According to the website of the US Aerospace Forces magazine, on December 19th (Friday) local time, the US Space Development Agency, a subsidiary of the US Space Force, announced that it has awarded contracts worth $3.5 billion to four companies for the purchase of a total of 72 missile warning and tracking satellites - the largest deal for the US military's low Earth orbit constellation to date.
The four companies mentioned above are Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, L3 Harris, and Rocket Lab. They will each produce 18 satellites for NASA in the next three years. Due to slight differences in the satellite products provided by each company, the corresponding contract amounts may vary
Lockheed Martin's contract is worth $1.1 billion for the production of missile warning, tracking, and defense satellites;
The contract value of Rocket Lab is 805 million US dollars, which will be used for missile warning, tracking, and defense satellites;
Northrop Grumman's contract is worth $764 million and is only used for missile warning and tracking satellites;
The contract amount obtained by L3 Harris Corporation is 843 million US dollars, which is only used for missile warning and missile tracking satellites.
It is reported that the US Space Force is the sixth independent branch of the US military, established on December 20, 2019, directly responsible to the President. Its main mission is to defend the national interests of the United States in the space field, ensure the freedom of action of the United States in space, protect its space assets, and provide space capability support for the US military (such as satellite communication, missile warning, navigation and positioning, etc.).
NASA is an advanced space technology rapid acquisition agency under the US Department of Defense, now under the jurisdiction of the Space Force. It was established in March 2019 with the core mission of rapidly developing and deploying next-generation space military capabilities based on commercial technology, particularly in response to emerging threats such as hypersonic missiles, and accelerating the construction of a highly flexible diffuse space warfare architecture (PWSA) consisting of hundreds of low orbit satellites.
The Diffuse Space Operations Architecture (PWSA) is a constellation consisting of low Earth orbit data transmission satellites, missile warning and defense satellites. At present, the organization has deployed 8 missile warning and tracking satellites and 19 data transmission satellites in orbit as part of its "Batch 0" experimental constellation. In addition, the agency is conducting a 10 month launch operation, planning to launch an additional 28 missile warning and tracking satellites and 126 communication satellites to form the "first batch".
Missile warning, tracking, and defense are three interrelated yet independent tasks. The missile warning sensor will issue an alert to the user after the missile is launched. The missile tracking system will track the flight trajectory of the missile. Missile defense sensors provide the necessary data for intercepting missiles.
(Comprehensive from Zicai Union, Sina Finance, etc.)
