REDSTONE ARSENAL, Ala. — The U.S. Army has awarded five Other Transaction Authority (OTA) agreements totaling nearly $67 million to develop electromagnetic warfare prototypes aimed at countering surveillance and reconnaissance threats, including those enabled by space-based systems.
The agreements were announced on September 30, 2026, by the Army’s Capability Program Executive for Intelligence and Spectrum Warfare. The contracts have performance periods of 18 to 20 months.
Five Companies Receive Awards
The agreements were awarded to:
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Ideas, Commitment, Results (ICR): $18.8 million
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Kellogg Brown & Root (KBR-Kord): $22.4 million
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Northrop Grumman-Xetron: $6.9 million
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Raytheon: $7.6 million
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Systems & Technology Research LLC (STR): $10.9 million
The combined value of the five agreements is $66.6 million.
Counter-Surveillance and Reconnaissance
The effort supports the Army’s Counter Surveillance and Reconnaissance (CSR) initiative under its Tactical Space Superiority portfolio.
The program is intended to protect Army forces from intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance threats. This includes surveillance capabilities that can observe Army troops, vehicles and other military assets from space.
The Army is pursuing non-kinetic capabilities as part of this effort rather than relying only on physical destruction of surveillance systems.
Prototype Testing
The prototypes will undergo rapid development, followed by planned field experimentation and exercises.
During testing, soldiers and technical assessors will evaluate the systems for:
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Effectiveness
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Suitability
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Survivability
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Potential for rapid transition into production
The Army has not publicly released detailed technical specifications for each prototype.
Army Focuses on Electromagnetic Warfare
Kent Shea, Product Manager for Tactical Space Superiority, said the continued growth of the space domain makes non-kinetic effects important for maintaining freedom of maneuver and preserving combat power.
He said the Army’s space vision requires the service to operate in the space domain so that ground maneuver commanders can maintain an operational advantage and protect friendly forces from space-based threats to land operations.
The CSR program is part of the Army’s broader work on electromagnetic spectrum operations and force protection. Earlier Army planning documents described CSR as a family of ground-based capabilities intended to provide commanders with improved situational awareness, planning tools and non-kinetic options to reduce the visibility of friendly forces and counter the detection, tracking and targeting process.
The five agreements will allow the Army to develop and evaluate different prototype approaches before determining their potential for transition into production.
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