The Space Development Agency (SDA) has awarded contracts totalling approximately $3.5 billion to four companies to develop and launch 72 low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellites. These satellites will form a network to track hypersonic missiles and provide early warning of impending missile attacks.
The four companies selected are SpaceX, Blue Canyon Technologies, L3Harris Technologies, and York Space Systems. Each company will be responsible for a different part of the network and will develop and launch a specific number of satellites.
SpaceX has been awarded $1.7 billion to develop and launch 28 satellites. These will make up the Transport Layer Tranche 1 of the network, which will provide global, low-latency, high-volume data connectivity.
Blue Canyon Technologies, acquired by Raytheon Technologies in 2020, will receive $1.5 billion to produce and launch 20 satellites, forming a part of the Tracking Layer Tranche 1. The satellites will be designed to track hypersonic weapons and ballistic missiles.
L3Harris Technologies, a global aerospace and defense technology innovator, has been awarded approximately $800 million to develop and launch 16 satellites. These will also be a part of the Tracking Layer Tranche 1 network. Alongside Blue Canyon Technologies, the company will work on developing technology to track hypersonic weapons and ballistic missiles.
Finally, York Space Systems has secured a $382 million contract to manufacture and launch eight satellites for the Custody Layer Tranche 0. The Custody Layer Tranche 0 is a new mission layer being developed by the SDA. It will provide custody tracking of advanced missile threats, ensuring constant surveillance and immediate detection and tracking of missile launches.
The SDA, established by the Defense Department in 2019, is tasked with developing and launching hundreds of small satellites into low-Earth orbit over the next few years. This network of satellites, known as the National Defense Space Architecture (NDSA), will provide various services including missile warning and tracking, surveillance, communications, and position, navigation, and timing data for military operations.
The awarded contracts are part of the SDA’s Tranche 1, the second round of satellite procurements. The SDA plans to launch the Tranche 1 satellites in late 2024. The first round, Tranche 0, is currently under development and is set to be launched in late 2022 and 2024.
The contracts include the cost of satellite development, launch services, ground operations, and spacecraft-to-spacecraft optical inter-satellite crosslinks. The satellites will be developed using industry-standard interfaces to ensure they can communicate and interoperate with other satellites in the NDSA.
The SDA’s ultimate goal is to develop a “mesh network” in space that can track missiles, provide early warnings, and communicate with military forces around the world, all in real-time. This will greatly enhance the U.S. military’s capabilities in both defensive and offensive operations.
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