By Marina Malenic

Air Force and Lockheed Martin [LMT] engineers last month completed system testing on the first Space-based Infrared System (SBIRS) missile-warning satellite, now planned for delivery to Cape Canaveral, Fla., in March 2011, officials said last week.

Earlier this year, Gary Payton, the Air Force undersecretary for space programs, confirmed a projected December 2010 delivery of the GEO-1 satellite to Cape Canaveral, Fla., in preparation for launch sometime in Fiscal 2011.

“We since have revised our forecasts in terms of delivery dates,” Air Force Col. Roger Teague told Defense Daily in a June 3 telephone interview. “We are marching towards a spring 2011 delivery date, targeting right now the March timeframe…with the intent of getting it launched shortly thereafter.”

Teague is the commander of the SBIRS Wing of the Air Force’s Space and Missile Systems Center, Los Angeles, Calif., and manages both the legacy Defense Support Program (DSP) and the SBIRS follow-on effort.

Teague said SBIRS GEO-1 still has a shot at making the FY ’11 launch manifest despite the delay, which he said was caused by extended testing of a flight software redesign that began in 2007.

“That development has gone extremely well,” he said. “We’re in the final stages of now qualifying that software before we launch it.”

He explained that qualification stresses the software in ways that mimic “anomalous conditions” the satellite might experience while on orbit.

“Given the journey that we’ve had so far, it doesn’t make sense to cut any corners from a mission assurance standpoint,” Teague added.

The SBIRS constellation of infrared satellites for detection and tracking of ballistic missiles in their boost phases is someday expected to replace the decades-old DSP constellation, which currently serves as the main U.S. early-warning system for missile launches around the world. The Air Force has launched two SBIRS sensors on classified satellites, but the service is behind schedule on plans to launch a geosynchronous constellation, starting with GEO-1 and GEO-2.

Lockheed Martin’s program manager for SBIRS, Jeff Smith, said the company has 138 scripts running to qualify the redesigned flight software.

“We’re about half-done with those, and the plan is to complete them in the November time-frame, which would lead up, early next year, to the shipment down to the cape,” he told Defense Daily. “We just need to make sure that every nook and cranny is rung out of this before we launch it.”

System testing on the GEO-1 satellite was completed last month, according to the officials. That test is a “space-to-ground integration verification,” Teague explained. And last fall, the vehicle completed its “most important and grueling” verification–thermo-vacuum testing. Teague described that event as a “final environmental test to ensure that the satellite would survive and operate in a space environment.”

Similarly, the ground system completed a test that validated its functionality, performance and operability, he said.

“So the components of the program, both space and ground, are coming together in operational readiness for launch and support of the SBIRS GEO-1 satellite,” said Teague.

In the meantime, he said, the GEO-2 satellite “continues to make strong progress.” GEO-2 has completed its first phase of satellite-level testing. During the four-month event, called baseline integrated system testing, the Air Force ran the satellite through hundreds of “scripted test events” at Lockheed Martin’s plant in Sunnyvale, Calif.

GEO-1 is expected be available for operational use about 14 months following launch. GEO-2’s availability is projected at six months after launch, according to Air Force fact sheets on the program.