Space Development Agency Director Fred Kennedy outlines his vision for a space architecture that leverages commercial industry to deliver military capabilities. Credit: Tom Kimmell for SpaceNews

Space Development Agency aims to issue first RFI this summer

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The Pentagon’s brand-new Space Development Agency intends to make a formal request for information from megaconstellation ventures and their vendors this summer.

35TH SPACE SYMPOSIUM Commercial Military Space Development AgencySpace Sensor Layer
Gen. John Hyten, commander of U.S. Strategic Command, congratulates Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson April 9, 2019, at the 35th Space Symposium. Credit: Tom Kimmell

Hyten: Hypersonic missile defense satellites a job for the Space Development Agency

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Hyten agrees with SDA Director Fred Kennedy that DoD should rapidly develop a space sensor constellation in LEO.

35TH SPACE SYMPOSIUM Policy & Politics hypersonic misslesSpace Development AgencySpace Sensor LayerU.S. Strategic Command
Space Tracking and Surveillance System. Credit: Northrop Grumman

Next steps for the Pentagon’s new space sensors for missile defense

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Griffin: “We think the best approach is a network of satellites in low orbit. How many, what orbit, all that is to be determined.”

Commercial Policy & Politics missile defenseSpace Sensor Layer
A U.S. Navy Standard Missile-3 Block IB interceptor launches from a Japanese destroyer during a Sept. 12 test of the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System off the coast of Hawaii. Aegis is part of the missile defense network that protects U.S. and allied warships from ballistic missile attacks. The Missile Defense Agency wants to add a new layer of space sensors to detect and track hypersonic weapons that China and Russia are developing. Credit: U.S. Missile Defense Agency

Is Space Sensor Layer the Pentagon’s next major space program?

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Defense officials have been sounding alarms about what they describe as a glaring national security vulnerability — a new class of ultrafast weapons being developed by China and Russia that would overpower U.S. missile defenses.

From the Magazine missile defenseSpace Sensor Layer