"Space Systems Command intends to award a second vendor, but the quantity will depend on the selected vendor’s proposal. The timing and scope of that award is subject to the outcomes of the on-going FY26 budget deliberations," Col. Rob Davis, SSC's head of Space Sensing program, told Breaking Defense.
Col. Robert Davis, program executive officer for SSC's Space Sensing Directorate, told the National Security Space Association today that the SWAC study might affect how follow-on satellites are designed and, perhaps, hardened to radiation.
As threats rapidly evolve, digital engineering, manufacturing capacity and robust supply chains are critical to meeting challenges.
"This was done because the RTX Epoch 1 development effort was facing significant cost growth from the original agreement baseline, projecting slips to the launch schedule, and had unresolved design challenges," a Space Systems Command spokesperson told Breaking Defense.
While GEOST has made infrared sensors for classified systems in the ones and twos, the new contract will involve building infrared sensors designed to be used in a larger constellation, LightRidge CEO Bill Gattle told Breaking Defense.
"The key word here is persistence," study author Masao Dahlgren told Breaking Defense. "How do we get persistence over the regions we care about? That hasn't been as explicitly put into prior work until now. This report puts into sharp relief."
Raytheon Intelligence & Space and Boeing's Millennium Space Systems are now on contract to deliver flight-ready prototypes by 2026.
Breaking Defense Europe will launch May 4 with Tim Martin and Elisabeth Gosselin-Malo as co-editors.
Each of the new satellites can support up to 5,000 digitally formed beams, according to SES officials, using open architectures that allow governments to tailor the network to their own security standards and maintain national custody of the data links.
"We'll do away with the GEOs, and the big, exquisite expensive satellites," said SDA Director Derek Tournear.
The awards are a first step in the Space Force's plan, which will move the Defense Department away from today's reliance on a a handful of large expensive satellites in Geosynchronous Earth Orbit (GEO) and highly elliptical polar orbits, SDA Director Derek Tournear said.
The Space Force doesn't fare too badly under the House Appropriations defense subcommittee's draft released today — getting a slight bump up from its procurement request but taking a cut in RTD&E.
Government can’t stop to update systems, so modernization has to happen without interruptions.
A study by the Space Warfighting Analysis Center that determined a multi-layered network of satellites in Geosynchronous Orbit (GEO), highly-elliptical polar orbit, Low Earth Orbit (LEO) and Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) is necessary to provide comprehensive ballistic and hypersonic missile warning and tracking.
SATELLITE 2022: European satellite firm SES has been growing its government portfolio for the past five years, and sees no end in sight for the upward trend in demand — a market analysis that lies behind its decision to acquire the satellite communications arm of Leonardo DRS, says SES CEO Steve Collar. That $450 million […]
DoD Satcom Chief Mike Dean discusses how new, disruptive capabilities for SATCOM in LEO, MEO, and GEO are creating novel mission sets for all-domain operations and new ways of paying for it. He also provides a status report on developing enterprise SATCOM command and control.
A layered architecture of geosynchronous, medium-earth, and low-earth-orbit satellites will provide resilient sensor coverage for Joint All Domain Command and Control.