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.
By Theresa HitchensThe on-board Battle Management, Command, Control and Communications (BMC3) software module will be tested on SDA’s Tranche 1 Transport Layer data relay satellites.
By Theresa HitchensSDA will decide next March whether the UHF- and SHF-band payloads being tested by T1DES should be integrated into its next iteration of Transport Layer data relay satellites.
By Theresa HitchensUnder the $324.5 million contract, the team will develop the “ground Operations and Integration (O&I) segment for Tranche 1 of the National Defense Space Architecture.”
By Theresa HitchensOptical intersatellite links, or OISLs, use lasers to zip data between satellites on orbit — a technology that is both the central node and the biggest challenge in SDA’s effort to build a multi-layered National Defense Space Architecture.
By Theresa HitchensSDA Director Derek Tournear told an industry audience today that proposals under the new OTA would be due the day before Thanksgiving. “You’re welcome,” he joked.
By Theresa HitchensThe first-ever Breaking Defense Space Survey gathered information from national security space professionals in government, the military, and industry.
By Aaron MehtaDoD investments in small satellites to date are mostly in the realm of communications and remote sensing, says OUSDR&E’s Doug Schroeder.
By Theresa HitchensSDA intends to choose three contractors next year to design and build up to 144 new satellites.
By Theresa HitchensSDA and MDA need to characterize the Earth’s infrared background — which has “a lot of complex shapes to it, clouds, land and stuff like that” — in order to “pull out the dim signal” of a hypersonic missile, an SDA official explained.
By Theresa Hitchens