US Space Force has awarded Raytheon Intelligence & Space and Millennium Space Systems a further $605 million for the development of prototypes to be used in the Missile Track Custody program that could become the first medium-earth satellite tracking and missile tracker.
The Missile Track Custody program is one piece of the Space Force’s plan to make its on-orbit missile warning and tracking capabilities more resilient against growing threats from China and Russia. Today, those satellites either reside in geosynchronous orbit — about 22,000 miles above Earth — or in highly elliptical orbit beyond GEO. Through Missile Track Custody, the service plans to launch warning and tracking satellites to MEO, located between 1,200 and 2,200 miles above Earth, where space sensors can observe a larger area.
The Space Development Agency is also launching a fleet of more than 100 satellites in low Earth orbit, or LEO, less than 1,200 miles above the equator.
The contract's latest version will see the companies provide a space vehicle that will house the missile tracking mission's payload, ground-based command and control, and mission-data processing components.
The service was able to award follow-on contracts after selecting two companies to work under the program in May 2021.
When it is operational, Missile Track Custody will enhance the space force's fleet of warning satellites for missiles within Geosynchronous Earth orbit, which is more than 20000 miles higher than Earth. Medium Earth orbit is anticipated to operate at 1,000 to 2000 miles.
The company also explained its approach. Raytheon announced that it would offer MTC's command-and-control and real-time mission data processing components. It will be based on the future operationally robust ground-based evolution of the mission data processing framework (FORGE MDPAF). The framework processes and collects data from satellites, such as over-the-top persistent infrared (OPIR) space vehicle data from Space Force's space-based infrared systems (SBIRS) constellation and the next-generation OPIR constellation.
"This is an advanced solution to counter emerging missile threats facing our country," said Roger Cole, executive director of Strategic Systems programs, Raytheon Intelligence & Space. "From its MEO perch, our system will enable Space Force to detect and track adversarial hypersonic weapons with precision accuracy accurately."
Raytheon Intelligence &Space's mission payload, approved for the critical design reviews in November 2022, is scheduled to be integrated into the satellite bus LM400.
"Lockheed Martin is excited to provide our mid-sized, rapidly-producible LM400 bus to Raytheon, supporting our customer's mission to deliver initial warfighting capability with Missile Track Custody Epoch 1," said Mike Corriea, vice president of Lockheed Martin's Overhead Persistent Infrared mission. "Lockheed Martin will leverage a full suite of digital engineering tools to produce dramatically more responsive and flexible satellites at a fraction of the cost and delivery time for our customers."
The team is planning to finish an critical design review of the system in 2023. He was followed by the build integration, and test program to bring capabilities to space by 2026.
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