The Space Force this week awarded Lockheed Martin a $258 million contract to develop a competing satellite payload prototype for the Evolved Strategic Satellite Communications program. The contract follows awards to Boeing and Northrop Grumman, each for $298 million. The three companies are each designing competing payload prototypes to support rapid development of an ESS satellite. ESS is the follow-on to the Advanced Extremely High Frequency program and is expected to improve anti-jam and strategic communications capabilities while also being...