APOGEE STAFF

The drive to create what the Pentagon calls the Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture (PWSA) — an initiative to deploy a network of small lower-cost satellites in low Earth orbit — was derided only a few years ago, including by one high-ranking official who predicted the effort would “result in failure on America’s worst day if relied upon alone.”

Fast-forward to early 2023 and the Space Development Agency’s (SDA) launch of 10 satellites into low Earth orbit (LEO). The satellites — two SpaceX-built satellites for tracking ballistic and hypersonic missiles and eight York Space Systems satellites with optical links to rapidly transfer data — lifted off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.

The mission, according to program advocates – which occurred just two-and-a-half years after the SDA’s initial August 2020 contract award – confirmed the viability of commercial ride-share missions for the SDA involving small satellites.

“We’re pretty excited to show that the model actually does work, to be able to do that proliferation to get the capabilities to the warfighter at speed,” SDA Director Derek Tournear said during a March 29, 2023, pre-launch media briefing, according to the C4ISRNET, a publication that covers trends in military transformation.

The 10 spacecraft, dubbed Tranche 0, actually were the first of two groups of satellites to deploy. By March 2024, Tranche 0 had become operational with 27 satellites in orbit using Link 16, which is a communications technology used by the warfighters in the United States and NATO. Later in the year, the SDA plans to launch the network’s first operational satellites, including 126 Tranche 1 Transport Layer communications satellites. These satellites will include Link 16 data communications terminals to “give us full global persistence,” Tournear said at a National Security Space Association online forum on December 7, 2023.

For some, the timing of the SDA missions couldn’t have been better, as events around the globe, including in Ukraine, Israel and the Red Sea, illustrate both the strategic importance of satellites and the need for responsive satellite launches. The missions also came as the U.S. Space Force sought congressional approval of nearly $16 billion over five years to conceive and build small satellites to track hypersonic missiles, which travel and maneuver at speeds above Mach 5, five times the speed of sound.

The aim of the PWSA program is to create a constellation of hundreds of small, interconnected satellites supporting communications, surveillance and tracking of enemy targets. The program also seeks to speed up the pace of deployments. While it typically takes the military five to 10 years to build and then launch a satellite, the SDA wants to narrow that to about two years, with launches at regular intervals.

The satellites that we have up there, the intent there is to get them in the warfighters’ hands so they can start developing their techniquesto be able to use them.
~ Mike Eppolito, Tranche 0 program director

Overall, military leaders envision the smaller, cost-effective SDA satellites playing a key role in national defense, not just in supporting missile tracking and communications, but in the replacement and possible repair of satellites damaged during conflict — providing improved resilience if enemy forces destroy military or vital commercial spacecraft.

“The satellites that we have up there, the intent there is to get them in the warfighters’ hands so they can start developing their techniques to be able to use them,” Tranche 0 Program Director Mike Eppolito told reporters during the same 2023 briefing. “It’s intended to be the demonstration tranche that allows them to sort of get their feet wet and start using the capabilities that we’re putting on orbit.”

Space Development Agency Director Derek Tournear DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE

At least one adversary has made no secret of its intent to test the resilience of the Pentagon’s space architecture. Along with hackers’ near-constant attempts to penetrate satellites and ground systems, Russia has engaged in frequent anti-satellite (ASAT) missile tests over the years, including in November 2021 when it destroyed one of its own spacecraft — a defunct Soviet-era satellite called Cosmos 1408 — creating a cloud of debris that threatened astronauts aboard the International Space Station.

The episode — one of a reported dozen by Russia’s military, although previous tests were conducted against imaginary targets — triggered an immediate rebuke from NASA Director Bill Nelson, who labeled the Kremlin’s actions as reckless and irresponsible. U.S. Army Gen. James Dickinson, then U.S. Space Command commander, said in a statement, “Russia has demonstrated a deliberate disregard for the security, safety, stability, and long-term sustainability of the space domain for all nations.”

I won’t support, as the combatant commander, to develop any further large, fat, juicy targets. … We’re going to go down a different path, [and] we have to go down that path quickly.” ~ Air Force Gen. John Hyten then commander of U.S. Strategic Command and previous commander of U.S. Space Command

The threat posed by ASAT capabilities to the Pentagon’s larger, more-exquisite spacecraft is one reason TRS is vitally needed, many in the military say now. That wasn’t the case a few years ago. However, in some important corners of the U.S. Department of Defense, the call for small satellites had already taken root.

Four years before Russia blew up Cosmos 1408, Air Force Gen. John Hyten, then commander of U.S. Strategic Command and previous commander of U.S. Space Command, urged military leaders to think small when it came to satellites. In November 2017, at the Halifax International Security Forum in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Hyten reiterated his concerns to the audience in blunt terms: “I don’t want to buy any more fragile, undefendable satellites.”

The military’s current constellations — constructed for a less-threatening space environment — aren’t as resilient as they need to be, Hyten explained, according to a 2017 report by National Defense magazine. “We have a huge capacity in space right now that pretty much overwhelms anybody, but when the adversary is building up significant capabilities that can threaten that, I have to figure out how to respond to that,” he said. “I won’t support, as the combatant commander, to develop any further large, fat, juicy targets. … We’re going to go down a different path, [and] we have to go down that path quickly.”

The Space Development Agency’s first dedicated launch to support its Tranche 0 mission lifts off from Vandenberg Space Force Base, California, on April 2, 2023. U.S. SPACE FORCE

The Defense Department charted that new path two years later when in March 2019 it formally created the Space Development Agency. In the memo establishing the SDA, which became part of the Space Force, then-acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan summed up: “The SDA will unify and integrate efforts across the department to define, develop and field the novel and innovative solutions necessary to outpace advancing threats.”

One of the agency’s first orders of business was to integrate its efforts with the Space Force’s procurement arm, the Space and Missile Systems Center, to accelerate efforts to conceive and acquire smaller satellites. By early 2022, with launch plans firmly in place for the Tranche 0 satellites, the SDA announced an even bolder step: It awarded Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and York Space Systems nearly $1.8 billion to produce 126 small satellites for the constellation’s Tranche 1 (T1) Transport Layer in 2024.

Less than six months later, the agency followed up with another substantial award: $1.3 billion to L3Harris Technologies and Northrop Grumman to deliver 28 missile-tracking satellites for the network’s T1 Tracking Layer. The infrared-sensing satellites would be designed to detect and track the latest generation of ballistic and hypersonic missiles developed by strategic competitors such as Russia and China.

This screenshot gives another view of the Space Development Agency’s first dedicated launch to support its Tranche 0 mission. SPACEX

SDA Director Tournear said at a Pentagon news briefing at the time that the 28 spacecraft would be launched in groups of seven about 965 kilometers above Earth, the website Space News reported. Each group of satellites would be deployed over different areas around the world. The first launch was estimated for April 2025.

While it might be changing the landscape now, the SDA met with resistance up until its creation. Among its critics, then-Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson said of the SDA in a memo, “Until the Space Development Agency has a uniquely identifiable mission that cannot be accomplished by current organizations, the plan should not move forward.”

The ability to move data globally at scale to anybody that needs it seems like a no brainer that you would have to have that for Joint All-Domain Command and Control.”
~ Gen. B. Chance Saltzman, chief of space operations, United States Space Force

She repeated those concerns at the annual Space Symposium in Colorado — shortly after the SDA was stood up — with a critique of the agency’s strategy for networks of smaller communications and missile tracking satellites, roles traditionally reserved for fleets of large, more expensive military assets.

“Launching hundreds of cheap satellites into theater as a substitute for the complex architectures where we provide key capabilities to the warfighter will result in failure on America’s worst day if relied upon alone,” Wilson told the crowd.

Wilson retired in May 2019. According to Tournear, the cost to develop, launch and operate the first 28 Tranche 0 spacecraft through fiscal 2025 was $980 million. By comparison, a single larger, more traditional military spacecraft can run into tens of millions of dollars, even $1 billion or more in some instances.

At the heart of the SDA’s strategy is the Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture (PWSA), a seven-layer network of hundreds of small, interconnected satellites. Within the PWSA are the strategically placed transport and tracking layers.

Retired Air Force Gen. John Hyten, former commander of U.S. Space Command, was an early supporter of the strategy behind the Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture, which calls for a network of small, interconnected satellites. U.S. AIR FORCE

The transport layer would consist of 300 to 500 satellites in LEO providing communications for the Defense Department’s Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2) to manage operations on the ground, air, sea, space and cyber domains.

In a March 2023 report in Defense One, Space Force chief Gen. B. Chance Saltzman called the transport layer “one of the most crucial” service contributions to JADC2. “The ability to move data globally at scale to anybody that needs, it seems like a no brainer that you would have to have that for Joint All-Domain Command and Control,” he said during an online event sponsored by Defense One.

The tracking layer eventually would consist of about 200 satellites. The effort is one of three separate Space Force programs to develop missile warning/tracking in different orbits, with the other two managed by the Space Force’s main acquisition unit, Space Systems Command, Defense One reported.

A study, “Small satellites: The implications for national security,” published in mid-2022 by the Atlantic Council, a national defense think tank, examined the effectiveness of small commercial satellites on the military’s space architecture.

Among its recommendations, the study urged the Defense Department to capitalize on innovation taking place in the commercial sector, including rapid launch cycles, and the ability of commercial enterprises to focus on cost-cutting through innovative design, including miniaturization, and, possibly, mass production of satellites.

The Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture calls for a network of interconnected communications satellites, such as those depicted in this artist rendering. This space-based network, equipped with Optical Intersatellite Links technology, will enable the sending and receiving of wideband data from one space vehicle to another and between space vehicles and ground stations. SPACE DEVELOPMENT AGENCY

“Over the last decade, the cost of launching a kilogram of mass to LEO has decreased by 90%,” the study said. “SpaceX reduced satellite launch costs from approximately $200 million (at United Launch Alliance) to approximately $60 million. SpaceX aims to reduce these launch costs to about $5 million. As the cost of launch is reduced, many more space missions become profitable business models.”

Also, by mass producing small satellites, the study noted, costs could be reduced from current levels of tens of millions of dollars by about 10%. “Production time could then be reduced from years to a single day. Advancing miniaturization technology will continue to reduce satellite size and cost.”

The study further pointed out the advantages of creating networks of small, interconnected tracking and communications satellites: “Constellations of hundreds of satellites change the targeting dynamics for U.S. and foreign counterspace capabilities,” the study said. “It is easier for a foreign anti-satellite capability to attack one large target than hundreds of smaller ones. … A LEO constellation can suffer the loss of one satellite, or even multiple satellites, and still maintain a degraded capability.”

A Falcon 9 rocket, like this one launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, carried the first satellites into orbit for the Space Development Agency during March 2023. They were part of Tranche 0 — 27 satellites, all now operational, that comprise the first of five planned groups of SDA spacecraft. The agency is creating a resilient, layered network of military satellites and supporting elements called the Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture. SPACE DEVELOPMENT AGENCY

That threat seems to stem not just from ground-based ASAT-type attacks. As the study noted, “any foreign small-satellite service, whether government owned or commercial, could put secondary payloads on its satellites to collect [data] against or destroy U.S. systems.”

Russia demonstrated this tactic in July 2020 when it detached a small object from its satellite Cosmos 2543 to trail a U.S. National Reconnaissance Office satellite. It conducted similar tests in 2017.

“These actions threaten U.S. satellites because they can characterize capabilities, interfere with operations, or even destroy the U.S. satellites,” the study observed. “Determining capabilities on foreign small satellites would require exquisite intelligence collection and characterization capabilities, which are difficult now and will be much more so when the numbers of potential threats exponentially increase.”  

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