SDA Procurement Lags as Pentagon Plans Agency Closure

The Space Development Agency (SDA), created in 2019 to bypass Pentagon bureaucracy and accelerate military space deployments, is facing dissolution. According to Ars Technica, lawmakers in both houses of Congress have supported the agency's closure in drafts of this year’s National Defense Authorization Act, with the Pentagon planning to fold the semi-autonomous agency back into the Space Force’s procurement pipeline.

The SDA's primary objective is the Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture (PWSA), a constellation of several hundred low-Earth orbit satellites designed to detect, track, and target hypersonic and ballistic missiles. This system is intended to replace expensive, vulnerable legacy satellites in geosynchronous orbits. The PWSA is slated to become part of the Trump administration’s "Golden Dome" missile shield priority.

However, the agency has struggled with production bottlenecks and technical issues. Ars Technica reports that SDA satellite deployments were paused for nine months following issues with the first two Tranche 1 launches in September and October of last year. While those launches were successful, ground teams struggled to commission satellites built by Lockheed Martin and York Space Systems. SDA Director Gurpartap “GP” Sandhoo told reporters that satellites encountered propulsion and thermal control problems while climbing to an operational altitude of over 600 miles, noting that orbit raising has been “sporadic” due to a harsh radiation environment. Additionally, ground controllers lacked sufficient ground station coverage to communicate with the spacecraft.

On Thursday, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched the third group of data transport satellites from Vandenberg Space Force Base, bringing the total number of transport satellites launched in Tranche 1 to 63. The full Tranche 1 architecture is designed to include 154 operational satellites: 28 for missile tracking and 126 for data relay.