SDA Seeks to Expand Ground Architecture for Future Missile Tracking Satellites

The Space Development Agency is opening a competition to expand its ground architecture to support a growing fleet of missile warning, tracking, and defense satellites.

The agency issued a solicitation Sept. 18 requesting bids from companies to develop ground entry points for its missile defense satellites at locations around the world. By early next year, SDA plans to choose a single company to build, install, and maintain up to eight new ground entry points and to perform upgrades at current sites.

The ground segment expansion will support Tranche 3 of what SDA calls its Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture, a low-Earth orbit constellation envisioned to include hundreds of data transport and missile tracking satellites that will be refreshed every two years with new capability. So far, SDA has launched just eight missile tracking satellites as part of what it calls “Tranche 0” to demonstrate the viability of space-based missile tracking in LEO. The agency is in the midst of launching Tranche 1, which will feature 28 missile warning and tracking satellites. Tranche 2 will include 54, and Tranche 3 will have 108 spacecraft.

That proliferated space architecture requires a network of ground systems that can push data from satellites to military users who need it to inform decisions about how to respond to missile threats. SDA expects that distributing those ground systems across multiple locations will both improve the performance of the capability and make it more resilient.

For its first two operational tranches, SDA is requiring its satellite vendors to provide the ground stations needed to operate their spacecraft. General Dynamics Mission Systems is under contract to integrate those ground stations into ground operations centers, which serve as hubs for each tranche of satellites. SDA has awarded the company $816 million to date for that work.

For Tranche 3, the agency wants to transition to an enterprise model, according to a Government Accountability Office report issued in January. That approach would feature “new capabilities” and build on the earlier tranches. SDA has also selected SAIC to serve as a third-party integrator for Tranche 3, which GAO says should help address past challenges with ground system testing and operations.

SDA expects to start launching Tranche 3 satellites in late 2028 or 2029, but in the meantime it’s focused on populating Tranche 1. The agency has launched three batches of data transport satellites and has six missions left to complete the tranche. SDA Director Gurpartap Sandhoo told reporters Sept. 15 at AFA’s Air, Space & Cyber conference that the first Tranche 1 tracking satellites should launch either late this year or early next.

The Space Force’s fiscal 2027 budget requests $3.5 billion for SDA’s LEO-based Resilient Missile Warning/Missile Tracking program. Budget documents indicate that fiscal ‘27 funding, if approved, will support early work on Tranche 3 ground entry points and other infrastructure to expand the “global footprint.”