NASA just handed out more than a billion dollars in combined contracts to three companies for a job most people never think about: relaying the data that keeps spacecraft talking to Earth.

  • 3 companies selected: Astranis, Global Enterprise Solutions, and Viasat
  • $1.07 billion in combined maximum contract value across all three awards
  • 2029 is when priced contract options can run through
  • 1 fleet of aging satellites this work is meant to eventually replace

Retiring an Aging Fleet

On Nov. 4, NASA announced it had selected Astranis Space Technologies, Global Enterprise Solutions, and Viasat to develop Ka-band space relay concepts under firm-fixed-price contracts. Astranis's award carries a maximum value of $264.3 million, Global Enterprise Solutions' tops out at $340.4 million, and Viasat's reaches $460.9 million — together more than a billion dollars in potential work.

The contracts run under NASA's Next Space Technologies for Exploration Partnerships-3 program, with an initial performance window from Nov. 4 through May 2027 and additional priced options that could extend work through 2029. The goal is a relay service compatible with spacecraft already in orbit, so existing missions won't need hardware modifications to use it.

Why NASA Is Buying Instead of Building

The push is part of a broader shift: NASA wants to gradually retire its own Tracking and Data Relay Satellite fleet, the aging government-owned network that has relayed data between spacecraft and ground stations for decades, and instead buy relay capacity from commercial providers.

That shift mirrors what NASA has already done with cargo and crew transport to the International Space Station, where it buys rides from SpaceX and others rather than owning the rockets outright. Applying the same model to space communications is intended to save money long-term while letting private companies compete to build better, cheaper relay infrastructure, rather than NASA footing the entire bill for a single in-house satellite program.

Ka-band frequencies specifically matter because they're needed to support select in-orbit missions that can't easily modify their flight hardware or switch to other commercial services already under development through NASA's Space Communications and Navigation program. Those older spacecraft would otherwise be stranded once the government-run relay fleet is finally decommissioned.

What Comes Next

None of the three companies will launch new hardware immediately. The current phase covers concept development and risk reduction, with the contracts structured so NASA can fund further progress toward an actual in-orbit flight demonstration if the early work holds up through 2029.

The competitive structure also means NASA isn't locking itself into a single vendor this early. By funding three separate concept studies in parallel, the agency can compare real engineering proposals before committing to the far larger sums required to actually build and launch new relay satellites.

If the relay concepts succeed, the practical effect for the public will be invisible but significant: smoother, more resilient data links for missions ranging from Earth-observing satellites to deep space probes, running on infrastructure NASA no longer has to build, launch, and maintain itself. Full contract details are available from NASA's Space Communications and Navigation program and the agency's original announcement.