Open Cosmos won a UK government contract for ConnectedCosmos under the TacSys framework, which has an estimated value of up to £8 billion ($10.8 billion).
The British Government Commercial Agency selected Open Cosmos as an officially certified and vetted partner to provide satellite connectivity through its ConnectedCosmos low-Earth orbit constellation. Open Cosmos announced the deal on September 2, 2026.
TacSys sets the procurement terms
TacSys is mapped to a series of upcoming Ministry of Defence contracts and will run until June 2034. The framework will be used to integrate private-sector technologies into Ministry of Defence-owned capabilities for secure and resilient communications.
ConnectedCosmos sits inside Open Cosmos’ LEO plan
Open Cosmos first announced the low-Earth orbit constellation in January 2026 after receiving the award to Liechtenstein’s priority Ka-band spectrum filing previously held by Rivada. The company later named the constellation ConnectedCosmos in March 2026, and the first two satellites launched in January 2026.
ConnectedCosmos is a multi-layer low-Earth orbit architecture that integrates IoT sensing and broadband communications into a single orbital framework. Open Cosmos said the constellation aims to combine point-to-point broadband with direct-to-device IoT.
Government use case stays broad, not technical
Open Cosmos said the system is intended to help governments detect threats in real time and deliver space-derived intelligence into tactical networks, applications, and decision-making systems. Rafel Jordà Siquier, founder and CEO of Open Cosmos, said the British government recognizes the need for a modern, sovereign-controlled satellite network over the UK that provides high-speed connectivity, secure data transfer, and layered architecture options.
Read for defense and sovereign-connectivity buyers
The disclosed TacSys value and end date give procurement teams a concrete benchmark for how the UK is structuring this work through 2034. ConnectedCosmos also shows the type of multi-layer LEO offer Open Cosmos is taking into government channels: broadband, IoT sensing, and direct-to-device IoT in one architecture.