A nearly 5-year-old military organization called the Space Development Agency (SDA) has launched 27 prototype satellites over the last year to prove the Pentagon’s concept for a constellation of hundreds of small, relatively low-cost spacecraft in low-Earth orbit.
This new fleet of satellites, which the SDA calls the Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture (PWSA), will eventually number hundreds of spacecraft to track missiles and relay data about their flight paths down to the ground.
The SDA’s approach relies on commercially available spacecraft and sensor technology and will be more resilient to attack from an adversary than the military’s conventional space assets.
Four of the small SDA satellites and two larger spacecraft for the Missile Defense Agency were aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket when it lifted off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 5:30 pm EST (2230 UTC) Wednesday.
“L3Harris delivered this advanced missile tracking capability on behalf of MDA and SDA on orbit in just over three years after work was authorized to proceed.
The narrower field of view of the HBTSS satellites can provide more specific, target-quality data to a ground-based interceptor, according to a report last year published by the Congressional Research Service.
The original article contains 852 words, the summary contains 196 words. Saved 77%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
This is the best summary I could come up with:
A nearly 5-year-old military organization called the Space Development Agency (SDA) has launched 27 prototype satellites over the last year to prove the Pentagon’s concept for a constellation of hundreds of small, relatively low-cost spacecraft in low-Earth orbit.
This new fleet of satellites, which the SDA calls the Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture (PWSA), will eventually number hundreds of spacecraft to track missiles and relay data about their flight paths down to the ground.
The SDA’s approach relies on commercially available spacecraft and sensor technology and will be more resilient to attack from an adversary than the military’s conventional space assets.
Four of the small SDA satellites and two larger spacecraft for the Missile Defense Agency were aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket when it lifted off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 5:30 pm EST (2230 UTC) Wednesday.
“L3Harris delivered this advanced missile tracking capability on behalf of MDA and SDA on orbit in just over three years after work was authorized to proceed.
The narrower field of view of the HBTSS satellites can provide more specific, target-quality data to a ground-based interceptor, according to a report last year published by the Congressional Research Service.
The original article contains 852 words, the summary contains 196 words. Saved 77%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!