The Pentagon’s efforts to launch and connect hundreds of satellites in orbit got two separate boosts Jan. 9, courtesy of the Space Development Agency and National Reconnaissance Office.
First came a major milestone for SDA’s low-Earth orbit constellation, called the Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture. Contractor York Space Systems announced one of its data transport satellites had established a laser communication link with a missile warning/tracking satellite built by another vendor, SpaceX.
Speaking at the Spacepower Conference last month, SDA director Derek M. Tournear described such a connection as the final demonstration needed to validate the agency’s plans for a network of satellites that can “mesh” and relay data around the globe at high speed. By using laser communications instead of traditional radio frequencies, SDA hopes to transfer more data faster, using less power and smaller equipment, with enhanced speed and signal security.
Back in September, Tournear announced that SDA had demonstrated a laser communications link between two SpaceX satellites. But going between two vendors served as a critical test of the agency’s decision to create standards for an optical communications terminal and then award contracts to more than half a dozen vendors. By proving out the standards, SDA can be more confident that all sorts of contractors can plug their systems into the architecture, increasing competition and driving down costs.
For the warfighter, validating the technology behind SDA’s “mesh network” is crucial to ensuring sensors and shooters around the globe can transmit data in seconds—a particularly important task for SDA’s mission of missile warning and tracking.
“Achieving the first inter-vendor, inter-layer laser link demonstrates the tangible value of open standards and collaborative efforts in rapidly achieving an integrated space architecture,” York CEO Dirk Wallinger said in a statement. “We are proud to support SDA’s vision for an interconnected space architecture for the warfighters.”
The laser link demo should also help SDA feel more confident proceeding with its next launches, scheduled for this spring, which will put the first operational PWSA satellites in orbit.
Shortly after York’s announcement, the National Reconnaissance Office successfully launched its seventh batch of satellites for a new proliferated constellation. The launch took place late Jan. 9 at Vandenberg Space Force Base, Calif., with a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.
The NRO has remained tight-lipped, as it usually is, about its constellation, only noting that it serves to bolster the agency’s intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities. In a release, the agency said it launched almost 100 satellites in 2024, and Director Christopher Scolese has said going back 18 months, that figure is more than 100. The plan is to launch hundreds more going into 2028.
Like the Space Force, the NRO wants to shift from a few large, exquisite satellites to large numbers of smaller, less capable birds.
Pentagon officials say fewer satellites offer “juicy” targets for an adversary such as China or Russia, who would have to take out only one or two using a direct-ascent anti-satellite missile or some other weapon to wreak havoc on the U.S. military, which relies heavily on space assets for navigation, communications, intelligence, and more.
With hundreds of satellites, on the other hand, the U.S. wants to deter an attack in the first place by ensuring it would be ineffective, Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen H. Hicks said in a Jan. 10 speech at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies.
“We’re ensuring that the web of satellites DOD can draw upon is so great, that attacking or disrupting them would be a wasted and escalatory effort,” Hicks said.
Hundreds of satellites also ensure global coverage in low-Earth orbit, where spacecraft do not have a persistent “stare” like they do in the higher geosynchronous orbit.
While the NRO and Space Force work on their proliferated architectures, the two organizations are also working on a joint venture to move the ground moving target indication mission to space—using satellites to track targets on land and transmitting tactical data to troops on the ground. It remains unclear how the NRO’s proliferated architecture will feed into that effort.