AUSA 2023: SDA launching space-based missile tracking sensors, seeks new fire-control systems

A SpaceX Falcon 9 loaded with a T0 payload for SDA’s Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture (PWSA) is pictured on the launch pad at Vandenberg Space Force Base. (Space Development Agency)

The US Space Development Agency (SDA) is fielding tranches of new space-based missile warning and tracking satellites, and a new fire-control system is being explored for a second tranche of vehicles.

“This year we’ve got Tranche Zero [T0] satellites on orbit,” US Army Colonel Alexander Rasmussen, SDA’s chief for the ‘Tracking Layer’ said during a 9 October briefing at the Association of the United States Army (AUSA) annual conference in Washington, DC.

“T0 tracking satellites are a demo. We’ve got first flight on them, and we’ll start sharing data across the [DoD] enterprise on that, and then we’ll have four more satellites launch later this [boreal] fall in collaboration with the Missile Defense Agency (MDA),” Col Rasmussen said.