behind satellite development and often leave unused capacity in orbit. The aim is to halve the traditional time frame – from 12 to six years.
To do this, the service is leveraging a range of flexible procurement tools, including the Pentagon’s software procurement pathway – which allows military services to purchase software more quickly – and a novel competitive prototyping approach in which companies create competing ground segment prototypes in four segments:
- Framewhich focuses on establishing a modular, open architecture that can host multiple mission applications and services
- Soil integrationThis includes the internal and external ground interfaces such as command and control terminals and space-to-ground links
- System integration systemwhich integrates the cryptographic terminals for space and ground
- Mission applicationsranging from testing and training support to command and control and mission planning
“The competitive prototypes that ESS used to acquire and develop the software represented an approach not previously used to acquire DOD software at this scale,” SSC said in a March 2025 article. “As a result, ESS was able to dramatically reduce mission times and system costs. Conservative estimates show that ESS’s ground software will deliver user-controlled capabilities twice as quickly as an average conventional ground system.”
This iterative development strategy means this latest mission application award builds on previous phases of competitive prototypes, according to SSC.
Charlotte Gerhart, deputy portfolio acquisition manager for satellite communications and positioning, navigation and timing, said in a recent interview with Air & Space Forces Magazine that the broader GRIFFON acquisition effort is progressing well and on schedule to support the first ESS satellites once they are ready for launch.
“They’re really making great progress,” Gerhart said. “You have to have a ground system. Otherwise there’s no point in launching anything.”
The first two spacecraft that Boeing is building under a $2.8 billion contract are scheduled to be delivered by 2031. The contract, issued in 2025, includes an option to purchase two additional spacecraft.
The Space Force’s fiscal year 2027 budget request includes $1.8 billion for the ESS – more than $1.2 billion for satellite development and about $571 million for GRIFFON. Between FY28 and FY2031, the service expects to need approximately $4.8 billion to fund these efforts.
https://www.airandspaceforces.com/space-force-key-software-contract-strategic-satcom/
