{"id":806921,"date":"2026-07-17T21:50:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-17T21:50:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/806921\/"},"modified":"2026-07-17T21:50:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-17T21:50:11","slug":"the-pentagons-space-development-agency-hasnt-moved-as-fast-as-anyone-would-like","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/806921\/","title":{"rendered":"The Pentagon’s Space Development Agency hasn’t moved as fast as anyone would like"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sandhoo identified several issues with the first Tranche 1 satellites during a roundtable with reporters before this week\u2019s launch. Ground controllers lacked sufficient ground station coverage to communicate with the satellites after last year\u2019s launches. Some of the satellites encountered thermal control and propulsion system problems as they climbed from their insertion orbit to an operational altitude of more than 600 miles (1,000 kilometers), significantly higher than SpaceX\u2019s Starlink Internet network, Sandhoo said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are in a pretty harsh radiation environment at 1,000 kilometers, so not all of our orbit raising has gone according to plan,\u201d he said. \u201cIt has been sporadic. We\u2019re working through it.\u201d Sandhoo is optimistic that ground teams will eventually declare most of the satellites ready for operations, but it\u2019s taking longer than expected.<\/p>\n


\n \"\"
\n <\/a><\/p>\n

The Space Development Agency\u2019s \u201cTranche 1\u201d architecture includes 154 operational satellites, 126 for data relay and 28 for missile tracking. With this illustration, the SDA does its best to show how it\u2019s supposed to work.<\/p>\n

\n Credit:
\n Space Development Agency\n <\/p>\n

\n The Space Development Agency\u2019s \u201cTranche 1\u201d architecture includes 154 operational satellites, 126 for data relay and 28 for missile tracking. With this illustration, the SDA does its best to show how it\u2019s supposed to work.<\/p>\n

Credit:<\/p>\n

Space Development Agency<\/p>\n

Getting it right<\/p>\n

SDA and its contractors \u201ctook a pause\u201d after last year\u2019s launches to \u201cmake sure we fixed at least the known issues,\u201d Sandhoo said. \u201cWe expect this launch to be a lot smoother than the last one.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thursday\u2019s launch was the second SDA launch of York\u2019s data transport satellites, and the third for Tranche 1 overall. Seven more launches will complete Tranche with 63 additional data transport satellites and 28 missile tracking satellites manufactured by Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and L3Harris. None of the Tranche 1 tracking satellites have launched yet.<\/p>\n

Sandhoo said the schedule for the next series of SDA satellites is \u201cstill constrained\u201d by the availability of optical communication terminals, the laser transmitters and receivers needed to connect the transport and tracking satellites into one integrated mesh network.<\/p>\n

While SDA officials declined to say when the next few launches might occur, the agency said the Tranche 1 satellites will \u201cprovide initial warfighting capability beginning in 2027. Sandhoo said the agency is no longer focused on achieving a monthly launch cadence. It\u2019s more important, he said, to make sure SDA\u2019s satellites launch when they are ready. \u201cThe goal is to get operational as quickly as possible once you get in orbit,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sandhoo identified several issues with the first Tranche 1 satellites during a roundtable with reporters before this week\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":806922,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[64,63,128,285],"class_list":["post-806921","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/806921","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=806921"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/806921\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/806922"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=806921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=806921"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=806921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}