The U.S. Space Force's Space Systems Command has awarded $615 million in Other Transaction Authority (OTA) contracts for its Space Based Airborne Moving Target Indication program — known as SB-AMTI — to Rocket Lab, STR LLC, and a third vendor whose identity has not been disclosed. The awards, announced on August 4, 2026, mark a significant second wave of investment in what is shaping up to be one of the Pentagon's most consequential space architecture programs.
The capability is seen as central to future air defense operations, particularly in contested environments where forward-deployed radar aircraft may be at risk.
A Multi-Vendor Strategy Taking Shape
The new contracts build directly on an earlier, larger award: in May 2026, SpaceX received $4.16 billion to develop an initial SB-AMTI satellite constellation.
The decision to involve multiple vendors across two procurement tranches reflects a deliberate Pentagon posture: rather than consolidating the program with a single prime contractor, Space Systems Command appears to be cultivating parallel development tracks. This distributed approach is consistent with broader Defense Department thinking about satellite constellation resilience — the idea that adversaries should face many targets rather than a few high-value ones.
The identity of the third contract recipient has not been released, which is not unusual for OTA awards involving sensitive national security programs.
Operationalizing the Space Sensing Layer
Taken together, the SB-AMTI program — now backed by more than $4.7 billion across its first two procurement rounds★ — illustrates the pace at which the Space Force is moving to translate sensing requirements into operational hardware. Airborne target tracking from orbit would give U.S. commanders persistent, wide-area situational awareness that does not depend on forward-deployed assets, a capability with obvious relevance to high-end conflict scenarios in regions like the Indo-Pacific.
For Rocket Lab, the award is a notable signal that its push into satellite manufacturing and defense contracts is gaining traction with major Space Force programs.
With SpaceX anchoring the initial constellation and a second tier of vendors now under contract for follow-on development, SB-AMTI is emerging as a model for how the Space Force intends to build critical warfighting capabilities: quickly, competitively, and across a distributed industrial base.
★ AI inference: One or more analytical conclusions in this article were drawn by the AI from cited facts and are not directly stated in the cited sources.