Tag: Derek Tournear

Space Development Agency’s Orbital Mesh Network

Article by Nathan Strout                                        April 21, 2021                                         (defensenews.com)

• In 2019, the Space Development Agency (SDA) was charged with developing the National Defense Space Architecture for second generation US satellite communications in low earth orbit. “The whole idea is to be able to move data as rapidly as possible to get that tactical information directly to the war fighter,” said SDA Director Derek Tournear.

• The backbone of the architecture is the ‘transport layer’ – an orbital mesh network of hundreds of satellites connected through optical intersatellite links. The transport layer will be the glue that will connect the military services’ various combined networks allowing the DoD to rapidly move data through space directly to existing tactical data links on a weapons platform or on a weapon itself.

• SDA will use a ‘spiral development’ approach to build out the space architecture, putting up new satellites every two years. The first set of 28 satellites will begin launching in 2022. The next set of 150 satellites, to be launched in 2024, will be an operational system to provide a war fighter immersion capability. “That’s our initial war fighting capability,” said Tournear. “[W]e want those (communications) crosslinks to not only be satellite to satellite, but satellite to air, satellite to ground, and satellite to air and maritime assets…”

• The agency is working with several companies to ensure their satellites can connect to the transport layer via optical intersatellite links. Those commercial satellites will form the custody layer, an intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capability that will provide overhead satellite imagery for tactical targeting. The agency is also talking with commercial services that could provide high bandwidth data backhaul in case the architecture was disabled.

• On April 16th, SDA issued a request for information seeking industry feedback on an optical communication standard. The third set of satellites will “fold in the lessons learned … any new technology that’s been developed, and any new threats that have come online,” said Tournear. He expects Space Force systems to connect to the transport layer via optical intersatellite links, and commercial capabilities are expected to tie in even sooner. Responses to the optical communications RFI are due by April 30th, and the transport layer satellites are expected to be ordered this summer.

 

WASHINGTON — Before its first satellites are on orbit, the Space Development

 Director Derek Tournear

Agency is reaching out to industry for feedback on how it should upgrade its communications standards for its second generation of satellites.

Established in 2019, the agency was charged with developing the National Defense Space Architecture, a proliferated constellation to eventually be made up of hundreds of satellites mostly operating in low Earth orbit. The backbone of the architecture is the transport layer, a mesh network on orbit connected through optical intersatellite links. The transport layer will allow the DoD to rapidly move data through space, and will be the glue that will connect the services’ various Combined Joint All Domain Command and Control networks.

“The whole idea is to be able to move data as rapidly as possible to get that tactical information directly to the war fighter,” said SDA Director Derek Tournear at the annual C4ISRNET Conference. “So what the transport layer consists of are hundreds of satellites that form a resilient optically interconnected mesh network that will pass data directly to existing tactical data links. So what that means to the war fighter is the following: I can now move data from a targeting cell that could be located CONUS or ideally that targeting cell will actually form a target onboard on the satellites and I can send that data down directly to an existing tactical data link on a weapons platform or on a weapon itself.”

SDA is using a spiral development approach to build out the NDSA, putting up new tranches of satellites every two years. The first set of 28 satellites — tranche 0 — will begin launching in 2022 and provide a war fighter immersion capability. Tranche 1 will have closer to 150 satellites and will be an operational system.

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Space Lasers Will Revolutionize Military Communications

Article by Patrick Tucker                                          February 18, 2021                                               (defenseone.com)

• Satellites using lasers to exchange data has been around since 2011. Space-based laser communication is only possible with a very narrow beam, making it much harder than radio-frequency communication but also much more difficult for adversaries to jam or interfere with. Laser communication promises to make military communications faster and harder to intercept. But figuring out how to do it at the scale and reliability needed for practical communication poses a big challenge.

• Laser communication is potentially big money and a host of big tech companies are looking at its potential. The two-year-old Space Development Agency (SDA) has already released a communications standard to be used by four companies supplying the laser gear for a four-satellite trial experiment. SDA director Derek Tournear expects to soon release a request for proposals for a 150-satellite constellation the SDA plans to launch into low-earth orbit by September 2024.

• Tournear didn’t say what four companies were working on the project. He did say that he wants SDA to become the initial go-to market for such innovations in satellite communications. “We are actually trying to create a market,” he said at a recent Space Foundation event. “I want industry to view this as a way to develop a product that then they can sell into that market to try and win a portion of that market share. As long as we do that we’ll have a robust industry base.”

• The Space Development Agency is to be folded into the US Space Force by October 2022, according to the National Defense Authorization Act. But the law specifies that the agency will keep authorities for contracting, classification, etc autonomous. That autonomy is essential to help industry create new space-based technologies that may disrupt markets, said Tournear.

• The agency is asking businesses to take a risk in research and develop capabilities solely for the SDA. These new businesses must be autonomous enough to eventually find non-SDA uses for these technologies in order to expand the market into the space industry commercial sector. Otherwise, they have no long-term incentive to develop these technologies. “[T]he language in law is actually very good at trying to protect that from occurring,” says Tournear.

 

                  Derek Tournear

Satellites that use lasers to exchange data promise to make military communications faster and harder to intercept — if the Pentagon can figure out how to make them work.

With plans to launch a 150-satellite constellation into low-earth orbit by September 2024, the two-year-old Space Development Agency is on a deadline. It has already released a communications standard to be used by four companies supplying the laser gear for a four-satellite experiment called tranche zero, agency director Derek Tournear said Tuesday at a Space Foundation event. And by August, Tournear expects to release a request for proposals that will spell out key details for the “more robust” standard needed for the 150-satellite tranche one.

Laser communication between satellites has been around since 2011 but figuring out how to do it at the scale and reliability needed for practical communication is a big challenge. As engineer Allan Panahi’s seminal 2010 paper on the subject explains, space-based laser communication is only possible with a very narrow beam, making it much harder than radio-frequency communication but also much more difficult for adversaries to jam or interfere with. “The requirement for much more pointing accuracy, acquisition, and tracking…and the impact that this may have on the spacecraft that is moving at 3 [kilometers per second] for [geosynchronous orbit] to 7 [kilometers per second] for [low Earth orbit] is a formidable task,” Panahi wrote.

It’s also potentially big money. SpaceX, Facebook, Google and a host of other tech companies are looking at the potential of laser-based communications.

Tournear didn’t say what companies were working on his project. He did say that he wants SDA, which has plans to launch six additional satellite layers after tranche one, to become the initial go-to market for innovations in satellite communications, at a time when funding for some satellite startups has grown shaky. “We are actually trying to create a market,” he said. “I want industry to view this as a way to develop a product that then they can sell into that market to try and win a portion of that market share. As long as we do that we’ll have a robust industry base.”

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The Pentagon’s Plan to Pepper Space With Surveillance Satellites Takes Shape

 

Article by George Dvorsky January 22, 2020 (gizmodo.com)

• The first major initiative from the DoD’s new Space Development Agency (SDA) to to build the National Defense Space Architecture (NDSA). The NDSA will consist of seven layers, or “constellations” of the U.S. military. Launched in March 2019, the stated mission of the SDA is to unify and integrate the military space capabilities necessary to ensure U.S. technological and military advantages in space, and to detect and knock out surface-to-air and hypersonic missiles on the Earth below. The SDA will become a part of the US Space Force in 2022.

• Speaking at a Pentagon briefing on January 21st, the director of the Space Development Agency, Derek Tournear., announced that the first layer of the NDSA, the ‘Transport Layer’, will consist of hundreds of surveillance satellites that will attain full global coverage by 2026. By as early as 2022, however, the Transport Layer should be capable of ‘regional coverage’, pinpointing targets on the ground or at sea and tracking advanced missiles.

• The seven NDSA ‘constellations’ are described as follows:
       • Transport Layer: to coordinate global military data and create a full range of “warfighter platforms”
       • Battle Management Layer: to facilitate mission command and data control
       • Tracking Layer: to provide global-tracking and targeting of missile threats
       • Custody Layer: to constantly track enemy missiles and missile launchers
       • Navigation Layer: to provide an alternative back-up to GPS navigation
       • Deterrence Layer: to deter hostile actions up to lunar distances
       • Support Layer: to enable integration between ground and space-based assets

• Under the plan, one new satellite will be constructed per week. Each satellite will be relatively small, weigh a “few hundred kilograms,” cost around $10 million, and have a life expectancy of around five years. To that end, the SDA issued a broad agency announcement that it is looking for commercial partners to help develop and implement these technologies. The SDA will be soliciting bids for the first batch of satellites in late spring 2020 and awarding contracts in the summer.

• The entire National Defense Space Architecture system will eventually involve thousands of satellites. Each layer will perform a different function, such as detecting incoming missiles, alerting ground forces of potential threats, keeping tabs on potentially hostile weapons systems, and augmenting navigational capabilities, among other important defense roles. Considering that Elon Musk’s SpaceX Starlink megaconstellation may deploy up to 45,000 internet satellites, low Earth-orbital space is quickly becoming cluttered.

 

New details have emerged about the Pentagon’s ambitious plan to build seven different defense constellations, the first of which will include hundreds of surveillance satellites that are expected to attain full global coverage in just six years.

Known as the National Defense Space Architecture (NDSA), it’s the first major initiative from the newly hatched Space Development Agency (SDA), a part of the Department of Defense.

             Derek Tournear

Once it’s built, the NDSA will consist of seven constellations, or “layers” in the parlance of the U.S. military. Each layer will perform a different function, such as detecting incoming missiles, alerting ground forces of potential threats, keeping tabs on potentially hostile weapons systems, and augmenting navigational capabilities, among other important defense roles.

Launched in March 2019, the SDA is “responsible for unifying and integrating [the Department of Defense’s] space development efforts, monitoring the department’s threat-driven future space architecture and accelerating the fielding of new military space capabilities necessary to ensure U.S. technological and military advantages in space,” according to a press release from the DoD. The agency is on track to become part of the U.S. Space Force in 2022.

Speaking at a Pentagon briefing yesterday, Derek Tournear, who was appointed director of the SDA in October 2019, said the first of these layers, the Transport Layer, will consist of several dozen satellites by the end of 2022, reported SpaceNews. Once at this early threshold, the system will “show that we can operate a proliferated constellation and that the constellation can talk to weapon systems,” said Tournear.

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