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.
"SDA is considering signals different to GPS, but offered within the same frequency bands. If SDA’s military PNT service is located within the existing GPS frequency bands, it will minimize integration cost of new antenna systems on terrestrial weapon systems," explained Jennifer Elzea, SDA spokesperson.
As aircraft shrink, threats expand, and technology accelerates, aircraft engines must iterate along with the threats.
The on-board Battle Management, Command, Control and Communications (BMC3) software module will be tested on SDA's Tranche 1 Transport Layer data relay satellites.
SDA 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.
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.
Under 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."
The U.S. Army’s MAPS Gen II program of record for assured PNT provides an authoritative and reliable source of truth for combat vehicles in a highly contested battlespace.
Space Development Agency will soon issue a request for proposals for the first 28 of its own missile tracking satellites in Low Earth Orbit, the agency's chief said.
Optical 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.
SDA 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.
The first-ever Breaking Defense Space Survey gathered information from national security space professionals in government, the military, and industry.
Modeling and simulation get an AI upgrade for more realistic training and improved autonomous platforms.
The first Next-Gen OPIR satellites, designed to replace the current SBIRS missile warning constellation beginning in 2025, are likely to be delayed, says GAO in a new report.
DoD investments in small satellites to date are mostly in the realm of communications and remote sensing, says OUSDR&E's Doug Schroeder.
SDA intends to choose three contractors next year to design and build up to 144 new satellites.
SDA 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.