SpaceX wins contract for missile-warning satellites

[su27k]

Yes, this is surprising, I did not see this coming. I assumed they would bid on the communication layer, but the sensor layer? I assume it would go to some defense contractor, not SpaceX.

SpaceX launches Air Force and Space Force payloads. The military is looking at additional SpaceX services such as Starlink and Starship. SpaceX is a defense contractor.

Only if you use the broadest definition of the term, which is anybody who does business with DoD is a defense contractor. By this definition Office Depot is also a defense contractor since they sell paperclips to the Pentagon.

I'm thinking of a more narrow definition: Anybody who builds products that only military would use is a defense contractor. So far everything SpaceX built has been dual-use, none of its hardware is exclusively aimed at the military. Yes Falcon launched some military satellites, but it also launched commercial and civil payloads, the rocket doesn't care about what's on top of it. Same thing with Starlink, the constellation doesn't care whether it's relaying cat video or DoD transmissions, it's all bits to it. Even the EELV2 infrastructure and hardware SpaceX is about to built has potential civil use cases for NASA. But a missile warning satellite? There's no possible way to use it for commercial or civil services, only the military would want something like this.

And this reminds me: Isn't this also the first time SpaceX building space hardware for someone else? So far all the hardware they built, they retain ownership, as Gwynne Shotwell puts it, they don't sell rockets, they sell launch services. This particular contract may be the first time SpaceX builds hardware whose ownership will be transferred to a customer (and the customer being DoD no less).

[M.E.T.]

This is not a surprising development. SpaceX will spread into every niche of the Space industry where their innovative technology provides them with a competitive advantage.

They started launching large payloads to orbit. Added manned flight. Then pushed into  Rocketlab’s smallsat niche. Then expanded into satellite manufacturing for mega constellations. This led to economies of scale and innovation in that field, leading to this new award.

The same will eventually apply to deep space exploration and asteroid mining. If the market is there, they will move into it. I expect they will dominate space in this century and perhaps beyond.

Weyland corporation comes to mind.

[watermod]

Glad to see a shell game I talked about in the forums long ago start coming to life.

[Asteroza]

Weyland corporation comes to mind.

That didn't end well for the company founder. You know how Engineers are...

[RotoSequence]

Weyland corporation comes to mind.

That didn't end well for the company founder. You know how Engineers are...

I think that's an aspiration of business model ("building better worlds"), not amoral profit seeking opportunities with high body counts. 

[M.E.T.]

Weyland corporation comes to mind.

That didn't end well for the company founder. You know how Engineers are...

I think that's an aspiration of business model ("building better worlds"), not amoral profit seeking opportunities with high body counts. 

Haha. Yeah, my point is that SpaceX has a platform to access space more cheaply than anyone else and has started leveraging that into associated technologies - like satellite manufacturing and operations, telecoms and military contracting, etc. These niches are mutually reinforcing and they will continue to evolve their service offerings to meet every available opportunity in the space economy.

[oldAtlas_Eguy]

An item of speculation about what features the Tracking sat version of Starlink would use based on the existing and future Starlink capabilities:

ISL - Using the protocols of the SDA communication layer ISL.

Ka band phased array - A high bandwidth data capability is still needed. But Ku band is likely not going to be used.

The internal data processing set (last I heard there was 120+ CPU cores) - There is some need for this just for data handling plus having redundancy is a plus. Eventually the massive computational capabilities can be used to perform significant image processing so remote users of the data can get high usage from the data without having a massive computer center just a comm link and console. Total computational capability is an estimated 120 GFLOPS or greater. Future capability could be the detection, tracking and then warning of theater commanders of an incoming long range missile attack (anything that is very high or exoatmospheric trajectory) by the sat itself.

Possible retention of the solar shades - It may be useful to retain the shades both for reflection reduction and for shading the IR optics from solar impingement affecting usability.

All of the CC (upgraded security provisions) and propulsion, power, IMU, Navigation capabilities.

[Star One]

Yes, this is surprising, I did not see this coming. I assumed they would bid on the communication layer, but the sensor layer? I assume it would go to some defense contractor, not SpaceX.

I wonder too if this signals an expansion of its business, that SpaceX is now aiming to become a generic satellite manufacturer and operator, something like LM's space division. LM gets $10B per year from its space division, so there's certainly money in this business.
>

At the risk of going slightly OT, but related to your business expansion point, ISTM the USAF may well be prompting SpaceX to take on a greatly expanded defense role.

The notion hit me on reading this article about the USAF's Next Generation Air Defense (NGAD) fighter.

Dr. Will Roper is the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics.

Defense News...

The US Air Force has built and flown a mysterious full-scale prototype of its future fighter jet

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Air Force has secretly designed, built and flown at least one prototype of its enigmatic next-generation fighter jet, the service’s top acquisition official confirmed to Defense News on Sept. 14.
>
And because the advanced manufacturing techniques that are critical for building NGAD were pioneered by the commercial sector, the program could open the door for new prime contractors for the aircraft to emerge — and perhaps give SpaceX founder Elon Musk a shot at designing an F-35 competitor.

“I have to imagine there will be a lot of engineers — maybe famous ones with well-known household names with billions of dollars to invest — that will decide starting the world’s greatest aircraft company to build the world’s greatest aircraft with the Air Force is exactly the kind of inspiring thing they want to do as a hobby or even a main gig,” Roper said.
>

None of that IMO is "right up Elon's street"
He loves the technology, but he is not doing it for the thrills, or the reputation, or for the future history books, but to make a positive contribution to mankind. I doubt he sees the USA as being immune to becoming a war-monger.
He has an overflowing bucket list of gigantic projects, and developing a war-fighter.... will be both far from the top of that list... and possibly considered a risk!
IMO its almost an insult, the way it is worded. If he does it, it will be to make money for his "real" projects, and to undermine the "old" expensive contractors, save the taxpayer money, and re-boot the aeroplane industry.

I do think he wants to make engineering generally a "skunk works", exciting hands-on discipline, where stuff actually gets built! I would think he believes this is needed across all engineering and technology, and is a key part of "saving humanity" -  in this case from a stifling of the inventive spirit, and thus of progress.

I very much doubt that Space X would turn down launching a DOD payload even if it was a space weapons platform. He’s a businessman first & foremost not some kind of moral arbiter.

[Nomadd]

An item of speculation about what features the Tracking sat version of Starlink would use based on the existing and future Starlink capabilities:

ISL - Using the protocols of the SDA communication layer ISL.

Ka band phased array - A high bandwidth data capability is still needed. But Ku band is likely not going to be used.

The internal data processing set (last I heard there was 120+ CPU cores) - There is some need for this just for data handling plus having redundancy is a plus. Eventually the massive computational capabilities can be used to perform significant image processing so remote users of the data can get high usage from the data without having a massive computer center just a comm link and console. Total computational capability is an estimated 120 GFLOPS or greater. Future capability could be the detection, tracking and then warning of theater commanders of an incoming long range missile attack (anything that is very high or exoatmospheric trajectory) by the sat itself.

Possible retention of the solar shades - It may be useful to retain the shades both for reflection reduction and for shading the IR optics from solar impingement affecting usability.

All of the CC (upgraded security provisions) and propulsion, power, IMU, Navigation capabilities.

Ku band will be used in the next phase, when they start rolling ground based systems into the network.

[oldAtlas_Eguy]

An item of speculation about what features the Tracking sat version of Starlink would use based on the existing and future Starlink capabilities:

ISL - Using the protocols of the SDA communication layer ISL.

Ka band phased array - A high bandwidth data capability is still needed. But Ku band is likely not going to be used.

The internal data processing set (last I heard there was 120+ CPU cores) - There is some need for this just for data handling plus having redundancy is a plus. Eventually the massive computational capabilities can be used to perform significant image processing so remote users of the data can get high usage from the data without having a massive computer center just a comm link and console. Total computational capability is an estimated 120 GFLOPS or greater. Future capability could be the detection, tracking and then warning of theater commanders of an incoming long range missile attack (anything that is very high or exoatmospheric trajectory) by the sat itself.

Possible retention of the solar shades - It may be useful to retain the shades both for reflection reduction and for shading the IR optics from solar impingement affecting usability.

All of the CC (upgraded security provisions) and propulsion, power, IMU, Navigation capabilities.

Ku band will be used in the next phase, when they start rolling ground based systems into the network.

This is about features that is needed for the DOD SDA systems. Are you saying that they are targeting Ku band vs using Ka uplink/downlink for the communication layer? The implementation would need to be compatible with the communication layer ground support systems.

[gongora]

The Tracking Layer sats are going to send their data through the Transport Layer sats.

[Nomadd]

An item of speculation about what features the Tracking sat version of Starlink would use based on the existing and future Starlink capabilities:

ISL - Using the protocols of the SDA communication layer ISL.

Ka band phased array - A high bandwidth data capability is still needed. But Ku band is likely not going to be used.

The internal data processing set (last I heard there was 120+ CPU cores) - There is some need for this just for data handling plus having redundancy is a plus. Eventually the massive computational capabilities can be used to perform significant image processing so remote users of the data can get high usage from the data without having a massive computer center just a comm link and console. Total computational capability is an estimated 120 GFLOPS or greater. Future capability could be the detection, tracking and then warning of theater commanders of an incoming long range missile attack (anything that is very high or exoatmospheric trajectory) by the sat itself.

Possible retention of the solar shades - It may be useful to retain the shades both for reflection reduction and for shading the IR optics from solar impingement affecting usability.

All of the CC (upgraded security provisions) and propulsion, power, IMU, Navigation capabilities.

Ku band will be used in the next phase, when they start rolling ground based systems into the network.

This is about features that is needed for the DOD SDA systems. Are you saying that they are targeting Ku band vs using Ka uplink/downlink for the communication layer? The implementation would need to be compatible with the communication layer ground support systems.

Every time I try to type what I was talking about, I don't like the results. Needs work. Mostly involving data back and forth to sites that isn't huge amounts of raw sensor data needing huge amounts of processing. I'm sort of picturing the network hooking in field sites across the globe. Giving battalion level support and other jobs that they'll eventually discover are more practical with these sats than with the multi billion dollar systems they've been launching. The idea of a grunt sticking a Starlink antenna up to tap into the system instead of the gear they have now is going to look pretty appealing.
 I still remember GIs buying Kmart handheld GPS receivers in the early days because the glacial military procurement system couldn't get anything done in less than geological time spans.

 *Disclaimer....My first network job was finding a wifi bridge/master that would handle Appletalk, and I can't really talk intelligently about modern protocols*

[butters]

SpaceX will undoubtedly utilize their multiple-fault-tolerant computing architecture for these satellites, because they don't have much if any experience with traditional rad-hardened flight computers. But it would be surprising if the tracking layer application requires a ton of on-orbit processing power, because L3-Harris is under contract to deliver comparable satellites, and I don't think they have much if any experience flying powerful computing platforms in space.

I'd further speculate, for the same reasons (but pertaining to York/Lockheed), that the transport layer satellites are bent-pipe analog repeaters more similar to OneWeb than Starlink.

[gongora]

I'd further speculate, for the same reasons (but pertaining to York/Lockheed), that the transport layer satellites are bent-pipe analog repeaters more similar to OneWeb than Starlink.

You might want to acquaint yourself with the requirement for the project before you go making statements like that.

[LouScheffer]

SpaceX launches Air Force and Space Force payloads. The military is looking at additional SpaceX services such as Starlink and Starship. SpaceX is a defense contractor.

Correct. And SpaceX has been a defense contractor ever since Falcon 1.

It will be interesting to see if this remains so.  Up until now, SpaceX has certainly made most of its money selling to the government.

But it's possible that Starlink might change this, making most of SpaceX's income commercial.  Then they would be like Verizon, which sells a similar amount to the government as SpaceX (see, for example,  Verizon lands massive $2.5 billion DoD service contract).  But Verizon is not generally considered a defense contractor since it makes most of its sales (about $30B/year) in the commercial market.

The same might well happen to SpaceX.  If Starlink succeeds strongly, they could become a vertically integrated internet provider, whose technology branch sells stuff and services to the government.

[Ludus]

<snip>
This award has no civil or commercial use, but just defence purpose.
<snip>

Think that is not correct. The DoD have just pay for the development of a LEO optical observation platform with high data transfer rate. The current optical imaging providers should be worry.

24/7 LEO observation of everywhere on the planet with the data flowing directly into Starlink and processed with image recognition AI seems like an obvious next step for SpaceX. Same satellite platform, shared components, same mass production, launch and deployment. Same laser links. It would be enormously valuable for many different applications.

[oldAtlas_Eguy]

<snip>
This award has no civil or commercial use, but just defence purpose.
<snip>

Think that is not correct. The DoD have just pay for the development of a LEO optical observation platform with high data transfer rate. The current optical imaging providers should be worry.

24/7 LEO observation of everywhere on the planet with the data flowing directly into Starlink and processed with image recognition AI seems like an obvious next step for SpaceX. Same satellite platform, shared components, same mass production, launch and deployment. Same laser links. It would be enormously valuable for many different applications.

A hosted payload option on the V2.0 sat. This would be an interesting move but at the moment pure speculation and off topic. Since the current product (Starlink buss sat with modifications) being sold to the DOD would not be a part of the Starlink network.

[FutureSpaceTourist]

https://twitter.com/spacenews_inc/status/1325921366902759427

.@Airbus and Raytheon have filed protests with @USGAO challenging Space Development Agency contracts awarded to @L3HarrisTech and @SpaceX last month for eight missile-tracking satellites, putting the projects on hold until the dispute is resolved.
https://spacenews.com/airbus-raytheon-protest-space-development-agency-satellite-contract-awards/

[su27k]

Now that we know the true size of Gen2 Starlink, it raises the question: What bus are these missile warning satellites based on? They're clearly smaller than Gen2, but bigger than Gen1. I very much doubt SpaceX would design a new bus just for this contract, so what gives? They cut Gen2 in half for this contract? If so, what does this tell us about Gen2 platform?

[markbike528cbx]

Yes, this is surprising, I did not see this coming. I assumed they would bid on the communication layer, but the sensor layer? I assume it would go to some defense contractor, not SpaceX.

I wonder too if this signals an expansion of its business, that SpaceX is now aiming to become a generic satellite manufacturer and operator, something like LM's space division. LM gets $10B per year from its space division, so there's certainly money in this business.
>

At the risk of going slightly OT, but related to your business expansion point, ISTM the USAF may well be prompting SpaceX to take on a greatly expanded defense role.

>
>
And because the advanced manufacturing techniques that are critical for building NGAD were pioneered by the commercial sector, the program could open the door for new prime contractors for the aircraft to emerge — and perhaps give SpaceX founder Elon Musk a shot at designing an F-35 competitor.

“I have to imagine there will be a lot of engineers — maybe famous ones with well-known household names with billions of dollars to invest — that will decide starting the world’s greatest aircraft company to build the world’s greatest aircraft with the Air Force is exactly the kind of inspiring thing they want to do as a hobby or even a main gig,” Roper said.
>

None of that IMO is "right up Elon's street"
He loves the technology, but he is not doing it for the thrills, or the reputation, or for the future history books, but to make a positive contribution to mankind. I doubt he sees the USA as being immune to becoming a war-monger.
He has an overflowing bucket list of gigantic projects, and developing a war-fighter.... will be both far from the top of that list...
>

Musk is doing big projects to make money for Mars; StarLink, DoD launches. and pitching Starship to USSF and USAF. Is there a  higher paying DoD aerospace program than producing attack aircraft?

At 41:15 Elon declares
"The era of the fighter jet is over"


So, no enthusiasm for building something that you feel is obsolete and built to someone else's requirements.
Also, a fighter jet is way off the path to Mars.