Northrop Grumman said on Monday that it has delivered 21 satellites to Vandenberg Space Force Base, Calif., for Tranche 1 of the U.S. Space Force Space Development Agency’s Transport Layer (T1TL).
That layer is to have hundreds of Low-Earth Orbit satellites to speed secure, military communications. The Transport Layer and the Tracking Layer for missile deterrence are the major components of SDA’s future Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture (PWSA). T1TL is to have 126 satellites — 42 by Northrop Grumman, 42 by York Space Systems, and 42 by Lockheed Martin.
“Over the next six months, several dozen additional Northrop Grumman-built satellites for the PWSA will be launched into LEO, contributing to both the missile defense and data transport missions,” Northrop Grumman said on Monday. “Multiple PWSA contracts are underway, each delivering incremental improvements in mission capability. Dozens of satellites are fully integrated, with final checkouts in progress.”
Keith Matthews, Northrop Grumman’s T1TL program manager, said in the statement that the company is using some of its “7-million square feet of manufacturing space dedicated to space programs, equipped with advanced manufacturing systems and AI, to efficiently support the evolving production demands of our PWSA programs.”
This month, SDA said that it expects the second launch of T1TL satellites in early October and that all Transport and Tracking Layer satellites for Tranche 1–the first set of satellites that are to conduct military operations–are to be in orbit within the next six to eight months.
In addition to the 126 T1TL satellites, Tranche 1 will also include 28 Tracking Layer satellites for missile warning and tracking and four missile defense demonstration spacecraft.
The Tranche 1 effort is more than a year behind the original plan, primarily due to supply chain hold-ups for the production of Optical Communication Terminals.
