US Space Development Agency to field satellites for detecting hypersonic vehicles

News, US January 17, 2022 , by IRIA No Comments

The U.S. Department of Defense Space Development Agency (SDA) is all set to field satellites with the capability to detect maneuverable hypersonic glide vehicles during flight.

According to SDA Director Derek Tournear, those satellites in low-Earth orbit (LEO) will be affordable, prolific, and “will make up the tracking layer that will be able to detect hypersonic threats by their heat signatures, eventually on a global scale.”

“Satellites in LEO can detect those dim heat signatures better than satellites in higher orbits… if there are several satellites doing the tracking, getting a geometric fix on a hypersonic threat is much more precise. Once the data gets fused in the Joint Overhead Persistent Infrared Ground System, it’s then disseminated out typically over UHF or other Link 16 networks, then to weapons platforms,” Tournear said

Tournear explained that maneuverability has brought about the need for infrared tracking to be done closer to Earth, from low Earth orbit (LEO) in addition to the 40,000-kilometer-high orbits where missile tracking takes place now.

“They’re all maneuverable, whether or not they’re fractional orbital, or even some of the more ballistic ones, and then especially once you get to the hypersonic glide vehicles. They all can change their impact point, and so you need to be able to detect them throughout the flight,” Tournear added.

*^{A Falcon 9 rocket carrying 49 Starlink satellites into orbit launches from LC-39A at Kennedy Space Center, Fla., Jan. 6, 2022. (Image Credit: Joshua Conti, Space Force)}*

The tracking satellites will be able to directly communicate with the transport satellites via laser optical cross-links, which can rapidly move large amounts of data.

The U.S. plans to launch 144 transport layer satellites by September 2024, which will result in initial warfighting capability, forming a mesh network, according to the SDA director.

“In 2024 or 2025, 28 tracking layer satellites will be launched, resulting in global coverage… SDA is working in two-year cycles to leverage spiral development of new technologies and launch additional satellites in tranches in that timeframe going forward,” Tournear said.

According to the SDA director, “there’s currently a lot of satellite congestion in the 400- to 600-kilometer area above the Earth. SDA is looking to place its satellites in the 1,000- to 1,200-kilometer range. The goal of putting a large number of small satellites in space is to create redundancy in the event an adversary tries to take them out with anti-satellite weapons. It would be much harder to disable the network.”