In July of 2023, the U.S. Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) announced that it had awarded 16 Indefinite Delivery, Indefinite Quantity (ID/IQ) contracts for Proliferated Low Earth Orbit (PLEO) Satellite-Based Services on behalf of the United States Space Force.
These contracts, which have been collectively referred to as “the PLEO contract” since their announcement, were intended to meet two different requirements for the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD). The first was to proliferate the military’s satellite architecture to increase the resilience of on-orbit communications and satellite services. As Victoria Samson, the Chief Director of Space Security and Stability at the Secure World Foundation, explained, “PLEO is part of DoD’s efforts to create resiliency and mission assurance for its on-orbit assets, with the goal of deterring attacks or at least mitigating the worst effects from them.”
“As threats to space systems continue to evolve, timely acquisition of space capabilities becomes even more critical for the Nation. PLEO provides access to current and emerging capabilities and provides the ability to acquire standard commercial services, equipment, customized services, and experimental use of emerging capabilities,” said Clare Hopper, the Chief of the Commercial Satellite Communications Office (CSCO) at Space Systems Command (SSC).
The second requirement was to accelerate the adoption of LEO satellite services across the DoD. This is one area where PLEO has been particularly successful.
Since its initial announcement, the PLEO contract has been leveraged heavily across the DoD to make LEO services available to the warfighter. In fact, more than two-thirds of the $900 million total award (approximately $660 million) had been spent in a little more than one year – forcing DISA to increase the contract’s initial $900 million ceiling to $13 billion just fifteen months after the contract was first awarded.
“The PLEO contract services available, as well as the delivery methods, have been very popular with our mission partners. The services work very well – this has led to mission partners widely adopting them,” said Hopper. “Providing access to PLEO services has enabled many new use cases that involve global-reach communications provided in an affordable manner with easy-to-use equipment.”
What has made the PLEO contract so valuable for the military? The unique nature of the contract expedites the acquisition of LEO satellite services, which are – in turn – increasing innovation across the DoD.
A New Way to Acquire COMSATCOM Services
When the PLEO contract was first awarded, it was heralded as revolutionary – a new and different approach to satellite acquisition, unlike what the military had done previously.
“There were two things about the PLEO contract that were foundationally different from traditional procurement,” explained Ian Canning, the President and CEO of Eutelsat America Corp. and OneWeb Technologies (EACOWT), another of the companies awarded a PLEO contract. “It was a whole-of-government, pre-competed IDIQ in COMSATCOM. While that’s not an unusual contract action to take when it comes to equipment, it’s quite unusual when it comes to services.”
Canning notes that the breadth of the services available was also unique for a military contract. “The contract scope is quite a bit broader than just LEO COMSATCOM services. There is [the ability] within this contract to bring forward an awful lot of capability. It’s also not just [COMSATCOM services], but also imaging, equipment, services, and even subject matter experts.”
This wide scope makes the PLEO contract an avenue for embracing complete end-to-end solutions via a single contract vehicle, making it possible to quickly and efficiently deliver turnkey COMSATCOM solutions to the warfighter.
“True end-to-end satellite solutions require more than just space assets – they require an integrated terrestrial and space network capable of getting data and information to where it’s needed anywhere on Earth,” said a spokesperson from SES SD, one of the companies awarded the PLEO contract. “Often, to build a true end-to-end solution, an established terrestrial network will need to be integrated with multiple satellite offerings.”
The PLEO contract makes it possible to build that end-to-end solution. It also delivers flexibility to customize the service being acquired to meet the individual needs and requirements of the mission.
“What if I want to have a private IP network that meets my specific control mechanisms? What if I have additional security needs? What if I want to add encryption to an end-to-end service, rather than bolting it on separately? What if I would like to have a multi-orbit capability with a LEO component, GEO component, and other components?” asked Canning. “The flexibility of this vehicle allows for that to happen.”
But the most significant difference between the PLEO contract and those COMSATCOM contracts that have come before is the speed at which it enables the government to move.
“Quite often [blanket purchase agreements] have been utilized to meet COMSATCOM requirements, and each one of those has a long RFI and RFP processes that have to be gone through before an award,” Canning explained. “This concept of a pre-completed, whole-of-government, flexible contract is definitely a foundation for the future.”
As Jeff Rowlison, an industry consultant at American Defense International, told Space News, “[PLEO is] a benchmark for accessing commercial capabilities at the speed of the commercial sector.”
But what is the DoD using this contract for, and how is it driving innovation across the military?
Meeting the Needs of Latency-Sensitive Applications
This is an incredible time of digital transformation across the U.S. government and DoD, with government and defense agencies and organizations spending heavily on advanced IT solutions and applications ranging from cloud services to advanced artificial intelligence (AI) solutions. Government-wide cloud spending is anticipated to exceed $8 billion in FY 2025, and a recent study by the Brookings Institute found that AI-related federal contracts increased in potential value by almost 1,200 percent in the year between August 2022 and August 2023.
However, extending these advanced IT capabilities to the tactical edge can be a challenge due to the latency of traditional GEO satellite constellations. The PLEO contract gives the DoD a solution that can increase the warfighter’s access to advanced technologies on the battlefield.
“LEO COMSATCOM services have changed the dynamics of the applications that you can interact with. Many applications today are quite latency-sensitive. While people have gotten used to adapting and managing within the latency constraints of GEO capability, LEO makes you look as though you’re just part of the terrestrial network,” Canning said. “Applications that have struggled to overcome latency problems in the past are operating just as they would on a terrestrial network.”
“Aside from the benefits to resiliency and assuredness, the introduction of commercial services at different orbits can deliver new capabilities,” said the spokesperson from SES SD. “LEO and MEO satellite constellations offer lower latency and the ability to deliver fiber-like connectivity to practically anywhere on the planet – making them the perfect solutions for high-bandwidth applications that may not have operated effectively over traditional satellite connectivity from GEO.”
The low latency of LEO COMSATCOM services does more than bring advanced applications to the warfighter. It also accelerates decision-making in theater.
“[Low latency LEO solutions] enable the government to make decisions far more quickly. Often, data is collected from a platform and then moved back to the U.S., where it can go through an analysis and decision-making process. It then gets packaged with other information and pushed forward to the warfighter that was right underneath the original package of information,” said Canning. “[LEO COMSATCOM services] enable that information flow to happen much more quickly.”
But what’s next for the PLEO contract and the use of commercial LEO services by the DoD? Considering the popularity of the contract, it’s no surprise that continued growth and expansion could be on the horizon.
“CSCO will continue to add new capabilities from the PLEO contract holders to the contract as well as onboard new suppliers into the ecosystem,” Hopper explained. “Overall, we view the PLEO contract very positively. It seems to work well for the mission and industry partners. We are anticipating a wider array of offerings on the contract as new capabilities come online over the coming years. As demand for these services grows, we are looking to our industry partners to provide innovative offerings that address DoD’s mission requirements.”
Explore more:
PODCAST: Dr. Hammett, Director of Space RCO
VICTUS HAZE: USSF Partners with Industry for RPO on Tactically Relevant Timelines
Will Commercial Space Collaboration Help DoD Solve Overclassification?
