Parsons unveils new satellite antenna aimed at military market
Parsons Corporation has unveiled a new satellite ground antenna built to fill a gap created when the U.S. Space Force terminated its $1.7 billion antenna procurement two weeks ago — leaving the military's satellite control infrastructure with an upgrade program that had spent years going nowhere.
The antenna, called SPARTAN (S-Band Phased Array Receive and Transmit Antenna Node), was developed with Raven Defense, a New Mexico company that manufactures tracking and telemetry systems. It pairs a conventional six-meter parabolic dish with a phased-array feed: the dish provides sensitivity, the phased array provides capacity. Eight electronically steerable downlink beams allow simultaneous contact with multiple satellites. One dedicated uplink beam handles command traffic.
Parsons, a defense and intelligence contractor based in Chantilly, Virginia, has already integrated the first SPARTAN antenna into its OrbitXchange ground station network, which it markets to commercial and government customers for satellite telemetry, tracking, and command.
The commercial timing is not subtle. The Space Force's Satellite Communications Augmentation Resource program, known as SCAR, was formally terminated in March 2025. The program had contracted AeroVironment — which acquired antenna developer BlueHalo in 2025 — to build mobile, multi-band phased-array terminals to supplement the military's aging Satellite Control Network. After failed renegotiations, the Space Force canceled the contract for convenience and announced it would recompete using commercially developed alternatives.
The infrastructure that SCAR was supposed to fix is genuinely old. Ed Baron, senior vice president of space engineering solutions at Parsons, described the current state plainly: the Space Force has operated from the same seven global sites for over 30 years, with an average of 15 to 18 antennas active at any given time. "They operate from the same seven global sites as they did over 30 years ago with an average of 15 to 18 antennas operational at any given time," Baron told SpaceNews. "The current infrastructure is not sufficient to support the projected growth in satellites."
That constraint matters because the problem is getting worse. As the military deploys more satellites into low and medium orbits, each satellite requires brief but frequent contacts with ground stations as it passes overhead. Command-and-control links — unlike payload data — cannot be rerouted through relay networks. They need direct, continuous antenna contact. More satellites means more contacts, and more contacts require more antenna capacity that currently does not exist.
Christopher Patscheck, chief executive of Raven Defense, described SPARTAN as a middle path. "Not everyone can afford hundreds of millions of dollars for a large scale multi-beam phased array," he said. "And not everyone wants the legacy parabolic systems." Raven currently produces between 20 and 50 six-meter antennas per year and is also developing larger phased-array systems.
The hybrid design also creates a potential retrofit market. By swapping only the feed on an existing legacy dish with a phased-array system, operators could increase antenna capacity without building new ground stations entirely. That matters both for cost and for speed of deployment.
Parsons says the platform can scale beyond six meters for missions in geosynchronous and cislunar orbits, and is targeting international customers alongside U.S. defense users. Baron also noted a resilience argument for the proliferated approach: fixed, high-value ground stations become targeting opportunities in a conflict. "A proliferated ground antenna architecture is a much better approach," he said.
The Space Force's plan is now to recompete SCAR requirements as an open competition focused on commercial systems across multiple frequency bands and sizes. AeroVironment CEO Wahid Nawabi told investors his company intends to recompete with an adapted version of the BADGER design and claimed a "3 to 3.5-year head start on all competitors." Whether that lead survives an open commercial competition remains to be seen.