Kacey Roberts
Northrop Grumman has concluded the design review of 16 satellites intended for an expansive network that will facilitate conventional and advanced missile tracking from low-Earth orbit.
The company said Wednesday the critical design review is part of the Space Development Agency’s Tranche 1 Tracking Layer project, which seeks to use the satellites for identifying hypersonic weapons and advanced missiles from their initial launch phases to interception.
The satellites will navigate two of four LEO planes once in orbit to connect with the Tranche 1 Transport Layer, another component of the Space Development Agency’s Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture.
With the completion of the CDR effort, the path is now clear for the commencement of production work on the space vehicles.
In July 2022, Northrop secured a contract from the SDA to build and deploy a constellation of satellites with infrared sensors for the T1TRK initiative.
