Next Generation Overhead Persistent Infrared missile warning/tracking satellite (Raytheon Intelligence & Space illustration)
WASHINGTON — Management consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton has clinched a $630 million, seven-year contract to help the Space Force integrate its portfolio of “space sensing” acquisitions — which includes weaving together the satellites and ground system for the $14.4 billion Next-Generation Overhead Persistent Infrared (Next-Gen OPIR) missile warning constellation.
The contract, announced by the company today, will support Space Systems Command’s Program Executive Office for Space Sensing, which is responsible for the service’s missile warning, weather monitoring and “persistent tactical surveillance” programs, according to a Space Force fact sheet [PDF].
“The expectation is that Booz Allen will provide Mission Integration across the portfolio of SSC Space Sensing programs to include integration at external, inter-program and intra-program levels. Disciplines include but are not limited to: Cybersecurity, Architecture/Design, Integration Planning & Execution, Test & Evaluation, Technical Baseline Management, Risk Management, Digital Engineering & Modeling Simulation & Analysis,” Eric Hoffman, the company’s vice president, told Breaking Defense in an email.
For Next-Gen OPIR, designed to replace the current Space Based Infrared System (SBIRS) missile warning satellites, this will include ensuring that the satellites in polar and geosynchronous Earth orbit (GEO) will seamlessly work together, Hoffman noted.
The Space Force in May 2020 awarded Northrop Grumman a not-to-exceed contract for $2.37 billion for the development of the two polar satellites in the Next-Gen OPIR constellation, which will travel in a highly elliptical orbit crossing over the Earth’s poles. That contract was “definitized” last year to a value of $1.9 billion.
Under the original Defense Department plan, the two Northrop Grumman birds were to join three more satellites in GEO, built by Lockheed Martin, to make up the Block 0 Next-Gen OPIR constellation. The Space Force has asked for $2.6 billion in its fiscal 2024 budget for the Next-Gen OPIR program, but also proposed to drop one of the GEO satellites from the buy.
Perhaps more importantly, Booz Allen will also be helping Space Systems Command with integrating the satellite segment into the service’s struggling next-generation ground system, called the Future Operationally Resilient Ground Evolution (FORGE).
FORGE, being developed by Raytheon Intelligence and Space under a January 2020 contract worth $197 million, is being designed to provide mission data processing, relay ground stations and tactical command and control, not just for Next-Gen OPIR, but also for SBIRS and the Missile Track Custody Demonstration (TCD) effort to develop satellites for missile warning and the harder job of missile tracking in medium Earth orbit.
Development of FORGE, however, has been troubled — as detailed in the June report by the Government Accountability Office on the status of major weapons programs. GAO found that the Space Sensing program office now estimates that FORGE will not be fully complete until at least 2026, a year after the first Next-Gen OPIR satellite is slated to be launched.
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