The Space Development Agency is shelling out $30 million to see how it can use a commercial satellite network for tactical communications. The contract award to AST SpaceMobile, announced Feb. 23, is the agency's first use of a vendor pool meant for demonstration and experimentation ...
SDA transport layer
The Space Development Agency added 21 satellites to its nascent data transport network in an Oct. 15 launch, the second mission in a 10-month campaign to field 154 operational spacecraft.
Defense Department officials are engaged in “active debate” over the future of the Space Force’s data transport architecture and hope to have a decision on the way ahead in time for the fiscal 2027 budget’s release next year.
The Space Development Agency is fine-tuning and expanding its data transport satellites’ Link 16 connectivity, preparing for them to become the “backbone” of the Pentagon’s ambitious joint all-domain command and control system—and perhaps beyond that to NATO.
The growing frequency of intentional and unintentional incidents in space proves the case for resiliency.
Some of the satellites that will form the planned “backbone” of joint all-domain command and control may include “translation” payloads to let other satellites feed their data into the Pentagon’s massive mesh network, the head of the Space Development Agency said Oct. 25. SDA is ...
The Space Development Agency’s experimental Low Earth Orbit (LEO) data transport constellation will employ bleeding edge new technology in space when it starts to launch later this year. But down on the ground, SDA Director Derek M. Tournear told the Space Symposium April 6, the ...