The Space Development Agency last year quietly canceled plans to launch 11 satellites mean to conduct communications experiments in low-Earth orbit, Air & Space Forces Magazine has learned.
Space Development Agency
Tucked into the Senate Armed Services Committee’s annual defense policy bill is the legal backing the Space Force needs to dissolve the Space Development Agency and the Space Rapid Capabilities Office as part of its acquisition reform efforts.
House lawmakers this week included language in their version of the fiscal 2027 defense policy bill that would dissolve two Space Force rapid acquisition organizations, absorbing their programs and potentially replicating their authorities in the service’s new portfolio-based acquisition system.
Space Force has awarded a $90 million contract to Rocket Lab for satellites to host payloads that tracks objects in geosynchronous orbit.
After eight months leading the Space Development Agency on an acting basis, Gurpartap “GP” Sandhoo was named SDA’s permanent leader and given a second hat as the Space Force’s portfolio acquisition executive for missile warning and tracking programs, the service announced May 19.
The Space Force is proposing to cancel a $3.4 billion program intended to provide missile warning and tracking coverage of the northern polar region as part of its 2027 budget request.
The new Space Force budget request omits funding for future tranches of the Space Development Agency’s data transport layer, teeing up a potential debate in Congress about the future of the organization and the service’s plan for managing both tactical and enterprise communication needs.
The Space Development Agency launched its first two batches of operational satellites last fall in what was supposed to be the start of a 10-month campaign to populate its proliferated data transport and missile tracking constellation. Six months later, the agency and its vendors have ...
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 ...
The Defense Innovation Unit, the Pentagon’s commercial technology hub, plans to demonstrate low-cost, commercially derived missile defense sensors on orbit within the next two years, according to a new notice to industry.
The Space Development Agency wants to launch hundreds of satellites into low-Earth orbit over the next few years—and thanks to a new contract, it now has a way to get rid of some when their service life is over.
The Space Force recently awarded SpaceX $739 million to launch nine missions for the Space Development Agency and National Reconnaissance Office over the next three years. Five of the awarded launches will be to build out SDA’s constellation of missile warning and tracking satellites in ...