US Space Force kills protected satcom programme, consolidates effort

A pair of Northrop Grumman's Protected Tactical Satellite Communications prototype payloads awaits space vehicle integration. (Northrop Grumman)

US Space Force (USSF) officials have quietly killed the Protected Tactical Satellite Communications – Resilient (PTS-R) programme, as part of a service-wide restructuring of the entire Protected Anti-jam Tactical Satcom (PATS) family-of-systems (FoS) effort, with a larger focus on rapidly maturing anti-jamming capabilities for wideband satcom assets.

Service officials announced the cancellation of PTS-R in a July 2025 statement, arguing the decision to nix the effort was driven by a “focus on implementing faster and more robust capabilities … [and] prototypes into operation as quickly as possible”, USSF programme leaders said.

Aside from the PTS-R cancellation, the service's shift in focus within the overall PATS initiative will also look to prioritise “utilising lower cost-risk contracts and providing incremental capabilities faster by operationalising current PTS prototype satellite capabilities”, said Cordell DeLaPena, program executive officer for military communications and position, navigation, and timing (PNT) at USSF.

“Opportunities to make incremental improvements to … existing prototypes will be investigated, and the new PTS FoS acquisition strategy” to meet the operational requirements within USSF that the PTS-R programme had been intended to fill, DeLaPena said in the July statement. At the time of the programme cancellation, programme officials at USSF were poised to begin prototype evaluations for both PTS-R and the Protected Tactical Satellite Communications – Global (PTS-G) systems.