Lockheed Martin's Tranche 0 transport layer satellites are seen at one of the company's processing facilities.
Lockheed Martin
The Pentagon announced Tuesday that about $2.5 billion in contracts will go to L3Harris, Lockheed Martin and Sierra Space to build satellites for an expanding military system.
The U.S. Space Force's Space Development Agency is having the trio of companies build 54 satellites as part of a network the U.S. military is building, the Proliferated Warfare Space Architecture. These satellites will be for the “Tranche 2 Tracking Layer” of the satellite constellation, related to anti-missile defense.
According to the awards, each company will build 18 satellites: 16 for missile warning and tracking and two with infrared missile defense sensors. The fixed-price contracts are worth $919 million to L3Harris, $890 million to Lockheed Martin and $740 million to Sierra Space. The satellites are expected to launch in April 2027.
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“Agile response across the space industry is critically important as we deliver this faultless missile warning, missile tracking and missile defense mission capability to the fighter,” SDA Director Derek Tournear said in a statement.
PWSA is a constellation designed to have hundreds of satellites in orbit, for greater resilience and redundancy than previous US military satellites. It is being built in “tranches” and each of them will represent a new generation of satellites with increasing capabilities. Each section consists of two “layers”: Transport, for mesh communications, and Tracking, for targeting and missile defense.
An artist's illustration shows the functions of the Space Development Agency's satellite constellation.
Space Development Agency
The Pentagon has increased its ambitions in space, seeing the need to keep up with China's growing capabilities in an area that has broad ramifications for national security efforts on Earth. The Space Force has especially seen its budget grow, with $30 billion requested for fiscal year 2024, roughly double its 2021 budget. Much of that funding goes to defense contractors and space companies that provide products and services to the army.
The SDA has previously awarded contracts to build and operate satellites for the same network to Lockheed and L3Harris, as well as Northrop GrummanSpaceX, York Space and rocket laboratory.
Sierra Space is a private subsidiary of Colorado-based aerospace and defense contractor Sierra Nevada Corporation. Late last year, Sierra Space added about 150 employees with SNC security clearances, as part of a broader restructuring after fielding its first Dream Chaser spaceplane.
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