Space

The Space Force has canceled its contract with one of the four companies developing designs for its Resilient GPS program following an initial design review, Defense News has learned.
Last September, the service’s acquisition arm, Space Systems Command, awarded L3Harris, Sierra Space, Astranis and Axient — which has since been acquired by Astrion — each $10 million contracts to draft early concepts for a constellation of small, low-cost, resilient GPS satellites. In December and January, after early design reviews with each firm, SSC opted to “discontinue” Astrion’s contract, according to Cordell DeLaPena, program executive officer for military communications and positioning, navigation and timing.
“There was one vendor that wasn’t quite at the level of maturity, so we discontinued that vendor and we’re going to harvest the remaining dollars and invest those in the three remaining vendors,” DeLaPena told Defense News in an interview Thursday.
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The Space Force will play a “central role” in the Pentagon’s efforts to develop a homeland missile defense shield, or Iron Dome for America, according to the service’s top officer.
President Donald Trump issued an executive order in late January calling on the Defense Department to develop an “Iron Dome for America” — a more advanced version of Israel’s Iron Dome, designed to counter a range of missile threats, including hypersonic weapons.
The order highlights several space-based elements of this architecture that build on existing capabilities like the Missile Defense Agency’s Hypersonic and Ballistic Tracking Space Sensor program and the Space Development Agency’s Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture, which includes a constellation of missile warning and tracking satellites.
Chief of Space Operations Gen. Chance Saltzman told reporters Monday that given the executive order’s emphasis on space systems, it’s natural the service would play a ke..

The Space Development Agency should put its next launch of data transport and missile tracking satellites on hold until it demonstrates required laser communications capabilities with the spacecraft already in orbit, according to a government watchdog report.
The Government Accountability Office on Wednesday issued a deep-dive review of the Space Development Agency’s progress toward demonstrating that its satellites can connect in space via a laser link. The complex technology allows satellites to share data amongst themselves and with users on the ground using optical communications terminals installed on the spacecraft. The result is much faster, higher-volume data transmissions than traditional systems, which rely on radio frequency beams to send information.
Because the satellites in SDA’s constellation are built by multiple vendors, compatibility among terminals and the ability to communicate across a network of hundreds of satellites is key for their vision of high-speed da..