SDA is asking for $357 million for FY25 launch services, down from the nearly $530 million in FY24. Those funds would pay to manifest four planned launches of the Tranche 2 Transport Layer satellites in 2027.
The agencies said in their joint announcement that the "launch of the two prototype systems will be followed by two years of on-orbit testing."
An SDA official explained that the six "preliminary fire control" satellites in Tracking Layer Tranche 2 will carry a mix of wide-field-of-view and medium-field-of-view infrared cameras.
A new constellation with laser comms and compatibility with the Space Development Agency's Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture is now taking shape.
Long-range, high-speed optical communications will be critical for the service's plans for a "hybrid architecture" that would see networks of old and new military satellites, as well as commercial and allied networks, all communicating seamlessly to shift vast quantities of data around the world in near real-time.
"Here's the beauty of the spiral development program. I don't know what Tranche 3 looks like. All I know is it's more of what was on Tranche 2, and it is most likely going to be new capabilities," SDA Director Derek Tournear said Thursday. "I don't want to define what those capabilities are now."
The backbone for Joint All Domain Command and Control (JADC2) will be a mesh network of small satellites in SDA’s Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture.
While SDA plans to use lasers to connect its hundreds of satellites in low Earth orbit to each other and to the ground, that technology remains in its infancy.
The award to Northrop Grumman Space Systems has a total value of approximately $733 million; the Lockheed Martin award, approximately $816 million, the SDA release said. All totaled, the Space Development Agency up to now has awarded nearly $4.5 billion for the Transport Layer.
SDA Director Derek Tournear also shed some more light on the agency's new, highly secretive FOO Fighter program to develop new fire control quality tracking satellites.
The plan is to grant two contractors Other Transaction Authority awards to design and build the "Alpha" variant of SDA's Tranche 2 Transport Layer satellites, with delivery of the first four in time for a September 2026 launch.
The development and testing processes enabled by the new software environment will be game-changing, because in the end it will allow "satellites to be upgraded in space," SAIC's vice president for space, David Ray, told Breaking Defense.
"I am concerned about the transition of HBTSS from the Missile Defense Agency to the Space Development Agency. The apparent shift in strategy to deploy this capability does not reflect the urgency of the hypersonic threats we face," Rep. Doug Lamborn, R-Colo., chairman of the House Armed Service's strategic forces subcommittee, told Breaking Defense.
The new satellites will be integrated into SDA's first operationally capable set of low Earth orbit (LEO) satellites, called "Tranche 1," the SDA spokesperson explained.
The name change for SDA's seven-layer network of satellite and ground systems was approved by both Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall and space acquisition czar Frank Calvelli, and is designed to better reflect the network's actual mission, SDA Director Derek Tournear told Breaking Defense.