SDA resumes satellite launches after months-long pause

After a months-long pause, the Space Development Agency is ready to launch its next batch of satellites that will be part of the Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture — a network of small, low Earth orbit (LEO) satellites designed to support military operations. 

A SpaceX rocket will launch 21 Tranche 1 transport satellites on July 16 from Vandenberg Space Force Base, California. The launch comes after SDA faced a number of issues with the first 42 Tranche 1 Transport Layer satellites by York Space Systems and Lockheed Martin, which were launched in September and October of last year. 

“We did see software and hardware issues on the ones on orbit right now. That’s why we kind of delayed and took a pause to make sure we fix at least the known issues. We expect this launch to be a lot smoother than the last one,” Gurpartap “GP” Sandhoo, SDA’s director, told reporters Wednesday. 

“By the end of this launch, we’ll have half our transport constellation on orbit. And once you have three planes up, we start to talk real capability for the warfighter,” he added.

Sandhoo said their thermal models were off, which required additional thermal mitigation. Plus, the satellites were not making contact with ground entry points as anticipated, delaying the initial checkout. There were also issues with the propulsion systems.

“This is just the nature of this business at this point. But we took a decent pause on at least fixing all the known issues that we had. They are functioning. They are working. They are not in ideal plane where we would like them to be, just because of the orbit raising issues,” Sandhoo said.

Initially, the agency wanted to conduct about one launch per month, but Sandhoo indicated that SDA is willing to delay launches if necessary to ensure satellites can move through checkout and become operational more quickly once on orbit. 

As for Tranche 2, the agency is “in a better place in terms of schedule” — those satellites are expected to start launching in fiscal 2027. SDA has adopted a flexible approach, launching satellites as they become ready.

“We have gone to whoever is ready to launch we will launch. We have taken over the processing of the satellites at the launch site so we work closely with the vendor. So instead of having a notional schedule that we had, now we have gone to whoever gets through the checkout, assembly integration and testing are ready to launch. We’ll coordinate that launch,” Sandhoo said.

“This was always designed as two independent tranches; they are not dependent on each other from a launch perspective. And as Tranche 2 satellites get ready for launch, if they are ready to go, we will process them and we’ll get them to orbit,” he added.

Meanwhile, Congress is pushing to eliminate the Space Development Agency as an independent organization as part of the Space Force’s acquisition reform efforts. 

“There’s some concerns that people may have with the whole [portfolio acquisition executive] structure and what the SDA future may look like,” Sandhoo said. “But we have not had any issues at SDA, and almost every worker can go get a job tomorrow somewhere else. They’re here for the mission and get this done.”

In addition, a government watchdog warned that technology readiness gaps and schedule planning weaknesses could hinder the agency’s ability to deliver its missile-warning capabilities. The Government Accountability Office also raised concerns about a lack of transparency in the requirements-setting process and the Pentagon’s lack of a reliable lifecycle cost estimate. 

Sandhoo, however, argued that taking some risk is necessary to rapidly field capabilities needed to address emerging threats. 

“You gotta keep going because you can’t lose the momentum to maintain that. And once you find a problem, you stop, you fix it, and you continue on. But you can’t wait for the thing to end before you start the next one. That’s kind of mindset we’re taking. That’s what I think the nation needs right now to face the threat that we are in,” Sandhoo said.

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