SDA chief says agency is behind schedule on linking satellites into mesh network
WASHINGTON, D.C. — As the U.S. Space Development Agency works to make its proliferated satellite constellation operational, linking the satellites via a unified communications network is proving difficult.
“We have not yet started building up the optical mesh in Tranche 1,” GP Sandhoo, the agency’s acting director, said Monday during a session at SATShow Week here.
The SDA has been working to build a constellation of interconnected satellites, known as the Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture (PWSA), in incremental tranches. The effort began in earnest with Tranche 1, under which SDA has delivered 42 of its planned 154 satellites since the first launch last September.
The idea is to connect the satellites together in a single flexible network, often referred to as a mesh network, through optical communications terminals.
“When SDA got kicked off,” Sandhoo said, “there was a list of technical challenges that had to be solved to make that mesh network a reality. For the last two and a half, three years, working with [the Naval Research Laboratory] and working with the industry, we have kind of checked off multiple of those technical challenges.”
Sandhoo noted the agency set standards for optical communications and required that vendors participating in PWSA undergo testing to ensure their satellites can communicate with those of other vendors and across multiple terminals.
Still, for the Tranche 1 satellites already on orbit, “the hard part is the optical process,” Sandhoo said. “We are going through the check-outs,” he added, but “we are about three months behind, I will say, on that.”
He called building up the optical mesh a priority for SDA over the next few months. “We have launched our first set of operational satellites. We use the term ‘operational,’ but that means 17%.”
