Acting SDA Director Derek Tournear
WASHINGTON: Despite congressional budget cuts, the Space Development Agency (SDA) is on track to field a low-orbiting constellation of “dozens” of satellites to detect and target threats in areas beyond the reach of traditional sensors, says Director Derek Tournear.
The priorities for SDA are providing beyond-line-of-site targeting for ground- and ship-based weapon systems as well as tracking of advanced missile threats such as hypersonic glide weapons, Tournear adds.
Thus, the first goal for SDA is to launch in 2022 a set of satellites to demonstrate capability to share data using the venerable Link 16 to start from space to Navy ships, Army long-range fires weapons and Air Force fighter jets. Those satellites also would be able to provide “tipping and queuing” to other intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) satellites.
At the same time, SDA plans another set of small satellites launched to LEO carrying infrared sensors to can track and target adversary systems, such as mobile missile launchers and hypersonic missiles, beyond line of sight and in denied airspace.
SDA calls these first two set of demo satellites “tranche zero,” Tournear says. They will include “dozens” of satellites.
(Breaking D readers may recall that back in September at the annual Air Force Association shindig, Tournear said that the high-priority “transport layer” alone would be comprised of 20 satellites.)
Requests for proposals for the data transport and tracking satellites will be issued in spring, Tournear told reporters at the Pentagon today, following a Jan. 15 issued request for information (RFI) on optical communications links between satellites, and a broad area announcement (BAA) issued today seeking “leap-ahead” technologies across SDA’s planned Low Earth Orbit (LEO) architecture of small(ish) satellites.
Tournear provided a few new details about the agency’s overarching plans for a new “proliferated LEO” satellite architecture, first revealed by SDA’s first director Fred Kennedy at the 2019 Space Symposium this past April.
SDA’s architecture is designed with seven “layers” that include six different constellations of “hundreds of satellites” — many planned for orbits between 800 and 1,000 kilometers — and a ground-based layer, Tournear explained. Each of the satellites will weigh “a few hundred kilograms” and cost “in the ten-ish millions” for each satellite, he added. All totaled, SDA expects its architecture to consist of “thousands” of satellites, he said. SDA intends to put up new satellites every two years until the architecture is complete, and to replace old satellites with upgraded ones every five years.
According to the BAA, the layers are:
- Transport Layer, to provide assured, resilient, low-latency military data and communications connectivity worldwide to the full range of warfighter platforms;
- Battle Management Layer, to provide architecture tasking, mission command and control, and data dissemination to support time-sensitive kill chain closure at campaign scales; and
- Tracking Layer, to provide global indications, warning, tracking, and targeting of advanced missile threats, including hypersonic missile systems;
- Custody Layer, to provide 24×7, all-weather custody of time-sensitive, left-of-launch surface mobile targets (e.g., to support targeting for advanced missiles);
- Navigation Layer, to provide alternate positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT) for Global Positioning System (GPS)-denied environments;
- Deterrence Layer, to deter hostile action in deep space (beyond Geosynchronous Earth Orbit (GEO) up to lunar distances);
- Support Layer, to enable ground and launch segments to support a responsive space architecture.
Congress has been skeptical of SDA and its plans, and especially its relationship with the Missile Defense Agency (MDA). Both are currently under the management purview of DoD Research and Engineering head Mike Griffin. As Breaking D readers know, the 2020 defense appropriations act cut funding from DoD’s $44 million request to $30.5 million; the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act, placed limits on SDA’s aspirations regarding missile defense operations.
Tournear said that SDA is working with the MDA to eventually integrate its “Hypersonic and Ballistic Tracking Space Sensor (HBTSS, formerly SpaceSensor Layer)” into SDA’s missile tracking layer.
“What they’re doing will fold into what the SDA tracking layer is,” he told us. “We may actually use some of what MDA’s already been doing for contracting to be able to put that on the street faster and get to a wide group of people that are participating on HBTSS, or do our own solicitation. Either way, all of that will come out in late spring or early summer for the tracking layer.”
He adds that SDA is working closely with Army Futures Command as it reviews its own satellite needs for tactical communications and enabling multi-domain operations (MDO). In particular, SDA is working with the Army to show interoperability with the service’s TITAN ground system for linking its soldiers to all ISR sensors across domains.
Tournear said that SDA also is participating in DoD’s wider push to develop MDO capabilities including working with the Air Force, which is playing a key role in developing technologies to enable Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2). (Air Force acquisition head Will Roper in early December complained that he had not received a direct briefing from SDA.)
“The SDA transport layer is going to be the mesh network that is kind of the backbone that all of these entities can use to get data on and off for targeting solutions,” Tournear said.
The agency is tied to the larger MDO efforts via Michael Zatman, Griffin’s technical director for command, control and communications, Tournear explained. Zatman is working to “orchestrate all the entities working on those networking architectures so that they all plug in together. … We’ve been working with him to ensure that the transport layer fits in with that overarching picture.”
