Breaking Defense:

The Space Development Agency (SDA) plans to issue a request for proposals this summer for some 150 satellites to provide “initial warfighting capability” for communications and missile tracking, says SDA Director Derek Tournear.

The new satellites, to be launched in September 2024, will comprise what SDA calls “Tranche 1” of its planned seven-layer National Defense Space Architecture. They will follow-on the 20 Transport Layer satellites for porting data to users and the 10 Tracking Layer missile warning and tracking sats planned for launch in March 2023 to demonstrate capabilities, Tournear told the SmallSat Symposium today.

According to the slides Tournear presented today, the Tranche 1 satellites will allow “persistent regional access” for warfighters on the ground. “Tranche 1 is going to be a big deal,” he said.

“The news from SDA is fantastic!,” enthused Steve Nixon, president of the SmallSat Alliance. “They are demonstrating the kind of rapid space innovation that is possible when acquiring smallsat capabilities. The pace and scale of this effort would simply not be possible if SDA approached space in the traditional manner.”

The overall goal of SDA’s National Defense Space Architecture is to enable resilient beyond-line-of-site targeting for time-sensitive ground and maritime targets, and to provide hypersonic/advanced missile threat warning and tracking, Tournear explained…

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