More companies join roster of SDA suppliers • Cost and schedule troubles for next-gen ICBM

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View this email in your browser National security insights for space professionals. Delivered Tuesdays. In this week's edition: • Space Development Agency adds new names to roster of suppliers • Cost and schedule troubles for USAF's next-gen ICBM • Lockheed Martin Skunk Works and NASA unveil supersonic plane • And much more  If this newsletter was forwarded to you, sign up for free here Top story The Space Development Agency doled out a whopping $2.5 billion in contracts last week to build the next phase of the U.S. military's missile-tracking satellite network in low Earth orbit. More details here on the contracts awarded to L3Harris, Lockheed Martin and Sierra Space for SDA's Tracking Layer Tranche 2. While Lockeed Martin and L3Harris are familiar faces, the selection of Sierra Space marks the company's first major military satellite order and gives it a foothold in SDA's burgeoning satellite network.  Each company will manufacture and operate 18 infrared sensing satellites designed to spot and track hypersonic missiles in flight.  New supplier agreements also were announced for those Tracking Layer Tranche 2 contracts. Lockheed Martin is partnering with General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems, which is providing the infrared payloads. General Atomics last year acquired EO Vista, a supplier of infrared sensors used for missile tracking and also for weather imaging. Sierra Space tapped sensor maker Geost for its infrared payloads. It's a big win for Geost, which last year became part of a holding company called LightRidge Solutions. The CEO of LightRidge, Bill Gattle, was previously president of space systems at L3Harris where he helped the company win its first SDA contract in 2020. The Space Development Agency, meanwhile, earned high marks last week from a commission studying innovation adoption at the Pentagon. In its new report, the Commission on Defense Innovation Adoption, organized by the Atlantic Council, said defense organizations should clone SDA's model, which emphasizes quickly fielding and scaling new tech. "SDA provides an early model for preemptive disruption within the Space Force," the commission wrote. The group is chaired by ex-Defense Secretary Mark Esper and former Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James. Formed last year, the panel aims to bring DoD's rigid acquisition apparatus into the 21st century. In other news The next-generation intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) that Northorp Grumman is developing for the U.S. Air Force is struggling with cost and schedule overruns, the service confirmed last week.  Reports that the new missile, named LGM-35A Sentinel, is way over budget came two days after Northrop Grumman announced a successful ground test of a solid rocket motor it is developing for the Sentinel's second stage.  The estimated per-unit cost of the Sentinel has increased by 37%, triggering what is known as a Nunn-McCurdy breach —  a situation where a major U.S. defense acquisition program experiences significant cost overruns beyond set thresholds. A Nunn-McCurdy breach exposes a program to potential termination unless justification is provided to Congress by the secretary of defense. According to previous DoD estimates, Sentinel was projected to cost about $96 billion for 400 missiles. The Air Force in 2020 awarded Northrop Grumman a $13.3 billion contract to design and develop a new ICBM to replace the nation's aging Minuteman 3, which makes up the ground-based leg of the nuclear triad. Lockheed Martin's Skunk Works earlier this month rolled out the X-59, an experimental aircraft funded by NASA in an effort to quiet the sonic boom, one of the most persistent challenges of supersonic flight. The X-59 supersonic aircraft will be used to gather data, paving the way for a new generation of commercial aircraft that can travel faster than the speed of sound, said NASA Deputy Administrator Pam Melroy. "In just a few short years we've gone from an ambitious concept to reality. NASA's X-59 will help change the way we travel." The aircraft is projected to take off for the first time later this year, followed by its first quiet supersonic flight. Hindsight is 20/20. Foresight is a superpower. 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To learn more visit blacksky.com and follow us on LinkedIn.  More from SpaceNews 🚀 The U.S. military should step up collaboration with NASA and support the development of infrastructure for scientific and economic activities in cislunar space, argues a new report from the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies.  "The DoD must establish an infrastructure for the cislunar regime extending the types of services and capabilities currently in operation closer to Earth, such as space domain awareness, high bandwidth communications and cislunar navigation technologies," the report contends. It recommends Congress add $250 million in annual funding to DoD's budget for cislunar space activities. Space investments should start picking up in 2024 after plummeting last year, according to the market research firm Space Capital. Around $17.9 billion was invested in the global space economy in 2023, 25% less than in 2022 and a decade low against tough economic conditions.  This level of investment was a far cry from a $47 billion peak Space Capital recorded for 2021. Investors are still reeling from a recent wave of special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) mergers that rushed a bunch of early-stage space firms to the stock exchange, only for many of them to miss revenue targets and significantly underperform on the public market. Government demand for space-based capabilities continues to be a major boon for the industry, and helped prop up the sector amid a challenging macroeconomy. A NASA report offered a skeptical assessment of space-based solar power and its ability to provide low-cost green energy. This is also an area of interest to the U.S. military which has invested in a number of space experiments focused on solar-based power.  The NASA report concluded that one architecture would produce electricity at a cost of $0.61 per kilowatt-hour, and the other at $1.59 per kilowatt-hour. By contrast, terrestrial renewable systems, such as wind, hydropower and terrestrial solar plants, produce energy at $0.02 to $0.05 per kilowatt-hour. Following the release of the report, space-based solar-power advocates pushed back on the findings and criticized the assumptions used for the study. Thanks for reading ! Please send comments, suggestions and tips to serwin@spacenews.com Copyright (C) 2024 Multiverse Media Inc.. All rights reserved. You signed up to receive this newsletter on Spacenews.com. At times you may receive marketing material. 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