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Theresa Hitchens on February 16, 2021 at 4:05 PM
UPDATED To Include Link To Space Symposium 365 Video. WASHINGTON: The Space Development Agency (SDA) and the builder and operator of America’s spy satellites, the NRO, are discussing how to move imagery more rapidly from spy satellites to warfighters for targeting, SDA Director Derek Tournear tells me.
The two agencies are working on “joint roadmaps where we’re planning on being able to integrate their layer and get to the Transport Layer,” he says in an exclusive interview. SDA’s plan is to combine data from NRO imaging satellites with data gathered from commercial imaging providers to provide operators with near-real time ground target tracking and targeting information via what SDA calls the “Custody Layer” of its National Defense Space Architecture.
L3Harris leaped from tracking weather to tracking missiles, cracking a competitive field Nathan Strout
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An artist s depiction of L3Harris tracking layer satellite, which will be part of a solution designed by the Space Development Agency and the Missile Defense Agency to track and target hypersonic weapons from space. (L3Harris) WASHINGTON In January 2017, one of the government’s newest weather satellites picked up the most bizarre signal: a wildfire moving at breakneck speeds across the Atlantic Ocean. Now, wildfires don’t spread across the ocean, and they certainly don’t move at the pace being reported. What was going on?
7 The rotary wing aircraft is a key Army capability. From the ever present UH/HH-60 Black Hawk family to the CH-47 Chinook, the AH-64 Apache, and the relatively new UH-72 Lakota, these aircraft have become significant force multipliers. These aircraft transport personnel and equipment, and deliver lethal firepower, across every imaginable terrain and environment. In addition, the ability of rotary wing aircraft to land and take off from just about anywhere is essential to the role of military quick reaction forces and medical evacuation (MEDEVAC) teams.
All these airframes and missions have one thing in common: they need protection in the air. No one knows this better than Project Manager Aircraft Survivability Equipment (PM ASE); its right there in the name, after all. And in 2020, Product Manager Infrared Countermeasures (PdM IRCM) pushed hard to hone their product to a sharper edge.
CLARIFICATION/UPDATE:
To reflect that the SDA Tracking Layer satellites will be able to directly tip and queue other OPIR satellites in future; and the resumption of the program.
WASHINGTON: The $4.9 billion contract to produce three Next-Generation Overhead Persistent Infrared (Next-Gen OPIR) missile warning satellites seems to fly in the face of loudly touted Air and Space Force efforts to embrace open standards and cut the number of ground stations, receivers and antennas, experts said.
Instead, the new contract awarded to Lockheed Martin includes bespoke ground systems and sensor processing software raising questions in particular about how the data collected eventually will be shared with the Space Development Agency’s ballistic and hypersonic missile tracking sats.