US Space Development Agency awards SpaceX $9.9 million study
SpaceX will examine how its laser terminals could connect with missile-warning and tracking satellites whose existing equipment uses a different transmission standard.
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The US Space Development Agency has awarded SpaceX a $9.9 million contract to study how the company’s laser communications terminals could connect with the agency’s missile-defense satellites. An agency spokesperson told Breaking Defense that the study will examine hardware, software and connectivity challenges involved in transmitting data from its Tracking Layer satellites through SpaceX’s Plug and Play, or Plaser, terminals.
The Tracking Layer is designed for missile warning, tracking and targeting in low Earth orbit. Its terminals cannot communicate directly with Plasers because they use different standards for the laser signals that carry data, an agency official said.
Contract options could bring the total value to nearly $12.7 million. The work runs through 7 October 2027 and includes a study to reduce risks, delivery of representative hardware and support for integrating missile-warning and tracking systems. The spokesperson described the study as a first step, with several hardware and software paths under consideration.
Why the networks need a link
SpaceX is building the US Space Force’s Space Data Network Backbone to provide fast communications between Defense Department satellites. Connecting the Tracking Layer and Space Systems Command’s missile-warning satellites in medium Earth orbit is a priority. Sources told Breaking Defense that the command’s terminals also use a different standard from both the agency’s terminals and Plasers.
The agency published the first version of its open terminal standard in 2022 and developed its tracking and data-relay satellites around it. In 2025, the Department of the Air Force switched the planned backbone from the agency’s relay satellites to SpaceX’s constellation, a decision Breaking Defense identified as part of the reason for the mismatch.
Analysis
Possible ways to connect
Experts suggested putting agency-standard terminals on translator satellites that Space Systems Command is developing to connect its own satellites to the backbone. Other possible approaches include fitting future Tracking Layer satellites with Plasers or developing new transmission standards.
A former Space Force official said the translator satellites’ current design is incompatible with the agency’s tracking and relay layers, and that translating network traffic requires work beyond configuring hardware. A Space Systems Command spokesperson said a translator equipped with its planned optical payloads would let a government system connect to the backbone if that system carried a compatible terminal.
The Space Force plans to put an operational backbone prototype in orbit by 2027. Space Systems Command also plans demonstrations that year of connections between the five translator vendors’ satellites and the backbone, progressing from ground-to-ground to ground-to-space and then space-to-space, with each vendor following its own schedule.
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