Viasat has received an initial $42 million task order to provide fully managed global satellite communications to the U.S. Marine Corps under a seven-year contract with a ceiling of $307 million. The U.S. Space Force Commercial Satellite Communications Office awarded the Marine Enterprise Commercial Satcom Satellite Services contract, known as MECS2, through Viasat subsidiary Inmarsat Government.<\/p>\n
Announced on September 23, the task order covers end-to-end connectivity across L-, Ku- and Ka-band networks. Viasat will combine its own satellite and terrestrial infrastructure with capacity and services supplied by partner operators, giving the Marine Corps access to multiple networks and orbital regimes.<\/p>\n
The architecture is intended to support Marine Corps operations on land, at sea and in the air, including deployments in remote or infrastructure-limited locations. Flexible terminal configurations will allow units to connect through different frequency bands and satellite systems according to mission requirements, coverage conditions and available capacity.<\/p>\n
MECS2 is structured as an indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contract. The $307 million figure represents the maximum value that may be ordered during the seven-year period rather than guaranteed revenue for Viasat. Additional work will depend on task orders issued as the Marine Corps expands or modifies its communications requirements.<\/p>\n
The initial award continues Viasat\u2019s provision of managed commercial satellite communications to the service. It also gives the Marine Corps a procurement framework through which satellite capacity, terminals, network management and terrestrial data transport can be delivered as an integrated service rather than acquired as separate components.<\/p>\n
Viasat said the MECS2 service will include access to its global Ka-band network and the ViaSat-3 satellite system. ViaSat-3 spacecraft use high-capacity payloads designed to direct bandwidth toward areas of concentrated demand, a feature relevant to military operations in which communications requirements can shift rapidly between regions.<\/p>\n
The company will supplement its geostationary capacity with services from multiple partners. A multi-network architecture can provide additional route diversity and allow operators to select links according to coverage, latency, bandwidth and resilience requirements. Viasat did not identify the partner constellations or disclose how capacity will be divided among different orbital systems.<\/p>\n
L-band services can support mobile connectivity and broad-area coverage through relatively compact terminals, while Ku- and Ka-band links generally provide greater throughput for data-intensive applications. Integrating the three bands gives deployed units more options when operating across different platforms, climates and mission profiles.<\/p>\n
Viasat will also provide secure data transport between users at the tactical edge and the Marine Corps Enterprise Network through its worldwide terrestrial infrastructure. This part of the service extends beyond the satellite link itself, covering the movement and management of data between deployed terminals and fixed Marine Corps systems.<\/p>\n
The managed service includes continuous support from Viasat\u2019s network and security operations centers. Their responsibilities will include bandwidth allocation, terminal inventory management, network-performance monitoring and cybersecurity services.<\/p>\n
For expeditionary forces, centralized management is intended to reduce the operational burden of coordinating terminals, commercial capacity and terrestrial connections across multiple providers. It also allows bandwidth to be reassigned as units move or mission demand changes.<\/p>\n
Viasat said the system can incorporate new technologies and platform capabilities during the contract period. That flexibility will be important as the U.S. military increasingly combines traditional geostationary satellite services with proliferated non-geostationary networks to improve capacity, route diversity and resilience.<\/p>\n
Execution of the first task order will begin the operational phase of MECS2. Further awards may follow during the seven-year ordering period, subject to Marine Corps requirements and the contract\u2019s $307 million ceiling.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Viasat has received an initial $42 million task order to provide fully managed global satellite communications to the U.S. Marine Corps under a seven-year contract with a ceiling of $307 million. The U.S. Space Force Commercial Satellite Communications Office awarded the Marine Enterprise Commercial Satcom Satellite Services contract, known as MECS2, through Viasat subsidiary Inmarsat […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":90085,"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":[478,10518,6150,10520,451,10519,560,5841,767],"class_list":["post-90084","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-defense-contracts","tag-inmarsat-government","tag-military-communications","tag-multi-orbit-networks","tag-satellite-communications","tag-u-s-marine-corps","tag-u-s-space-force","tag-united-states","tag-viasat"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90084"}],"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=90084"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90084\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":90087,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90084\/revisions\/90087"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/90085"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90084"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90084"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90084"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}