Space Development Agency Releases Solicitations for New Technology

The Defense Department’s new Space Development Agency (SDA) has recently issued several solicitations as it looks to create a large satellite constellation and other systems.

On Jan. 21, SDA issued a broad agency announcement seeking “executive summaries, proposal abstracts and proposals for novel architecture concepts, systems, technologies, and capabilities that enable leap-ahead improvements” in military space systems covering the areas of transportation, tracking, battle management, navigation, deterrence and support.

SDA is also seeking industry feedback on in-space mesh networking capabilities and inter-operability for its transportation layer under a separate request for information (RFI).

The agency said it is considering two candidate architectures: a 400-satellite constellation deployed at an altitude of 750 km, and a 270-satellite constellation orbiting at 1200 km.

“In all architecture situations, in-space mesh networks…are critical to the Transport Layer,” the solicitation stated. “The Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems (CCSDS)’s significant efforts in establishing open standards has laid the foundation towards the establishment of open standards within the community. But it has become apparent that new networking protocols will have to be developed or adopted from industry in order to make the SDA constellation a success.”

Under a related RFI, the agency is seeking industry feedback on an optical inter-satellite link (OISL) open standard to improve satellite communications.

“As of the date of this RFI, there was no accepted industry standard to which OISLs were being built and/or manufactured for use in space applications other than extremely high efficiency intended for links over 40,000 km, i.e., greater than geosynchronous range,” according to the solicitation.

SDA’s was created last year to cut through the Pentagon’s red tape and bureaucracy to quickly develop, test and deploy advanced space systems. It is led by Derek Tournear under the direction of Michael Griffin, the undersecretary of defense for research and engineering.