SDA asks industry to propose 60-day studies of ‘novel’ capabilities for Iron Dome

WASHINGTON — The Space Development Agency (SDA) is soliciting “executive summaries” from interested vendors for fast-track studies of how the agency’s Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture (PWSA) satellite network in low Earth orbit can be best exploited to support President Donald Trump’s “Iron Dome For America” missile shield.

“SDA is interested in industry’s perspective on implementing the Iron Dome for America architecture, and is particularly interested in building on and integrating PWSA’s current contributions to global kill chains and missile defense,” the agency wrote in a Feb. 11 solicitation.

The agency is asking for “novel architecture concepts, systems, technologies, and capabilities that enable leap-ahead improvements for future [PWSA] tranches, capability layers, or, enable new capability layers to address other emerging or evolving warfighter needs,” it adds.

In his Jan. 27 Iron Dome for America executive order, Trump called for the development and deployment of a PWSA “custody layer.” SDA has defined its potential custody layer as a hybrid constellation of government and commercial satellites to provide operators with near-real time ground target tracking and targeting information.

The SDA solicitation lists eight specific areas of interest:

1. High fidelity Modeling, Simulation, and Analysis (MS&A) of the PWSA architecture and
   capabilities in the defense of the United States against current and emerging threats from
   peer and near-peer threats.
2. Opportunities to accelerate Hypersonic and Ballistic Tracking Space Sensor (HBTSS)
   missile defense capabilities into the PWSA Tracking Layer.
3. Opportunities to accelerate technically mature and novel phenomenologies into the PWSA Custody Layer and Tracking Layer.
4. Optimization of the PWSA as a backbone of a global kill web utilizing diverse sensors and the Transport Layer to support kill chains of multiple weapons systems defending the
   homeland and allies.
5. Secure supply chain analysis, with focus on components with next-generation security,
   resilience features, and scalability.
6. Extensible and interoperable space and ground architectures for PWSA, commercial, and
   other missile defense systems.
7. On-orbit sensor data processing, multi-sensor track fusion, and low-latency dissemination
   from space directly to tactical systems and end-users.
8. Software solutions enabling autonomous satellite operations.

The call for studies on speeding HBTSS “missile defense capabilities” is interesting, as its wording differs somewhat from language in an earlier solicitation from the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) on the sensor system. The MDA call asks industry for ideas about how to accelerate deployment of an HBTSS “layer” — a term that connotes a constellation of actual satellites, rather than simply related “capabilities.”

The fate of HBTSS and authority over how such high-precision sensors are pursued has been a bone of contention between the two agencies, and driven some concerns from Capitol Hill. Two prototypes were launched last February, but at the time MDA and SDA said that the birds would not be integrated into SDA’s PWSA. Instead, technology advances and lessons learned from the HBTSS program were being migrated into sensors being developed by SDA for its Tracking Layer of missile warning/missile tracking satellites.

The SDA solicitation says that the results of the studies and any recommendations for how to flesh out the Iron Dome for American architecture will be shared with the Space Force, MDA and other US government agencies. The agency “strongly encourages” interested vendors to reply by 5 p.m. on Feb. 28.