U.S. Space Force Taps Viasat for $450 Million Golden Dome Operations Center

The U.S. Space Force’s Space Systems Command has selected Viasat to build a Mission Operations Center for the Space Data Network Backbone, the data-relay spine of the Pentagon’s Golden Dome missile defense initiative.

The award is an indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity (IDIQ) contract with a ceiling of $450 million. That figure caps potential spending; actual payments will depend on task orders issued over the life of the agreement.

According to Space Systems Command, the new center will tie together the multiple satellite constellations being built under the Golden Dome architecture and manage data traffic across the network, acting as the operations layer that coordinates space-transport and data-exchange systems.

Golden Dome is the flagship effort to layer a space-based architecture on top of U.S. continental missile defense, linking early warning, tracking, data relay and engagement functions across numerous satellite shells and ground systems.

Viasat’s role in Golden Dome extends beyond this award. The company was already among the initial winners of the Missile Defense Agency’s SHIELD contract, a multi-award vehicle worth up to $151 billion running through 2035. The operations-center deal is a concrete, near-term piece of that broader effort, as Washington works toward an initial Golden Dome capability by 2028.

Golden Dome was formally established through a presidential directive signed in January 2025, and its scope and projected cost have since drawn public scrutiny. Independent budget offices estimate the program’s decade-long cost could run well above initial official figures, into the hundreds of billions of dollars, while the Pentagon has revised its figures and phased the rollout accordingly.

Viasat has traditionally focused on commercial and military satellite communications. The company has been expanding its defense portfolio in recent years, holding separate communications contracts with the U.S. Navy and special operations forces; the new operations-center award fits into that broader push to grow its defense-sector footprint.

Analysts note that Golden Dome’s core engineering challenge lies less in any single satellite or sensor technology than in uniting dozens of systems from independent manufacturers around a common data standard. Because the Viasat-run operations center will effectively be the control point managing that integration, the award is being treated as a significant milestone for the program’s overall schedule.

The program’s budget planning involves the Space Force alongside the Missile Defense Agency, U.S. Space Command and numerous private contractors. That multi-stakeholder structure has fueled concerns about the kind of coordination problems seen in past space programs of similar scale; Pentagon officials counter that centralizing management through a single operations center is intended to reduce exactly that risk.

The IDIQ structure is a model widely used across U.S. defense procurement. It gives the Pentagon flexibility to issue task orders as needs arise, while requiring the contractor to work against a variable demand forecast rather than a guaranteed minimum workload. Analysts note that the $450 million ceiling covers only the operations-center component; Golden Dome’s total satellite, launch and ground-segment costs are expected to run many times higher.

Sources

• Breaking Defense — “DoD taps Viasat to field operations ‘center’ for Golden Dome satellite data relay network” (November 2026). Read source — Contract scope and value