SB-AMTI is designed to track airborne targets from orbit. The program forms part of a broader Space Force push to give the U.S. military persistent overhead tracking of aircraft and missiles from low Earth orbit, a capability that would have been unthinkable on small satellites a decade ago.<\/p>\n
Rocket Lab was one of three vendors awarded contracts in a total $615 million round for the second batch of SB-AMTI satellites. A company called STR also received a contract in the same round. The third vendor was not publicly identified. The satellites are referred to as “Flatellites.”<\/p>\n
The $397 million award represents the largest single share of the $615 million round. The program’s focus on tracking airborne moving targets places it within the Space Force’s effort to establish continuous overhead surveillance from low Earth orbit.<\/p>\n
For Rocket Lab, the contract underscores the company’s transformation from a small launch specialist into a broader space systems provider capable of building and launching defense satellites. The SB-AMTI capability, delivering persistent tracking of aircraft and missiles from orbit, marks a shift in what small satellites can now deliver for the U.S. military.<\/p>\n
The unnamed third vendor is worth following closely. Its inclusion in the award could signal a new entrant gaining Pentagon trust in the defense satellite market.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
SB-AMTI is designed to track airborne targets from orbit. The program forms part of a broader Space Force push to give the U.S. military persistent overhead tracking of aircraft and missiles from low Earth orbit, a capability that would have been unthinkable on small satellites a decade ago. Rocket Lab was one of three vendors […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":56886,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[544,9959],"class_list":["post-56858","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-rocket-lab","tag-sb-amti"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56858"}],"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=56858"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56858\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":56887,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56858\/revisions\/56887"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56858"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56858"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56858"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}