WASHINGTON — The Space Development Agency is preparing to launch at the very least 13 satellites in late June, the agency’s director Derek Tournear said May 26.
This will probably be SDA’s second launch of Tranche 0 satellites for its proliferated low Earth orbit constellation.
Tranche 0 is a 28-satellite demonstration constellation. The primary 10 spacecraft — eight communications satellites made by York Space and two missile-detection satellites made by SpaceX — launched April 2 on a SpaceX Falcon 9.
SDA initially planned to launch all 18 remaining in June but made some late changes to the manifest, Tournear said in an interview with .
The upcoming mission — scheduled to fly on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in late June from Vandenberg Space Force Base, California — is now projected to launch 11 communications satellites (10 made by Lockheed Martin and one made by York Space) and two missile-tracking satellites made by SpaceX.
There have been two Tranche 0 York satellites on the manifest but one is more likely to be kept on the bottom so SDA can use it for software tests, said Tournear.
4 L3Harris Tranche 0 satellites were scheduled to launch but were taken off the manifest attributable to production delays, he said. The 4 satellites will fly to orbit on a separate mission planned by the Missile Defense Agency. MDA is preparing to launch two prototypes — one made by L3Harris and the opposite by Northrop Grumman — for its Hypersonic and Ballistic Tracking Space Sensor (HBTSS).
SDA and MDA are collaborating closely on missile tracking and missile defense architectures, said Tournear. The agencies agreed to deploy L3Harris’ wide field-of-view satellites made for SDA in the identical orbit because the HBTSS medium field-of-view missile defense satellites.
This can help each agencies work out how they are going to integrate future sensor networks, said Tournear.
The brand new plan turned out to be a “win win,” he said. “Once MDA agreed that we could put our L3Harris satellites on their launch, it became an easy alternative.”
MDA has not yet announced a launch date for the HBTSS mission.
SDA’s first 10 satellites in good health
Of the ten satellites launched April 2, each SpaceX tracking satellites have reached the intended orbit about 1,000 kilometers above Earth.
“We are going to have the opportunity to get tracking data very shortly,” said Tournear. “We’ve got to be sure that we have now the payloads and the software in place to have the opportunity to do the tracking mission.”
The eight York satellites haven’t performed their orbit raising yet because SDA needs beyond regular time to check the Link 16 payloads onboard those satellites, he said.
Link 16 is an information exchange and radio communications network widely utilized by the U.S. military and NATO allies.
Once the York satellites complete their orbit raising, SDA will test the inter-satellite laser communications links, which requires more separation between the satellites.
“Our plan is to have all the things tested, checked out and able to do initial mission demonstrations in late June. early July,” said Tournear.
The Tranche 0 satellites are what SDA calls a “warfighter immersion tranche” that can give military users a possibility to experiment with the technology and higher understand the capabilities of LEO satellites for missile tracking and for data relay.
Following the Tranche 0 deployment, SDA plans to launch dozens more satellites on a monthly cadence starting with Tranche 1 in late 2024.
The Tracking Layer is envisioned as a world network of sensors that can provide a defense shield against Russian and Chinese ballistic and hypersonic missiles. The info collected by missile-tracking satellites will probably be sent via optical links to the Transport Layer. That will be sure that if a missile threat is detected, its location and trajectory data might be transmitted securely through space and downlinked to military command centers.
SpaceX’s final Tracking Layer satellites
Tournear said the 4 tracking satellites made by SpaceX for Tranche 0 are more likely to be the corporate’s last. SpaceX didn’t bid for the Tracking Layer Tranche 1 contract, which was won by L3Harris and Northrop Grumman.
To fulfill SDA’s required satellite orbit at 1,000 kilometers, SpaceX built the 4 satellites using a customized bus, not the one the corporate mass-produces for its Starlink web constellation, Tournear said.
To trace hypersonic missiles in all phases of flight, DoD determined that satellites 1,000 kilometers above Earth will probably be higher positioned to see these targets.
SpaceX informed SDA it didn’t bid for Tranche 1 because the necessities couldn’t be met with the Starlink bus, said Tournear, Nevertheless, “we’re working with them to see how they’ll take part in the longer term.”
SDA is searching for input from LEO web corporations like SpaceX, Amazon and others on how they could provide a low-Earth orbit “backhaul” capability to support military data transport.
“We’re in search of how industrial providers could augment the general Defense Department space data transport layer and have a seamless integration with the SDA data transport layer,” said Tournear. “So there’s actually activities like that which are happening.”
SDA’s vision is to deploy “translator satellites” that might allow SDA spacecraft to confer with industrial remote-sensing and communications providers.
“We’re in search of ideas from corporations on how they may tie their company’s offerings into the transport layer,” he said, “in order that we are able to have multiple different pathways to get low latency, tactical data link, and in addition have the opportunity to reinforce or back that up with industrial systems.”