SpaceX launches a mission for the Space Development Agency’s Tranche 1 Transport Layer from Vandenberg Space Force Base. Photo: SpaceX

The U.S. Space Force Space Development Agency (SDA) launched 21 York Space Systems‘ satellites on Wednesday — the first that are to provide utility for fielded military forces in the form of beyond line-of-sight Link 16 communications from space, but that connection may take four to six months, according to Gurpartap “GP” Sandhoo, the acting director of SDA.

“Our current plan is to start working with what we call the warfighter immersion and early adopters probably four to six months from now,” he told reporters on Tuesday in a joint call with Mike Eppolito, SDA’s chief program officer and acting deputy director.

This week, Derek Tournear, who has headed SDA since 2019 as the agency’s second director, said that he is leaving the agency to become the director of space innovation at Auburn University. Sandhoo, who had served as SDA’s deputy director since July, is now filling Tournear’s role.

SpaceX launched the Tranche 1, Transport Layer satellites in the SDA’s Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture from Vandenberg Space Force Base, California, on Wednesday morning.  SDA confirmed post-launch the mission was successful.

“First and foremost, once we launch them we’ll be checking on the health and safety of the [satellite] buses,” Eppolito said on Tuesday. “Payload checkout always happens after bus checkout. I can tell you that we’ve made a ton of improvements since Tranche 0 as far as our checkout timelines. We’ve learned a ton from Tranche 0 so you’re gonna see our bus checkout go from months down to days on Tranche 1.”

SDA had wanted to begin the Tranche 1, Transport Layer launches last September, but the agency has said that supply chain problems with optical communications terminals and encryption devices certified by the National Security Agency have delayed the first launch.

“We’ve seen less of that [supply chain problems] with Tranche 2,” Sandhoo said on Tuesday.

Of the 154 planned satellites in Tranche 1, 126 are for the Transport Layer in six launches, and 28 are for the Tracking Layer in four launches.

The next Tranche 1 launch in the next month is to be of Lockheed Martin satellites, and the SDA officials said on Tuesday that the agency still plans a launch per month.

Contractors for the SDA Tranche 1, Transport Layer are York Space Systems, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman, while L3Harris Technologies and Northrop Grumman are developing the 28 satellites for the SDA Tranche 1, Tracking Layer under a $1.3 billion contract awarded in July 2022.

In February 2022, SDA awarded York, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman contracts worth $1.8 billion to build the 126 Tranche 1, Transport Layer satellites. As part of that, SDA awarded York $382 million to build 42 satellites for two near-polar Low-Earth Orbit planes.

This story was updated after the launch 

This story was first published by Defense Daily