SpaceX wins $4 billion Space Force contract for satellites that target 'airborne threats' anywhere on Earth

A long exposure photograph of the night sky captures the red and green lights of an aircraft as a pair of streaks among stars.

The U.S Space Force has awarded SpaceX $4.16 billion to help the military track airborne targets using satellites.

The massive contract is under the Space-Based Airborne Moving Target Indicator (SB-AMTI) program, which will add space systems to the U.S. military's tracking capabilities. SpaceX is the first of nine companies that Space Force has disclosed for the SB-AMTI vendor pool. The other eight companies have yet to be publicly announced.