SDA awards $3.5B across 4 contracts for next phase of missile tracking satellites
The Space Development Agency (SDA) has given four companies contracts worth a combined $3.5 billion for a future tranche of its space-based missile warning and tracking architecture.
The agency announced Friday that teams led by Lockheed Martin, Rocket Lab, Northrop Grumman and L3Harris will each build and deliver 18 satellites for the Tranche 3 tracking layer of SDA’s Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture (PWSA). The batch of 72 vehicles are expected to launch in fiscal 2029, according to SDA.
Although all four vendors will build the same number of satellites, each of the firm fixed-price other transaction authority (OTA) agreements are for different dollar amounts: Lockheed Martin, $1.1 billion; Rocket Lab, $805 million; Northrop Grumman, $784 million; and L3Harris, $843 million.
The PWSA is intended to be a mega-constellation comprising hundreds of satellites stationed in low-Earth orbit (LEO) split across two “layers” — a transport layer that provides data relay capabilities, and a tracking layer equipped with sensors able to detect missile threats. SDA is developing and fielding the architecture in batches known as tranches, with each iteration featuring the latest next-generation technologies.
The new awards came after a brief delay due to the recent six-week government shutdown, during which the Defense Department reallocated SDA funds to supplement warfighter salaries, according to a report from Breaking Defense.
“The Tracking Layer of Tranche 3, once integrated with the PWSA Transport Layer, will significantly increase the coverage and accuracy needed to close kill chains against advanced adversary threats,” SDA Acting Director Gurpartap “GP” Sandhoo said in a statement.
Tranche 3 will provide “near-continuous global coverage” for missile warning and tracking missions, as well as half of the payloads “capable of generating fire control quality tracks for missile defense,” Sandhoo added.
The agency has previously worked to develop missile defense payloads through its experimental Fire-control On Orbit-support-to-the-war Fighter (FOO Fighter) program.
Although they sound similar, missile warning, tracking and defense are three different mission sets. Missile warning notifies when a threat has been launched, missile tracking uses sensors to follow targets during flight, and missile defense provides key geographic and time data for interceptors to defeat them via high-fidelity fire control data.
Of the 72 space vehicles in the Tranche 3 tracking layer, those developed by Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman will have fire-control capabilities, according to statements from both companies.
Furthermore, the PWSA missile defense payloads will likely be part of Golden Dome, an effort initiated by President Donald Trump to develop a sprawling missile defense architecture over the U.S. homeland.
“The Tracking Layer initiates the PWSA’s proliferation of missile defense sensing, or fire control, in support of Homeland Defense and Theater Defense,” the agency said in a statement.
All of the Tranche 3 tracking layer prime contractors have worked with SDA across numerous programs. L3Harris has supported every missile tracking tranche within the PWSA, while Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin have each built satellites for at least one tranche of the tracking layer.
The contract is Rocket Lab’s first for developing missile warning and tracking satellites. The company has traditionally focused on providing launch capabilities, but recently expanded its business to include manufacturing space vehicles — having received a contract from SDA for the Tranche 2 transport layer in 2024.
SDA began its long-awaited launch campaign of the first batch of operational PWSA satellites in September with the deployment of 21 Tranche 1 transport layer space vehicles. At the time, officials said that the initial operational missile warning and tracking birds in Tranche 1 will be launched into space sometime in early 2026.
