Viasat's Inmarsat Government unit won a $42 million task order from the U.S. Marine Corps on Sept. 23 — the first draw on a contract that can run to $307 million over seven years. The Marines are buying fully managed, multi-orbit connectivity. Nobody is building them a satellite.
The incumbent survived the MECS2 recompete, and managed services are stickier than raw bandwidth.
Watch the task orders, not the ceiling — only $42 million is committed so far.
The award came through the U.S. Space Force's Commercial Satellite Communications Office (CSCO). Through Inmarsat Government Inc., the company retained the Marine Enterprise Commercial Satcom Satellite Services (MECS2) work after a full and open recompete earlier this year. It has held versions of this job for the Marines across multiple contract generations.
Structure matters more than the headline number. MECS2 is an indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity (IDIQ) vehicle: a ceiling the Marines draw against as operational needs arise, with each draw priced as a separate task order.
USMC MECS2 contract ceiling
Seven-year IDIQ; the first task order released against it is worth $42 million. · Viasat, Sept 2026
What the MECS2 Task Order Actually Buys
Scope runs well past bandwidth. The service spans L-, Ku- and Ka-bands, with capacity drawn from a geostationary fleet and partner constellations in other orbits. The contract also covers the services layer that keeps terminals talking to the network: terminal configuration, inventory management, performance monitoring and cybersecurity.
| Terms | Detail |
|---|---|
| Ceiling | $307 million over seven years |
| Committed | $42 million first task order |
| Spectrum | L-, Ku- and Ka-band |
| Orbits | ViaSat-3 geostationary plus partner constellations |
| Services | 24/7 network and security operations, bandwidth management, cybersecurity |
Contract structure, per Viasat's Sept. 23 release and Via Satellite
That last row is where the margin lives. Bandwidth resale is a commodity business. Running terminal fleets for an expeditionary force, monitoring networks around the clock and carrying the security certifications to do it is not.
Why Multi-Orbit Is the Product
Multi-orbit means the Marines buy capacity from geostationary satellites (GEO) for wide coverage and from low-Earth-orbit (LEO) partners for lower latency, stitched together under one contract and one operations center. Two orbits, one invoice.
Viasat supplies its own Ka-band fleet, including the ViaSat-3 satellites, and resells capacity from partner networks to fill coverage gaps. The company's second ViaSat-3 spacecraft entered service earlier in September and added Ka-band capacity over the Americas. Fleet capacity underwrites the service promise; service contracts then pay for the fleet.
We're extremely proud the Marine Corps has selected Viasat to continue as its trusted partner for enterprise, multi-orbit SATCOM services.— Victor Farah, Senior Vice President, Government Solutions and Services, Viasat
As we wrote in September, the Marine Corps buys commercial capability in small, testable batches — twelve Rheinmetall robots for $7.28 million was one example. MECS2 applies that instinct at the network layer, where the tail is far longer.
What to Watch in the Next Task Orders
The ceiling is a promise. Task orders are revenue. Viasat books government communications work as task orders arrive, so the number that matters next quarter is how fast the Marines expand beyond the initial $42 million — and whether other services copy the MECS2 template.
Competition is not standing still. SpaceX's Starshield, SES and Amazon's Kuiper all want government connectivity dollars, and each brings a different orbit mix. Viasat's answer is aggregation: the customer buys one service, and Viasat decides which satellite carries the traffic.
The broader procurement market already rewards that model. The Space Force's Protected Tactical SATCOM-Global program, an IDIQ structure with a $4 billion ceiling across awardees, moved into production earlier this year on the same logic — buy commercial designs and services, skip the bespoke program.
Task order velocity against the $307 million ceiling
Whether multi-orbit language spreads to other service contracts
Viasat's services margin versus its satellite capex
The $42 million is a rounding error against Viasat's balance sheet. The structure is the signal.
Services compound.