🔎 Defense Tech Signal — Thursday

• The Space Force is pivoting from SDA’s transport layer to a new $1.6B “Space Data Network” proliferated LEO SATCOM backbone, signaling a major architectural shift in how orbital data relay and resilience will be delivered.
• The Pentagon closed a $1B investment in L3Harris’ Missile Solutions unit, taking a future ownership stake and underscoring direct government capital deployment to shore up critical munitions capacity.
• The Space Force awarded Leidos and MapLarge contracts under the Kronos program to replace legacy battle planning tools with commercial software, accelerating the shift toward modern, data-centric operational planning platforms.

Sources:

1) Breaking Defense — https://breakingdefense.com/2026/04/space-force-shifts-from-sda-transport-layer-to-new-space-data-network-backbone-for-orbital-relay/
2) SpaceNews — https://spacenews.com/pentagon-closes-1-billion-investment-in-l3harris-missile-unit/
3) SpaceNews — https://spacenews.com/space-force-awards-contracts-to-leidos-maplarge-for-battle-planning-software/

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