{"id":48914,"date":"2025-06-27T00:54:09","date_gmt":"2025-06-26T16:54:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/us-space-force-requests-277m-for-milnet-halts-tranche-3-of-transport-layer\/"},"modified":"2025-06-27T00:54:09","modified_gmt":"2025-06-26T16:54:09","slug":"us-space-force-requests-277m-for-milnet-halts-tranche-3-of-transport-layer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/us-space-force-requests-277m-for-milnet-halts-tranche-3-of-transport-layer\/","title":{"rendered":"US Space Force Requests $277M for MILNET, Halts Tranche 3 of Transport Layer"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n

The U.S. Space Force<\/strong>\u2019s fiscal 2026 budget request provides $277 million for the MILNET proliferated Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) constellation and halts funding for the Space Development Agency<\/strong>\u2019s Tranche 3, Transport Layer effort for advanced LEO communications satellites.<\/p>\n

The Space Force $277 million request combines two program elements and derives from a National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) classified MILNET effort, based on SpaceX<\/strong>\u2018s Starshield. The Department of the Air Force, which is conducting an Analysis of Alternatives on future satellite communications, intends MILNET to be a \u201cplug and play\u201d architecture that is not SpaceX-reliant.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the FY 26 budget we learned DoD is halting the Space Development Agency\u2019s Tranche 3, Transport Layer and that work which has been going on for several years and had robust competition and open standards has been replaced by something called MILNET, which is being sole sourced to SpaceX,\u201d Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.), the ranking member of the Senate Appropriations Committee\u2019s defense panel, said at a Thursday hearing on the Department of the Air Force\u2019s fiscal 2026 funding request.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo competition, no open architecture, no leveraging of dynamic space ecosystem,\u201d Coons said of MILNET.<\/p>\n

Coons then asked Air Force Secretary Troy Meink, \u201cDoesn\u2019t handing this to SpaceX make us dependent on their proprietary technology and avoid the very positive benefits of competition and open architecture?<\/p>\n

\u201cTranche 2 is still funded in the budget submission, including the Transport Layer, so we\u2019re looking forward to delivery of that system over the next handful of years,\u201d Meink responded. \u201cAs we go forward, MILNET, the term, should not be taken as just a system. How we field that going forward is something that\u2019s still under consideration, and we will look at the acquisition of that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Coons then said that he would \u201cdeeply appreciate a classified briefing\u201d from Chief of Space Operations Gen. B. Chance Saltzman \u201con exactly where this [MILNET] is going and why this particular decision was made.\u201d<\/p>\n

SDA has extensively publicized the Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture (PWSA), including the communications and missile warning satellite constellations.<\/p>\n

PWSA Tranche 2, Transport Layer contractors include Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, York Space Systems, and Rocket Lab USA.<\/p>\n

SDA had been reported to pause releasing an RFP for Tranche 3 Transporter Layer until it recieved budgetary guidance. SDA has already taken industry proposals for Tranche 3 Tracking Layer (T3TRK). The Tracking layer focuses on detecting advanced missile treats, and the Transport Layer is a data transport layer with interconnected optical inter-satellite links.<\/p>\n

Meink took office as the 27th secretary of the Air Force last month.<\/p>\n

Before Meink\u2019s nomination in January as Air Force secretary, he served, since October 2020, as the NRO\u2019s principal deputy director. There, he spurred acceleration of NRO\u2019s use of fixed price contracts. Some national security analysts have said that Meink has had a close working relationship with SpaceX founder Elon Musk and have expressed conflict of interest concerns because of that relationship.<\/p>\n

Meink has said that he favors multiple competitions over defense modernization programs\u2019 lifetimes.<\/p>\n

This story was first published by Defense Daily<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The U.S. Space Force\u2019s fiscal 2026 budget request provides $277 million for the MILNET proliferated Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) constellation and halts funding for the Space Development Agency\u2019s Tranche 3, Transport Layer effort for advanced LEO communications satellites. The Space Force $277 million request combines two program elements and derives from a National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":48915,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-48914","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48914"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48914"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48914\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48915"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48914"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48914"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48914"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}