The Pentagon, for many years, has spent the majority of its massive space budget on traditional geostationary satellites.
The four-year-old Space Development Agency (SDA) is working to interrupt the mold with an ambitious plan to construct a low-Earth orbit constellation by counting on a broad base of suppliers for commercially produced small satellites and laser communications terminals.
“The move to proliferated LEO is extremely disruptive to how the federal government procures satellites,” said James Faist, industry consultant and former U.S. Defense Department director of defense research and engineering for advanced capabilities.
SDA calls its layered network of satellites the Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture. It features a Transport Layer of interconnected communications satellites and a Tracking Layer of missile-detection and early-warning sensor satellites.
Under the standard defense contracting model, SDA’s constellation would have been awarded to 1 or two prime contractors. But with the intention to leverage the business satellite market, the agency is ordering satellites from multiple vendors and requiring manufacturers to make their spacecraft interoperable via optical links that adhere to common standards.
“The architecture must be such that many providers can plug into it,” said Faist. “And that’s mainly the SDA mantra.”
Up to now, SDA has ordered 62 satellites from York Space Systems, 4 from SpaceX, 56 from Northrop Grumman, 52 from Lockheed Martin, 20 from L3Harris Technologies, seven from Raytheon Technologies and 10 from Ball Aerospace. York to date has delivered 10 satellites, eight of which launched to orbit April 2, together with two from SpaceX.
Defense contractors Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and L3Harris are constructing SDA’s satellites using business buses from Terran Orbital, Airbus U.S. Space and Defense and Maxar Technologies, respectively. SpaceX, Raytheon Technologies and Ball Aerospace, in contrast, are using in-house designs.
Disruptive approach
“What SDA is doing is entirely a departure from how the DoD has historically acquired hardware,” said Chris Quilty, industry analyst and founding father of the market research firm Quilty Space.
“When I feel concerning the implications, if you’ve a Transport Layer that’s effective and resilient, high throughput and low latency, what becomes the necessity for a number of the traditional geostationary satellite programs which are the bread and butter of the primes?” he asked.
The big geostationary satellites, to be certain, won’t go away, Quilty added, because the federal government wants a hybrid architecture. “But I feel that is the explanation why the Lockheeds and Northrops have been so aggressive in chasing SDA programs. It’s since it’s going to cannibalize quite a lot of what they used to do.”
Despite being a comparatively small agency with about 200 people, SDA has had an outsize impact on the military space market. It’s buying satellites under fixed-price contracts and recompeting Transport Layer and Tracking Layer spacecraft procurements every two years.
This commercial-like model allows SDA to incrementally add latest technologies as they develop into available, in contrast to DoD’s traditional approach to funding one large acquisition over a few years.
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“SDA will likely be key to rapidly delivering space capability to our warfighters,” said the Space Force’s senior acquisition executive Frank Calvelli. “I fully support their strategy, and we are going to maintain their structure and culture to allow them to proceed to maneuver fast and do what they do best.”
By deploying the constellation in tranches of satellites every two years, said Quilty, “they’re essentially implementing a spiral development means of attending to ‘adequate,’” as an alternative of spending a decade developing technologies which may be outdated by the point they’re fielded.
Following DoD’s usual procurement process, it will probably take 10 years to field a satellite, SDA Director Derek Tournear said recently on the Potomac Officers Club’s Air Force Summit. At that pace, he said, the nation is taking a look at fighting a war with outdated technology.
“You may have to get the capabilities up there. You aren’t going to get the right capability on day one,” said Tournear. “You’re not even going to get every thing that everybody wants on day one. The entire idea is that you’ve something up there after which proceed to grow from there.”
A whole lot of satellites
Originally established in 2019 with a mandate to boost the military’s space capabilities, SDA initially faced staunch opposition from Air Force leaders and skepticism on Capitol Hill. The agency was a part of the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering until last October when it was realigned under the U.S. Space Force.
Many within the space industry expected SDA’s proliferated LEO plan to get derailed by the DoD bureaucracy, Quilty said. “And lo and behold, they’ve actually relatively held their schedule by way of the tranche contract awards. It’s pretty impressive.”
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on April 2 launched SDA’s first 10 satellites of the Tranche 0 portion of the constellation. One other Falcon 9 had been scheduled to launch 13 more Tranche 0 satellites in June — 10 made by Lockheed Martin and three by York Space — however the mission has been delayed to late August. This batch initially included 17 satellites but was reduced to 13 because L3Harris’ 4 satellites are behind schedule. SDA expects to launch them at a future date.
The Tranche 0 satellites are what SDA calls a “warfighter immersion tranche” that may allow military users to experiment with the technology and higher understand the capabilities of LEO satellites for missile tracking and data relay.
Tranche 1 satellites are forecasted to launch in 2024 and 2025, including 126 satellites for the Transport Layer, and 35 for the Tracking Layer.
There are currently open solicitations for 172 satellites for Tranche 2 of the Transport Layer and 54 for Tranche 2 of the Tracking Layer.
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Proposals for 72 Transport Layer Tranche 2 ‘Beta’ satellites were due May 23, and proposals for 100 Transport Layer Tranche 2 ‘Alpha’ satellites were due July 28. SDA also issued a draft solicitation for 54 Tracking Layer Tranche 2 satellites, and comments were due July 20. SDA plans to award Transport Layer Tranche 2 contracts later this yr and Tracking Layer Tranche 2 contracts in 2024.
“SDA capitalizes on a business model that values speed and lowers costs by harnessing business development to realize a proliferated architecture and enhance resilience,” Tournear said.
Congressional backing
With strong DoD and congressional backing, SDA’s budget has soared from $125 million in its first yr to about $4.6 billion within the Pentagon’s 2024 funding request, with a further $23 billion projected from fiscal years 2025 through 2028.
The agency has benefited from the Pentagon’s pivot to low-orbit missile warning and tracking systems to diversify the space architecture and increase resiliency, said analyst Sam Wilson of the Aerospace Corporation’s Center for Space Policy and Strategy.
“The plans for next-generation missile warning programs represent a fundamental shift for the department,” Wilson wrote in an Aerospace report in June.
“For several many years, DoD has used a small variety of systems in high orbit for missile warning,” said Wilson. The subsequent-generation systems in lower orbits account for nearly 15 percent of your complete Space Force budget request in 2024.
The Congressional Budget Office, in a report published in May, validated DoD’s adoption of a LEO architecture.
“A possible advantage for constellations with many satellites is that their coverage and functionality might degrade more steadily compared with smaller constellations,” said CBO. “Further, damaged satellites may very well be replaced fairly quickly.”
Tournear acknowledged that despite aggressive schedule targets, not every thing has gone easily. The deployment of Tranche 0 satellites, initially targeted for late 2022, suffered setbacks as a consequence of supply chain problems and vendor performance issues.
But he’s nevertheless confident that SDA will have the opportunity to launch Tranche 1 satellites on a monthly cadence starting in the autumn of 2024.
The goal is to realize global coverage, which SDA estimates will occur starting in 2026 when Tranche 2 satellites are in orbit.
The Tracking Layer, said Tournear, can have “enough satellites to offer coverage for missile warning and missile tracking, and have the opportunity to offer updates and cues for radar systems, other overhead systems and weapons systems which are needed to interact incoming missiles.”
The Transport Layer, meanwhile, will provide “backbone connectivity.” Data on incoming missiles can be transmitted across space via optical links after which to the bottom via tactical data links, Tournear said at a National Security Space Association forum.
“We’ll have the opportunity to pass quite a lot of situational awareness and other data that historically doesn’t get transferred out of the theater [of operations] because there’s no tactical option to move that data in real time.”
Impact on laser comms industry
DoD’s LEO constellation also has created market demand for laser communications terminals. Each satellite can have anywhere from three to 5 optical links so that they can check with other satellites, airplanes, ships and ground stations.
By requiring suppliers of laser terminals to comply with a standard set of standards, SDA expects all its satellites to be interoperable. “This is a great way for SDA to leverage this nascent industry,” Quilty said.
During a recent visit to laser communications supplier Mynaric, Quilty witnessed how the corporate was testing one in all its terminals to make certain it could pass data to terminals made by competitors Tesat and Skyloom. “They were validating that they really work together, which is sort of cool to see.”
The concept of using multiple satellite vendors to construct an optical mesh network is progressive, even though it has yet to be proven, said Quilty. “I feel folks are checking out it will not be easy. And so they’ll eventually work through the problems.”
“Everyone today is working under the idea that every thing in space will likely be optically linked, and eventually we’ll get there,” said Quilty.
One other development to look at is whether or not laser terminal vendors can ramp up production quickly enough to satisfy SDA’s schedule, noted Andrew Penn, industry analyst and principal on the consulting firm Oliver Wyman.
“None of the businesses who’re signing up to construct these terminals have ever manufactured at this scale,” he said. “They’ve done one-off prototypes. Essentially the most established manufacturers have delivered over a dozen terminals, but with SDA we’re talking about a whole lot, if not hundreds.”
SDA has set aggressive pricing goals, which might only be achieved if manufacturers can effectively produce satellites and optical terminals at a high rate, Penn said.
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The agency said it desires to pay at most $15 million per Transport Layer satellite, and $45 million to $50 million for every Tracking Layer satellite.
Although these satellites cost less per unit than traditional military spacecraft, SDA will likely be under pressure to maintain pricing as little as possible to offset the massive variety of satellites it must launch, not only to construct the constellation but to recapitalize it, Penn identified.
“The person satellite price is reasonable, but you wish a whole lot,” he said. “They’re quickly approaching the full price points of a number of the constellations of larger satellites that they are attempting to enhance or replace.”
If SDA meets its objectives, it would indeed be a disruptive force in military satellite procurements, Penn added.
“If you happen to can meet the identical mission objective by giving one company $1 billion, or 10 firms $100 million each, I’ve got to think the latter is best for the broader industrial base,” he said. “After I have a look at the entire picture, it actually looks like they’re bringing quite a lot of good to the industry.”
Under scrutiny
The Government Accountability Office in its annual report of DoD major programs published in June said SDA’s approach “will enable competition for brand spanking new tranches and a stable marketplace for sustainment.”
But before it will probably realize these potential advantages, GAO said, SDA faces challenges with integrating a posh system of multiple vendors and segments right into a proliferated constellation of a whole lot of satellites.
Penn said SDA “will proceed to get scrutiny until we’ve got functioning operational constellations, because at this cut-off date, the jury remains to be out.”
“You may evaluate contracting methods, you’ll be able to evaluate the impact on the economic base. But at the top of the day, they need to deliver a mission. We don’t have that yet,” he added. Based on what SDA has done up to now, “I’m cautiously optimistic on what they’re trying to accomplish.”
As with every large defense program, cost overruns are at all times a looming threat. “But I feel it’s perfectly reasonable to expect that they are going to come close, if not meet their price targets, when industry starts mass producing, assuming requirements don’t change meaningfully from tranche to tranche, and that they’re truly taking commodity buses off the road with minimal modifications.”
Penn said SDA has every incentive to expand its pool of suppliers, drive competition amongst incumbent suppliers and supply “as much opportunity as possible for brand spanking new firms.”
“I feel SDA’s expectation is that there will likely be latest firms, and that’s the only way they achieve the ecosystem they need,” he added.
Tournear has insisted that SDA desires to attract latest vendors and avoid becoming depending on a small variety of incumbent providers.
There are firms within the small-satellite market that analysts are watching as potential competitors for future SDA awards. These include Boeing’s Millennium Space Systems, and startups like LeoStella and Apex.
“If I were one in all those guys, I absolutely can be chasing an SDA contract,” said Quilty.
‘We wish a healthy market’
SDA is banking on increased commoditization and advancements in technology to boost its constellation and keep prices down, Tournear said. “We have a look at it sort of just like the iPhone model, where they pick a price that they think the market will bear, and so they just keep adding capabilities because the technology matures.”
With regard to the satellite market, “I actually have fears and hopes,” he said.
“The fear is that I don’t wish to see it get consolidated all the way down to one or two commodity bus providers. I need to see a healthy market, which is why we open competition with every tranche and each layer.”
His hope is that SDA can proceed to purchase satellites at stable price points but “add more capability.”
Going forward, said Tournear, “we will likely be open and honest about what our plans are” so industry can invest accordingly in the event that they wish to win a portion of the architecture. “We’d like industry to look at what we’re doing.”
His advice to latest entrants to the SDA market: “Don’t ignore our schedules and the goal prices that we’re putting on the market. We’re pretty serious about that once we do our selections.”