
As the Space Development Agency (SDA) approaches its third birthday on March 12, the agency on Feb. 28 announced nearly $1.8 billion in awards to three contractors for 126 prototype satellites for the National Defense Space Architecture transport layer's Tranche 1--the SDA's first stab at fielding operational satellites to provide resilient, high volume, minimal lag time communications for military missions. The transport layer is to be the backbone of the Pentagon's Joint All Domain Command and Control (JADC2) concept. The…