{"id":46723,"date":"2026-07-15T21:33:21","date_gmt":"2026-07-15T13:33:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/sda-set-to-resume-launches-with-second-plane-of-york-transport-layer-satellites\/"},"modified":"2026-07-15T21:33:21","modified_gmt":"2026-07-15T13:33:21","slug":"sda-set-to-resume-launches-with-second-plane-of-york-transport-layer-satellites","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/sda-set-to-resume-launches-with-second-plane-of-york-transport-layer-satellites\/","title":{"rendered":"SDA Set to Resume Launches With Second Plane of York Transport Layer Satellites"},"content":{"rendered":"

Update: SpaceX launched the SDA mission on Thursday afternoon from Vandenberg at 4:33 p.m. ET. <\/em><\/p>\n

After a nine month pause in launches, the Space Development Agency<\/strong> (SDA) on Thursday plans to launch the next plane of 21 York Space Systems<\/b> data transport satellites into orbit as it attempts to rebuild momentum to build out the Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture (PWSA).<\/p>\n

The launch aboard a SpaceX<\/b> Falcon 9 rocket is slated for 4:32 p.m. EDT from Space Launch Complex 4 East at Vandenberg Space Force Base, Calif. SpaceX plans to land the first stage booster on its recovery ship in the Pacific Ocean.<\/p>\n

The launch of York\u2019s Tranche 1 (T1) Transport Layer spacecraft will mean half of the planned constellation of data transport space vehicles in the initial tranche will be on orbit, giving warfighters\u2019 \u201creal capability,\u201d SDA Director Gurpartap \u201cGP\u201d Sandhoo told reporters on Tuesday evening.<\/p>\n

The Transport Layer satellites are equipped with Link 16 tactical data link capability and optical communications terminals. They are designed to function within the PWSA by transmitting data collected by the soon-to-be launched Tracking on advanced and hypersonic threats to warfighter as quickly as possible, Sandhoo explained. <\/p>\n

If Thursday\u2019s launch is scrubbed, the next launch window is on Friday.<\/p>\n

Last September, SDA launched York\u2019s first 21 T1 data layer satellites followed in October by 21 Lockheed Martin T1 transport spacecraft. <\/p>\n

SDA originally planned to maintain a monthly launch cadence for the entire T1 constellation, which will consist of 126 Transport Layer spacecraft, 28 Tracking Layer satellites for missile warning and tracking, and four missile defense demonstration spacecraft. However, the agency halted further launches in a \u201cstrategic pause\u201d to correct issues that arose during in-space checkout of the satellites.<\/p>\n

Once on orbit, SDA and York discovered \u201cthermal models were off\u201d for the first satellites and required \u201cthermal mitigation,\u201d Sandhoo said.<\/p>\n

A second issue was the need for additional ground entry points\u2013Earth-based connections that enable software updates to be pushed to the satellites\u2013during the contractor\u2019s early checkout phase, he said. Because the satellites are in low Earth orbit and moving fast, more ground connection points are necessary to ensure access to the spacecraft for the updates.<\/p>\n

There have also been hardware changes to the satellites, which were planned, Sandhoo said.<\/p>\n

Checkouts are still ongoing with the first two planes of satellites but Sandhoo expects satellite checkouts to go \u201csmoother\u201d and faster this time.<\/p>\n

As for York\u2019s T1 satellites on orbit, Sandhoo said they are not all in \u201cideal\u201d orbital planes, citing \u201cissues with the propulsion systems.\u201d Still, SDA will be linking York\u2019s satellites into the agency\u2019s operations centers in the coming weeks to months, he said.<\/p>\n

One of Lockheed Martin\u2019s satellites on orbit \u201chas been out of contact for some time now, but we have 20 good ones, which is fine,\u201d he said, highlighting later that the PWSA is built for resilience.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do expect some failures, but we have enough resilience in the architecture that we don\u2019t need all of them. Right?\u201d he said. Sandhoo added, \u201cRemember, the whole reason we\u2019ve gone to this design, this architecture, a proliferated architecture, is that we expect to take hits and be able to continue the mission. One satellite does not kill the whole architecture.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of the impacts of the issues with the on-orbit satellites is that the SDA has not been able to establish the optical mesh network, Sandhoo previously said in March. As the satellites have still not reached their orbital position, the SDA has still not established a mesh network with either plane already launched. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe have not established a mesh yet, but we are working our way towards it,\u201d Sandhoo said Tuesday. <\/p>\n

The goal is to establish a mesh network within each plane of satellites launched before attempting a cross-plane mesh network, he explained. <\/p>\n

\u201cThese 21 will establish [a mesh network] amongst themselves first. The same thing, we\u2019re working the other two to establish their in-plane mesh first. Once that is done, that\u2019s when we start doing cross-plane, because that gets very complicated very quickly.\u201d <\/p>\n

Prior to the initial T1 launches, SDA launched Tranche 0, a small constellation of demonstration satellites. SDA has lost contact with some of these for three to five months yet they \u201chave come back,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

After this week\u2019s launch, there are seven more launches planned for T1, including three Transport and four Tracking. Northrop Grumman is also building 42 T1 Transport Layer space vehicles. SDA will launch either Lockheed\u2019s or Northrop\u2019s transport satellites next, and this might be followed by the first T1 tracking layer launch, Sandhoo said.<\/p>\n

L3Harris Technologies and Northrop are manufacturing the T1 Tracking Layer birds.<\/p>\n

Sandhoo said the supply chain for optical communication terminals (OCTs) continues to be a cause for delays in getting satellites to the launch pad. <\/p>\n

Having \u201cconfidence\u201d in the post-launch checkouts for the satellites to become operational is more important than sticking to a monthly launch cadence, Sandhoo said. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d rather take the three-week launch delay versus a four-month checkout delay. That\u2019s the kind of math we are doing,\u201d Sandhoo said. \u201cThe goal is to get operational as quickly as possible once you get on orbit.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rachel Jewett contributed to this story <\/em><\/p>\n

This story was first published by Defense Daily<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Update: SpaceX launched the SDA mission on Thursday afternoon from Vandenberg at 4:33 p.m. ET.  After a nine month pause in launches, the Space Development Agency (SDA) on Thursday plans to launch the next plane of 21 York Space Systems data transport satellites into orbit as it attempts to rebuild momentum to build out the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":46724,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-46723","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46723"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46723"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46723\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46724"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46723"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46723"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46723"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}