The Space Development Agency (SDA) will cancel a contract with Tyvak Nano-Satellite Systems and issue a new solicitation for 10 spacecraft following a bid protest by Viasat [VSAT].
Viasat filed a suit in September in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims related to the August 2024 SDA awards to Tyvak and York Space Systems to build and operate 10 satellites each for the Tranche 2 Transport Layer (T2TL) – Gamma variant.
According to a status update from the government in publicly available case documents, a government investigation found that an SDA employee’s communications with Tyvak impacted the award decision and violated the Procurement Integrity Act.
The investigation found this did not impact the award made to York Space Systems, which will continue working on its contract.
According to the documents, the Space Development Agency will take corrective action of terminating Tyvak’s agreement, and draft and issue a new T2TL Gamma solicitation. In addition, the former source selection official (SSO) and source selection advisory council chair are recused from the competition.
Aviation Week first reported the decision this week that SDA will recompete the contract. Earlier this year, Breaking Defense reported that former Space Development Agency chief Derek Tournear’s placement on administrative leave was related to this bid protest. The SDA now has a new acting director, William Blauser.
According to the documents, Blauser deliberated over whether the SDA should recompete the 10 space vehicles. The T2TL Gamma prototype could inform the SDA’s Tranche 3 that it intends to solicit this fall.
“While SDA believes the requirement for an additional 10 SVs currently remains and justifies the expenditure of a significant amount of money, further delays in this competition could require SDA to re-evaluate the requirement,” the government said.
The Tyvak prototype agreement announced in 2024 was worth $254 million. York’s award is worth $170 million.
Tyvak is now part of Lockheed Martin after Lockheed acquired its parent company Terran Orbital last year.
According to the SDA’s original T2TL Gamma solicitation, these space vehicles are set to include optical communications terminals to support in-plane and cross-plane links, links to terrestrial OCTs (ground, air, and maritime), and links to compatible space vehicles external to the Transport Layer.
This story was first published by Via Satellite