Space Force Eyes ‘Usable’ Airborne Target Tracking by ’28, More Capability to Follow

The Space Force expects its nascent airborne moving target indicator program will have a “usable capability” in the next few years—but the official in charge of the program says there’s more work to be done beyond that to refine the sensing, data processing, and orchestration needed to deliver a global targeting capability from space.

The Space Force in April announced it had established an initial pool of vendors to compete for Space-Based AMTI contracts, and then in late May awarded SpaceX a $4.2 billion contract to begin building out the constellation, which will track aerial targets. The service plans to start launching those satellites over the next 18 months and have an initial capability on orbit by 2028.

Col. Ryan Frazier, the Space Force’s portfolio acquisition executive for space-based sensing and targeting, said in an interview with Air & Space Forces Magazine that the 2028 architecture will be a first step toward an on-orbit targeting capability but not a full solution.

“Is it everything the joint force requires? I think that will probably extend beyond ‘28,” Frazier said. “But we are going to have capability they don’t have today. … We’ll be able to do things that are high-value or value-added. We won’t be able to do them everywhere all the time.”

The Air Force has long relied on ground-based radars and aircraft like the E-3 Sentry to track airborne targets like missiles, aircraft, and drones. Now, it’s working with the Space Force and the National Reconnaissance Office to add satellites to the mix, an approach leaders expect will make the mission more resilient against adversaries’ anti-access/aerial-denial systems.

That shift is no small feat and will require a complex architecture of sensors, ground processing, and radar systems. To manage that complexity, the service is taking an iterative approach rather than trying to “boil the ocean,” Frazier said. The award to SpaceX is meant to kickstart development of the space layer, and he said he expects delivery of some of the early space sensing capability in the next six to 12 months.

He noted that while the service awarded a large contract to SpaceX right out of the gate, it plans to stage competitions for more contracts for the space layer.

“We’ll compete for different space sensors, different types of sensors,” Frazier said. “We’ll go buy and populate part of the space layer, and then we will do another competition and continue to build out the space layer and then add some complementary phenomenologies to it.”

At the same time, the service is designing the ground and communications architecture and planning additional contracts for sensing demonstrations aimed at identifying, maturing, and validating promising technology. This will also help the service expand its vendor base, Frazier said, and ensure that when new capability is ready, the program can integrate and scale them throughout the system.

His team is also working to mature the tasking, scheduling, and processing systems that will sift through data and deliver it to battle management systems. That requires close coordination between software developers and battle managers across the military services who will use the data and incorporate it in their own workflows.

These efforts, Frazier said, have a dual focus of fielding initial capability and overcoming some of the remaining technological hurdles to conducting airborne target tracking from space. The service and the NRO have staged limited demonstrations that officials say prove the phenomenology works. And the Space-Based AMTI program should be able to build off some successes the two agencies have demonstrated on a separate effort to conduct ground moving target tracking from orbit.

But as the service looks to field these systems more widely, Frazier said, there’s work to be done to improve some of the technology, particularly the ability to distinguish between different types of fast-moving targets and reduce the time it takes to process, analyze, and transmit data from space-based sensors.

“You don’t have a lot of time to be able to get that data to the decision maker or shooter,” he said. “Photons only go so fast.”

There’s also the orchestration challenge that comes with managing such a large fleet of sensors and prioritizing targeting needs across the combatant commands.

The program has efforts underway to work through some of these challenges, Frazier said, some of which focus on ground processing algorithms and building orchestration software.

“We have some good concepts,” he said. “We just have to build the software and the tools and the workflows and the concepts of operation to do that.”

The complexity of the architecture does introduce some schedule and development risk, but Frazier said he thinks the service’s approach—which is to focus on a smaller subset of capabilities, make sure they work, and then move on to the next area—will help it manage that risk.

“When you’re iteratively developing and you’re doing it in chunks, you also kind of manage the risk in smaller chunks,” he said.

Some experts and former officials have questioned the readiness of the space-based targeting technology and have cautioned the Air Force and Space Force against moving too quickly away from airborne targeting platforms. Indeed, the service appeared poised to in fiscal 2026 to abandon plans to buy the E-7 Sentry, an early warning aircraft meant to replace the aging E-3. But the Air Force reversed course this year after some pushback in Congress and is now proposing $1.5 billion for the E-7 in fiscal 2027.

Frazier noted that the Space-Based AMTI capability the Space Force is developing isn’t meant to replace other platforms. Instead, he said, the intent is to be additive, bringing a new, globally responsive architecture that’s different from what the department does today.

“That doesn’t mean it’s going to replace or be better than everything that we have today at particular use cases or missions,” he said. “I look at space-based sensing and airborne sensing as very complementary and layered. Working together will provide the joint force the most optimal warfighting effects.”