WASHINGTON — The Space Development Agency is recalibrating its procurement strategy for a next-generation constellation of military satellites, following lessons learned from initial deployments and critiques from government auditors.
SDA, operating under the U.S. Space Force, is building what’s known as the Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture (PWSA) – a mesh network of hundreds of satellites designed to provide secure global communications and track missiles. The project represents a major shift in military space strategy, moving away from reliance on a small number of large, expensive satellites toward numerous smaller, interconnected spacecraft that could better withstand attacks.
Following the deployment of its first batch of 27 military satellites last year, the agency is now acknowledging it needs to slow down and conduct more thorough testing before launching approximately 150 more satellites planned for this summer. SDA also will hire a dedicated contractor to serve as an integrator, ensuring all vendors’ satellites work together from the beginning.
The shift comes in the wake of a recent Government Accountability Office report criticizing the agency for pushing ahead with deployments before fully testing laser communications technologies in its initial demonstration satellites, known as Tranche 0.
Lessons from Tranche 0
The first 27 demonstration satellites, launched last year as part of Tranche 0, were intended to serve as a proving ground for the ambitious program.
Gurpartap Sandhoo, a senior advisor at SDA, said a primary challenge in Tranche 0 was integrating satellites from different manufacturers while ensuring seamless interoperability between their payloads. Tranche 0 is still undergoing tests, “and we continue to extract valuable lessons,” he said at the Satellite 2025 conference.
At the same time, said Sandhoo, “we agree with the GAO report that not everything we planned to demonstrate was successfully tested.”
Before the next launch of satellites, he said, “we want to make sure that we have done the due diligence that needs to be done on the ground.”
When the PWSA program launched six years ago, SDA expected satellites would be more standardized as they would be built with commercial buses – the basic spacecraft structure – and add specialized military payloads. Reality proved more complicated.
“There were bus related issues, not just payload related issues, and we focused on payloads, but we kept having bus issues, which we still are,” Sandhoo said. “We assumed, maybe wrongly, maybe not, that there was a commodity bus out there.”
In reality, commercial satellite buses aren’t as standardized as the agency had expected, and the integration of specialized military communications equipment that had never been installed on these platforms before took longer than expected.
“It’s not like buying a washing machine that you plug into the wall and expect it to work instantly,” Sandhoo said.
More ground testing
With these lessons in mind, SDA is altering its strategy for Tranche 1, which will see the launch of approximately 150 satellites beginning in late summer. While still prioritizing rapid deployment, the agency is extending ground testing periods to ensure greater reliability, Sandhoo said. “Instead of just trusting, we are implementing a better verification process.”
Another key shift is in how SDA will accept satellites from vendors. Under Tranche 0, the agency assumed responsibility for testing and integrating satellites post-launch. Moving forward, vendors will be required to conduct on-orbit testing before SDA formally accepts their spacecraft. “We will only accept the plane when the plane is functional,” Sandhoo noted, signaling a shift toward higher accountability from industry partners.
Industry to take on Integration
As SDA refines its approach, it is implementing structural changes for Tranche 3, the next procurement phase after Tranches 1 and 2. The agency is introducing a dedicated integrator role to oversee satellite compatibility and network cohesion from the outset—a responsibility previously handled in-house.
A lesson learned is that integration needs to happen from the beginning, said Jennifer Elzea, SDA’s chief of strategic engagement. Standards alone won’t ensure seamless integration, she said, so for Tranche 3 SDA will bring in an external integrator.
The agency is now evaluating bids for this integration role, which will be separate from the satellite manufacturing contracts.
Aside from these refinements, SDA remains committed to its strategy of fast-paced acquisitions and leveraging a broad mix of commercial space vendors, Elzea said.
Vendors producing satellites for SDA include Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, L3Harris, York Space Systems, Sierra Space, and Rocket Lab.
Sandhoo said the agency’s approach of emphasizing schedule and cost won’t change despite technical challenges. “If you listen to Space Force leadership, they believe in the SDA model,” he said. “Are we slowing things down? Maybe, maybe not. But we are evolving our processes to get things right.”
“We took a lot of risk with Tranche zero, to fly those things and try things that haven’t been done before.”
SDA expects integration challenges to be less severe for Tranches 1 and 2, as the Tranche 0 satellites were hampered by supply chain disruptions that complicated the agency’s already ambitious timelines. Since then, vendors have ramped up manufacturing capabilities and secured more reliable access to critical components.
