![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/20251014_SDA_T1TL-C_Vertical.jpg\")
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket stands in the vertical launch position ahead of the liftoff of the Space Development Agency\u2019s Tranche 1 Transport Layer C (T1TL-C) mission. Image: SpaceX<\/p>\nA SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket stands in the vertical launch position ahead of the liftoff of the Space Development Agency\u2019s Tranche 1 Transport Layer C (T1TL-C) mission. Image: SpaceX<\/p>\n
Update Oct. 15, 7:38 p.m. EDT (2338 UTC): SpaceX landed its booster on the drone ship.<\/p>\n
Update Oct. 14, 6:45 p.m. EDT (2245 UTC): SpaceX scrubbed Tuesday\u2019s launch attempt due to poor weather.<\/p>\n
The Space Development Agency is set to add another 21 satellites to its burgeoning low Earth orbit constellation thanks to a launch onboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. It is the second of ten launches that the SDA booked onboard Falcon 9 so far.<\/p>\n
The T1TL-C mission was the second flight supporting what the SDA calls its Tranche 1 Transport Layer. It\u2019s the latest piece of a satellite constellation dubbed the Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture (PWSA).<\/p>\n
\u201cThe mission that we\u2019ve been on for the last six and a half years is to deliver capability to the warfighter,\u201d said Gurpartap Sandhoo, the SDA\u2019s deputy director, in a prelaunch media roundtable in September.<\/p>\n
\u201cBack in 2019, when the SDA was stood up, [the goal] was to do two things: one was to make sure we can do beyond line-of-sight targeting and be able to place the threat, the emerging threat, in the warning missile track domain.\u201d<\/p>\n
SpaceX launched the T1TL-C mission from Space Launch Complex 4 East at Vandenberg Space Force Base on Wednesday, Oct. 15, at 4:06 p.m. PDT (7:06 p.m. EDT \/ 2306 UTC). The rocket flew on a southerly trajectory upon departure from the California coastline.<\/p>\n
\ufeff<\/p>\n
SpaceX used its Falcon 9 first stage booster B1093 to launch this mission. Its most recent flight was the SDA\u2019s T1TL-B mission back in September and it also flew on five Starlink missions.<\/p>\n
Nearly nine minutes after liftoff, B1093 landed on SpaceX\u2019s drone ship, \u2018Of Course I Still Love You,\u2019 which as positioned in the Pacific Ocean. This was SpaceX\u2019s 49th flight from California so far this year.<\/p>\n
Increasing military capabilities<\/p>\n
The 21 satellites flying onboard the T1TL-C mission were manufactured by Lockheed Martin. They will join the first 21 satellites from York Space Systems, launched on the T1TL-B mission, which are currently on orbit.<\/p>\n
Those two companies, along with Northrop Grumman were issued contracts to build out this pice of the PWSA satellite constellation, which will consist of 126 total satellites. Following the launch in September, Col. Ryan Hiserote, the U.S. Space Force\u2019s Space Systems Command\u2019s devision chief in the Assured Access to Space directorate, said that Northrop Grumman\u2019s satellites will fly on the forthcoming T1TL-A mission.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/20251014_SDA_T1TL_Lockheed_Martin.png\")
A row of Lockheed Martin\u2019s satellites built for the Space Development Agency\u2019s Tranche 1 Transport Layer inside the company\u2019s Small Satellite Processing & Delivery Center in Colorado. Image: Lockheed Martin<\/p>\n
\u201cThe first three missions (A, B, and C) as to their order of launches are interchangeable,\u201d Hiserote said in a statement to Spaceflight Now.<\/p>\n
Tranche 1 also includes what the SDA calls a Tracking Layer, which will consist of 28 satellites, and four missile defense demonstration satellites \u201cquipped with optical communications terminals and Ka-band radio frequency receive\/transmit capability,\u201d according to the SDA.<\/p>\n
The SDA plans to launch approximately one mission per month to support its constellation. Following each launch, the SDA will go through initial checkouts and anticipate having these satellites in operating order for their early adopters within about four to six months.<\/p>\n
This first constellation is designed to \u201cserve as the initial warfighting capability for the Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture (PWSA) and provide regional persistence for Link-16 and Ka band military tactical communications, advanced missile tracking and missile warning, and beyond-line-of-sight targeting.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sandhoo said the plan is that by January 2027, the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, the unified combatant command over the Indo-Pacific region of the globe, will be able to start reliably using the capabilities provided by the Tranche 1 constellation.<\/p>\n
\u201cSpace has always been this nebulous thing for people to understand and depend on. So that is the whole goal of that team, is to integrate this into day-to-day operations, so both the joint force understands and can leverage this capability and also the Space Force can present these forces to the joint force through the space layer,\u201d Sandhoo said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s like any new capability that goes into the fleet, it takes time and effort and experimentation and exercising to get them all up to speed to start using it,\u201d he added. \u201cSo, that is our goal for the next two years, at least once we get this regional capability established.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket stands in the vertical launch position ahead of the liftoff of the Space…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":77857,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[85,46,141,145],"class_list":{"0":"post-77856","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-il","9":"tag-israel","10":"tag-science","11":"tag-space"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77856","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77856"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77856\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77857"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77856"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77856"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77856"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}