The Space Development Agency has awarded $3.5 billion in other transaction authority agreements to Lockheed Martin, L3Harris Technologies, Northrop Grumman and Rocket Lab USA to build 72 satellites for the third tranche of the Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture’s tracking layer.
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SDA said Friday Tracking Layer Tranche 3, or TRKT3, of the PWSA, is expected to launch by fiscal year 2029to provide missile warning and missile tracking capabilities to support missile defense and warfighter missions worldwide
Tranche 3 Tracking Layer Award
Lockheed secured a potential $1.1 billion firm-fixed-price OTA agreement from SDA, while Rocket Lab received an OTA worth $805 million.
SDA awarded Northrop an OTA agreement valued at $764 million. L3Harris booked a potential $843 million contract.
Each vendor will deliver and operate 18 space vehicles under the OTAs.
“L3Harris is proud to support SDA in its mission to deliver a next generation, layered defense architecture that can track threats in real time,” Christopher Kubasik, chair and CEO of L3Harris and a three-time Wash100 awardee, said in a statement. “Defeating the hypersonic missile threat begins in space, and our Tranche 3 satellites will advance our proven, on-orbit tracking and targeting capability needed to protect our homeland.”
What Is PWSA Tranche 3 Tracking Layer?
Organized across eight orbital planes, TRKT3 seeks to expand coverage by delivering persistent indication, warning, detection, tracking and identification of hypersonic missile systems and other advanced missile threats. Each space vehicle is equipped with optical communication terminals, an infrared mission payload, Ka-band communications payloads and an S-band backup telemetry, tracking and command system.
“The Tracking Layer of Tranche 3, once integrated with the PWSA Transport Layer, will significantly increase the coverage and accuracy needed to close kill chains against advanced adversary threats,” said Gurpartap “GP” Sandhoo, acting director of SDA.
“The addition of these satellites will achieve near-continuous global coverage for missile warning and tracking, along with payloads capable of generating fire control quality tracks for missile defense,” added Sandhoo.
In April, SDA issued a solicitation for the PWSA TRKT3 OTA initiative.
What Is SDA PWSA?
PWSA, formerly known as the National Defense Space Architecture, is an SDA initiative to develop a layered constellation of small satellites in low Earth orbit designed to provide missile defense and other space capabilities for warfighters. According to SDA, PWSA is integrated into the U.S. Space Force’s hybrid missile warning, tracking and missile defense architecture to support joint force operations and warfighting missions across all domains.
In January 2024, SDA selected L3Harris, Lockheed and Sierra Space for Tranche 2 Tracking Layer prototype agreements worth $2.5 billion combined.
In 2022, the agency awarded $1.3 billion in prototype agreements to L3Harris and Northrop for the first tranche of the PWSA Tracking Layer.
