Shifting Gears, DoD Moves To LEO For Future OPIR Sats

WASHINGTON: As the DoD deliberates future missile warning plans, senior officials say the second iteration of the Next Generation Overhead Persistent Infrared (Next-Gen OPIR) constellation could include multiple satellites in Low Earth Orbit (LEO), a revolution in the traditional US approach to early warning.

A working group of representatives from Space Force, the Space Development Agency (SDA) and the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) will make a decision this summer about where in space the follow-on iteration of Next-Gen OPIR satellites should be placed, SDA Director Derek Tournear said in a fireside chat with the Small Satellite Alliance.

Past generations of missile warning satellites have used Geosynchronous Orbit (GEO), some 36,000 kilometers above sea level. Gen. John Hyten, now vice chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, famously has tapped such “exquisite” and expensive satellites in GEO as “big, fat juicy targets” and argued for a more diverse, and resilient architecture.

“There are a lot of options,” Tournear said. They include: a rapid shift to a large constellation of LEO satellites (known as ‘proliferated LEO’ or ‘P-LEO’); and a mixed approach that would see satellites placed concurrently in both LEO and Medium Earth Orbit (MEO). LEO denotes orbits below 2,000 kilometers above sea level; MEO is the region of space between 2,000k and GEO.

“I think all orbital regimes are on the table,” Lt. Gen. John Thompson, head of Space and Missile Systems Center (SMC), told the Mitchell Institute yesterday. “”As we execute to Block Zero, the discussion has really been vibrant, if you will, about what Block 1 needs to look like.”

Next-Gen OPIR — designed to provide “increased resilience” in the face of an attack — is being developed to first supplement, then replace, the current Space-Based Infrared System (SBIRS) satellites, which Thompson said will remain active on orbit through 2030. Block 1 will be the follow-on iteration, which in turn will work in tandem with the Block 0 satellites already on orbit.

Shawn Barnes, currently charged with transitioning Air Force space acquisition authorities to the new Space Force, told reporters Tuesday at a Mitchell Institute event that Block 1 is “far enough out” to allow a free-ranging discussion of what missile tracking and warning capabilities are needed. He explained that one of the factors involved is the need to track and target cruise and fast-flying hypersonic missiles as well as ballistic missiles.

(Another one of the goals of Next-Gen OPIR was to rapidly field more resilient capabilities against potential attack. Indeed, then-Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson told Congress in 2018 that Next-Gen OPIR would be operational within five years. That hasn’t happened, due to a variety of issues including congressional skepticism and funding withholds.)

“Without getting in front of the budget process, I will tell you that that in the ’22 POM,  we are looking very very hard at the kinds of changes we believe we need to make,” he said. (DoD is in the process of developing the fiscal 2022 Program Objective Memorandum for the five-year budget request.) “But here’s what Block 1 shouldn’t look like: it shouldn’t look like Block 0. For Block 1, we’re looking far enough out that I think we need to be able to take a different approach.

The program now is getting ready to deploy the first of the Block 0 satellites in the constellation, Thompson explained, with all five satellites expected to be up and running by 2029. Block 0 comprises three satellites in GEO built by prime contractor Lockheed Martin, and two satellites in Polar orbits, being built by Northrop Grumman.

Lockheed Martin has received some $3 billion in contract awards since its initial 2018 win. Northrop Grumman received a $2.37 billion contract increment in May to develop the two Polar satellites, on top of an initial win in 2018 of $47 million. DoD’s 2021 budget request includes a total of $12.9 billion through 2025 for the program. 

The venerable and highly classified Defense Support Satellites (DSP) first orbited in 1970 (with at least one of the later generations apparently still active) were in GEO. DoD’s current missile warning constellation, the Space Based Infrared System (SBIRS), has four GEO sats on orbit and two more planned for that orbit. Polar coverage is provided in the SBIRS constellation via hosted payloads were used on classified satellites in Highly Elliptical Orbit (HEO) for the polar coverage. Thus, moving missile warning satellites to LEO or MEO would be a major shift in approach.

And if Next-Gen OPIR were to successfully move to a proliferated LEO configuration, it would be the first DoD satellite program of record to take that leap. (SBIRS planned a set of LEO sats, but that part of the system, called SBIRS Low, was killed in its infancy.) SDA is planning proliferated LEO constellations under its evolving space architecture that includes missile tracking among other applications, but the long-term fate of that architecture remains somewhat unclear.

Thompson said the discussion of the follow-on Next-Gen OPIR Block 1 configuration is tied up with the ongoing effort — involving DoD acquisition leaders and Gen. Jay Raymond, now double-hatted as head of the Space Force and Space Command — to develop an integrated architecture for missile warning/missile tracking. The goal is to bring together the various missile programs being led by SMC, SDA (which as Breaking D readers know is looking at LEO satellites for missile tracking), MDA and DARPA, with its experimental Blackjack program which will test OPIR payloads, among others, on tiny, modular satellites.

Barnes said Raymond, in his SPACECOM role, “has taken that top-level architecture and briefed it to the JROC, and we’re very excited about the results of that conversation.” (The JROC, Joint Requirements Oversight Council led Hyten, signs off on weapon system requirements for operators in the Combatant Commands.)

“Raymond has personally led a number of discussions on missile warning missile tracking architecture and the requirements for Block 1,” Thompson said. “And beyond that, the discussion has included all stakeholders in the missile warning and missile tracking enterprise. Without going into any details of some of the things that we’re thinking about, I’ll just tell you that it really has been a whole of Department of Defense discussion regarding how these critical NC3 assets will look at beyond Block 0.”

Barnes elaborated that working with MDA and SDA on Next-Gen OPIR Block 1 is bringing insights regarding other possible orbits useful for missile tracking and warning to the table.

“It’s going to help us understand: can I do some of this at LEO, can I do some of this at MEO (Medium Earth Orbit)?” he said. “Can I do this in other orbits that that are less vulnerable? Can I do this with, you know, more of a proliferated system?”