On Wednesday, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station with two prototype satellites for the Missile Defense Agency and four missile tracking satellites for the US Space Force.
These satellites are part of a new generation of spacecraft designed to track hypersonic missiles launched by China or Russia, and possibly new missile threats from Iran or North Korea, which are also developing their own hypersonic weapons.
Hypersonic missiles are smaller and more maneuverable than conventional ballistic missiles, which can be detected by older U.S. missile defense satellites (their infrared sensors are tuned to detect bright thermal signatures from the exhaust gases of missiles).
Meanwhile, hypersonic missiles present new challenges: while ballistic missiles follow a predictable parabolic trajectory that carries them into space, hypersonic missiles — are smaller and relatively dim, and spend more time in flight in the Earth’s atmosphere; their maneuverability makes them difficult to track.
Over the past year, the Space Development Agency (SDA) has launched 27 prototype satellites that together form the Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture (PWSA) fleet — eventually comprising hundreds of spacecraft to track missiles and transmit data on their flight paths to Earth. The tracking data will provide early warning to those targeted by hypersonic missiles and help develop solutions to shoot down or intercept them.
The SDA grouping combines conventional tactical radio links, laser inter-satellite communications, and wide-area infrared sensors. The agency, which is now a division of the Space Force, plans to launch successive generations or parts of small satellites, each offering new technologies.
The SDA approach is based on commercially available spacecraft and sensor technologies, and will be more resilient to enemy attacks than conventional military space assets. Outdated military satellites often cost hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars per unit.
The four SDA tracking satellites built by L3Harris are the last spacecraft the agency is launching in its prototype group called Tranche 0. Starting later this year, the SDA plans to launch a rapid launch campaign with SpaceX and United Launch Alliance to quickly build its Tranche 1 operational group, with launches that will take place at one-month intervals to deploy approximately 150 satellites. This will be followed by a Tranche 2 group with more advanced sensor technologies.
The other two prototypes (one provided by L3Harris and the other by Northrop Grumman) will demonstrate medium field of view sensors — they cannot cover as much territory as the SDA satellites, but will provide more sensitive and detailed missile tracking data.
The $300 million-plus satellites and prototypes will take part in joint military exercises in the coming months.
Source: Ars Technica