SpaceX rocket launches Space Development Agency’s first satellites

A SpaceX rocket launched the Space Development Agency’s first satellites on April 2, sending a mix of 10 missile tracking and communication spacecraft into low Earth orbit in the agency’s highly anticipated debut mission.

The Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from the US Space Force’s West Coast range at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, Defense News reports.

Following the flight, the rocket’s booster — which provides thrust to the launch vehicle — returned to its landing zone at the base. The mission was scheduled for March 30, but SpaceX delayed the launch for three days and has not disclosed the reason.

The rocket carried two SpaceX-built satellites that will detect and track ballistic and hypersonic missiles, which can travel and maneuver at Mach 5 speeds, and eight spacecraft built by York Space Systems that will use optical links to transfer data from space-based sensors to users on the ground.

SDA was created in March 2019 to help the U.S. Department of Defense build a more resilient space architecture in low Earth orbit — located within about 1,200 miles of the planet’s surface — and demonstrate a new way to develop and acquire space systems.

Modeled after the Missile Defense Agency, which tests and fields ballistic missile capabilities, SDA’s acquisition strategy is defined by two key concepts: “spiral” development and proliferation.

The vision is for hundreds of small, relatively low-cost satellites to augment Pentagon constellations of large, expensive spacecraft. While it typically takes the military five to 10 years to conceive and then launch a satellite, SDA wants to shrink that to about two years, fielding new technology at a regular pace, or spiral.

This first mission is proof the agency can meet that timeline, according to SDA Director Derek Tournear. Despite schedule challenges that pushed the launch from October 2022 to December and then to March, the Tranche 0 satellites are launching just over two-and-a-half years of the agency’s initial contract awards in August 2020.

“We’re pretty excited to show that the model actually does work — to be able to do that proliferation to get the capabilities to the warfighter at speed,” Tournear told reporters March 29 during a pre-launch briefing.

The 10 vehicles are part of SDA’s initial batch, dubbed Tranche 0. A second Tranche 0 launch of 18 satellites built by Lockheed Martin, L3Harris, York and SpaceX is scheduled for June. According to Tournear, the total cost to develop, launch and operate the first 28 spacecraft through fiscal 2025 is $980 million.