US SDA delays creation of orbital network by at least a year — Breaking Defense
In National Harbor, Maryland, the US Space Development Agency (SDA) announced a delay of at least a year in creating an orbital network for transmitting data between satellites. SDA Director G. P. Sandhu said the agency has still not begun building the network, although it had previously planned to start this work within six months.
As Breaking Defense reports, a little more than six months ago Sandhu assessed the schedule slip at around three months. He now expects that at least another three months will be needed before work begins. According to him, launching work to create the network is SDA's top priority for the next three to four months.
Laser data exchange
The network is intended to enable direct data transmission between satellites using laser beams, without intermediate relaying of signals through ground stations. It is needed for the Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture, a system that is planned to include hundreds of satellites for missile threat warning, tracking and fire control.
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Sandhu named several reasons for the delay. One of them is a shortage of high-quality optical components. Optical modules must provide clear transmission and reception of signals while also being robust enough to withstand launch into orbit.
Supply problems
For the first group of Tranche 1 satellites, SDA awarded fixed-price contracts. However, all of them provided for the supply of optical communications terminals from a single manufacturer. According to the agency's head, this supplier has problems with production rates and cannot fulfill deliveries.
For Tranche 2, the agency plans to reduce risks by creating a parallel option for equipment integration. This should make it possible to replace optical terminals with products from another supplier at later design stages. In the future, SDA is also considering the use of onboard satellite computing and artificial intelligence to process data directly in orbit, but the primary task remains launching the satellites.
