SDA hopes to bring satellite laser links into use within next 6 months

SATELLITE 2026 — The Space Development Agency is at least three months behind schedule for demonstrating that its first set of data relay and missile tracking satellites can “talk” to each other via laser links — a requirement at the heart of its Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture (PWSA) mesh network in low Earth orbit (LEO).

Laser links between satellites, formally known as optical intersatellite links (OISLs), also will be a foundational need for the Space Force’s emerging Space Data Network and its Resilient Missile Warning Tracking constellation in medium Earth orbit. Laser communications also will be required for the Pentagon’s future Golden Dome missile defense shield, which envisions linking multiple missile defense sensors in near real-time to shooters on the ground, in the air and at sea. Laser communications terminals are needed by all these networks to allow the rapid transmission of vast volumes of data.

SDA has been bedeviled by problems with OISL development, production and testing of almost from the get go, as documented by the Government Accountability Office in February 2025. Several companies are providing laser link terminals to SDA and its primes; among those publicly named are Mynaric, Tesat Spacecom US, Skyloom, and Umbra.

“We have not established the mesh network for Tranche 1 yet,” SDA Director GP Sandhoo told the annual Satellite Conference on Tuesday. “We’re going through orbit raising … . We are about three months behind.”

The goal, Sandhoo added, is to “start building up the optical mesh network” within the next six months.

In addition, Sandhoo said SDA is taking a “strategic pause” in Tranche 1 launch after discovering a “handful of things” that needed to be corrected in checkout of the 42 Transport Layer satellites already on orbit.

The PWSA Tranche 1 includes 154 satellites total: 126 data relay satellites in the Transport Layer constellation, 28 missile warning/tracking birds in the Tracking Layer constellation, along with four missile defense fire control demonstration satellites. Tranche 1 is intended to provide service over the Indo-Pacific region.

SDA in 2022 contracted with York Space Systems, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman to each provide 42 Tranche 1 Transport Layer satellites. The agency last fall launched the first of those, 21 built by York and 21 built by Lockheed Martin, and had planned to begin launching the rest early this year.

“We kind of stopped to make sure we fix those for the next set of launches,” Sandhoo said, noting that the current goal is to start the follow-on launches in “May or June.” He added that the goal is to have “most” of the Transport Layer launches completed within the next six months.

SDA has yet to launch any of the Tranche 1 Tracking Layer satellites, which are being developed under contracts awarded in 2022 to Northrop Grumman and L3Harris.

SDA does not expect the launch and laser link delays to have a major impact on its long-standing plan to have Tranche 1 up and running for early use by early 2027, an agency spokesperson said.