The Space Development Agency (SDA) was established in 2019 by
Mike Griffin with his appointment to
Under Secretary of Defense (R&E) by President
Donald Trump. Griffin was a long time advocate for
low Earth orbit constellations to eliminate U.S. vulnerability to
ballistic missiles with his work on
space-based interceptors for the
Strategic Defense Initiative and
Brilliant Pebbles in the 1980s. These programs, however, were discontinued in the 1990s due to high cost and political disagreement. Later, the United States and other countries developed
hypersonic weapons, which Griffin argued were thermally dimmer and could only be reliably tracked by low-flying satellites with infrared sensors, creating a need to resurrect such programs. The Space Development Agency (SDA) originally introduced the
National Defense Space Architecture,, which was later renamed the
Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture. It advances a network of global orbiters organized into layers, each supporting distinct military functions such as communications, surveillance, navigation, battle management, deterrence, and missile defense. The
satellite constellation is to be interconnected by
free-space optical laser terminals in a secure command and control
optical mesh network. Satellites are to be low cost and "proliferated" in low Earth orbit. New commercial technology such as
reusable launch systems have reduced deployment costs and new mass-produced commercial satellites offer less "juicy" targets for
anti-satellite weapons by being inexpensive and potentially hard to distinguish from other commercial satellites. Over the years, launch and manufacturing costs have been greatly reduced. Decades after the
SDIO’s
DC-X failed there are now commercial
reusable launch vehicles such as
SpaceX's
Falcon 9 rocket. Meanwhile
mass manufacturing as with
Starlink has proven the potential for lower satellite build costs. Both China and Russia brought concerns to the
United Nations about the U.S. plans for militarization of space. The
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace has advocated for better use of
arms control and
international agreements such as a treaty halting related development by all parties to prevent an
arms race in space. Critics have reiterated longstanding concerns that ground-based lasers can easily "paint" satellites in low Earth orbit, temporarily blinding their sensors. The APS reporting the energy needed for this is very low. Likewise,
RF jamming is simpler when communication and radar satellites are in lower altitudes as less power is needed to saturate their
low-noise amplifiers. It is also far easier to launch an
anti-satellite weapon to destroy satellites in low Earth orbit (as demonstrated with small
ASM-135 or
RIM-161 missiles) given much less energy is required to kinetically intersect than to enter and maintain orbit. An adversary would simply need to "punch a hole" in the constellation immediately before launching an attack. When the
Biden administration took ownership of the program in 2021, they appeared to take heed of these concerns but still signed on to a $500M increase for the agency in the FY2023 spending bill.
The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, dubbed the Space Development Agency "a model for the military". In their
2025 Mandate for Leadership, they call to develop new offensive space capabilities to "impose [American] will if necessary". They further claim the Biden administration "has eliminated almost all offensive deterrence capabilities" in space that were planned under the Trump administration. In 2020, 13th Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics
Will Roper expressed interest in the
SpaceX Starlink satellite internet constellation as a platform for the SDA. SDA awarded its first contracts in August 2020.
Lockheed Martin received $188 million and York Space Systems received $94 million to each build 10 data relay satellites for its transport layer. In October 2020, SDA chose
SpaceX and
L3Harris Technologies to develop four satellites each to detect and track ballistic and hypersonic missiles. The initial tranche of satellites were originally scheduled to launch September 2022. software problems, and protests by
Raytheon and
Airbus over procurement and evaluation process. SDA industry partners now include
SpaceX,
L3Harris Technologies,
Northrop Grumman,
Ball Aerospace and
General Dynamics. SDA's current schedule expects Tranche 0 capability will be on orbit in time to support a summer 2023 demonstration.
Link 16 connectivity between
Five Eyes nations, via Low Earth Orbit Tranche 0 satellites was demonstrated from 21 November to 27 November 2023. Global coverage of missile launches will take 40 downward-looking satellites. By year-end 2025 there will be 126 Link-16 satellites in orbit for intercommunication, using Tranche 1 Tracking capabilities. Tranche 2 Tracking capability will start in 2026. expecting first launch in September 2024, Tranche 1 totals more than 150 satellites: 126 in Tranche 1 Transport Layer; 35 in Tranche 1 Tracking Layer; 12 in the Tranche 1 Demonstration and Experimentation System. Tranche 2 satellites were solicited for bid in 2023, for launch in 2026. York Space Systems will build 62 satellites for the Tranche 2 Transport Layer. In 2023 contracts for 72 satellites were awarded to Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin (for 36 Beta satellites apiece). In 2024 a third vendor, Rocket Lab LLC, was selected to supply 18 space vehicles, an additional part of the Beta Tranche 2 Tracking Layer (T2TL) tranche, for a total of 90 space vehicles in the Beta T2TL tranche. On 16 January 2024, the SDA announced an award to three vendors worth up to $2.5 billion. These vendors will supply "preliminary fire control" satellites in the Tranche 2 Tracking Layer. They will carry infrared (IR)
cameras, with a mix of
fields of view (FOVs). The FOVs in the IR cameras will be either wide FOV (WFOV), or medium FOV (MFOV) for low-resolution, or higher-resolution tracking capability respectively. Tranche 2 Tracking capability will start after the 2026 launches. == Projects and research ==