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Space

SDA Awards Ball Aerospace Contract for NDSA Experimental Testbed NExT

By Rachel Jewett

Wednesday, October 5th, 2022

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SDA Awards Ball Aerospace Contract for NDSA Experimental Testbed NExT

(SDA Logo, courtesy Space Development Agency)

The Space Development Agency (SDA) awarded Ball Aerospace [BLL] a contract to build 10 satellites and accompanying ground systems to serve as the experimental testbed (NExT) of the National Defense Space Architecture (NDSA). The contract announced Tuesday is worth up to $176 million and the satellites are set to fly beginning in 2024. NExT is not part of the NDSA Tranche architecture, but will demonstrate low-latency data transport and beyond line-of-sight command and control. NExT will experiment with the infrastructure established by the…

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