By Chris Forrester
Dr Derek Tournear, Director, Space Development Agency, (SDA) delivered a fascinating Keynote at the Silicon Valley Space Week and its MilSat Symposium on October 23. With hundreds and hundreds of warfare satellites (tranches) potentially in orbit, and moving data in real time and handling warfare threats and activity, the SDA has a very full and demanding set of complex objectives. Dr Tournear said that his mission was very much on schedule with its first 27 craft already in orbit.
He explained that the world had moved on from the day when the key objective was to protect and supervise the first 300 miles or so and where an enemy threat was anticipated. Today, the need is much, much greater and the SDA has demonstrated that it can also handle missile threats when using LEO satellites.
Dr Tournear updated delegates on the SDA scheme’s planned schedule up to and including the Tranche 3 batch of satellites which should be in place starting in 2029. Vendors are being invited to pitch now for participation in the program. He also outlined the SDA’s ‘HALO’ element of the scheme.
In a fast-moving presentation he told delegates about cooperation with foreign nations such as Australia, and these would continue. Overall, there were initially some 40 bidding vendors and some did not get accepted for the system. There would be new opportunities, he stressed.
He responded to critics who were suggesting that the SDA was moving too quickly and that Tranche 0 lessons learnt could not be incorporated into Tranche 1 because of the speed of development. He said price was incredibly important, and the schedule accepted that cost versus capability meant that with a need for hundreds of satellites the lessons learned would be incorporated, but price was ever-important!
