SDA to resume satellite launches this week after months-long pause, agency chief says
The U.S. Space Development Agency is slated to launch the latest batch of satellites for its proliferated constellation this week, the agency’s director said Tuesday.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket is to launch Thursday from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California at 1:32 p.m. Pacific Time with 21 York Space Systems-built satellites to be placed in low-Earth orbit, said GP Sandhoo, who also serves as the Space Force’s portfolio acquisition executive for missile tracking and warning.
“By the end of this launch, we’ll have half our transport constellation on orbit,” Sandhoo told reporters at a virtual media roundtable. “We’re starting to talk real capability for the warfighter.”
The SDA has been working to deploy a constellation of interconnected satellites, known as the Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture, in incremental tranches. Operating at 1,000 kilometers altitude, the satellites are to track conventional and hypersonic missiles, warn about these threats and provide resilient communications.
The effort began in earnest with Tranche 1, and the SDA has delivered 42 of the planned 154 satellites since the first launch last September. In March, Sandhoo said the agency had paused further launches to address problems with the deployed satellites.
Speaking yesterday, Sandhoo said the SDA encountered “hardware and software issues” with the satellites already on orbit. These difficulties included discrepancies between thermal models and on-orbit measurements, “issues with the propulsion systems” and satellites taking longer to come online because of limited ground entry points.
“Frankly,” he added, “we still quite haven’t finished some of those checkouts” of satellites launched last year.
During this process, the SDA lost contact with one of the Lockheed Martin satellites already on orbit, Sandhoo said. “When you’re building this many satellites, I do expect some failures.”
He added: “We expect this launch to be a lot smoother than the last one.”
The upcoming launch will be the third of 10 for Tranche 1, Sandhoo said. He did not provide a specific timeline for future launches, but said the agency is planning based off “whoever is ready” first among its three contractors: Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and York Space.
The SDA has not yet linked the deployed satellites into a unified communications network, but Sandhoo said he expects fewer issues linking the next batch because they have “a different system.”
“I wish we were on orbit and supporting this mission right now,” Sandhoo said, “but we are doing everything we can technically to solve these technical challenges to get these systems on orbit so we can deliver these capabilities.”
