The U.S. Missile Defense Agency (MDA) is a research and development agency within the Department of Defense. Its mission is to develop and deploy a layered missile defense system to protect the United States, its deployed forces, allies, and friends from missile attacks in all phases of flight. MDA is developing space-based sensors for tracking ballistic and hypersonic missiles and works with partners like the U.S. Space Force and U.S. Navy on testing and deployment. Keywords associated with MDA include missile defense, ballistic missiles, hypersonic weapons, space-based sensors, and interceptor technology.
All verified mentions of this organization in source documents.
The Space Development Agency’s Tracking Layer work is part of a collaborative approach that includes MEO missile warning/missile tracking efforts at Space Systems Command and integrated data and ground efforts of the Missile Defense Agency.
The Tracking Layer will be augmented with missile-tracking satellites in low Earth orbit made by the Missile Defense Agency and with medium Earth orbit spacecraft being developed by Space Systems Command.
Five missile tracking satellites designed and built by L3Harris Technologies successfully launched from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida as part of the Missile Defense Agency’s Hypersonic and Ballistic Tracking Space Sensor program and the Space Development Agency’s Tranche 0 Tracking Layer program.
Missile Defense Agency payloads on USSF-124 use medium-field-of-view sensors designed to provide fire-control-quality data for tracking missile trajectory, location, speed, and altitude.
One L3Harris satellite and one Northrop Grumman satellite on USSF-124 are the first prototypes developed under the Missile Defense Agency’s Hypersonic and Ballistic Tracking Space Sensor program.
The four Tranche 0 satellites built by L3Harris will launch together with the U.S. Missile Defense Agency’s Hypersonic and Ballistic Tracking Space Sensor (HBTSS) satellite.
The Tranche 0 satellites built by L3Harris will launch together with the U.S. Missile Defense Agency’s Hypersonic and Ballistic Tracking Space Sensor (HBTSS) satellite.
The four Tranche 0 satellites built by L3Harris will launch together with the U.S. Missile Defense Agency’s Hypersonic and Ballistic Tracking Space Sensor (HBTSS) satellite.
The Missile Defense Agency delayed a national security space mission projected to launch in December 2023 until the second quarter of fiscal year 2024 due to technical issues with one spacecraft.
Under Tranche 0, L3Harris developed four prototype wide field-of-view satellites for the SDA and one prototype medium field-of-view satellite for the Missile Defense Agency.
The five Tranche 0 prototype satellites developed by L3Harris are ready to be hosted on the Missile Defense Agency’s upcoming launch.
The four delayed L3Harris missile-tracking satellites are scheduled to fly alongside other Missile Defense Agency satellites on the USSF-124 Space Force mission with no launch date announced.
Randy Kendall will lead Launch, Missiles, and Mobility with a focus on Space Access, Mobility, and Logistics, including Aerospace’s launch support and support for the Missile Defense Agency and nuclear enterprise customers.
The four L3Harris wide-field-of-view infrared satellites are on track to launch in October on USSF-124 alongside two Missile Defense Agency medium-field-of-view prototype infrared satellites.
There are four more Tranche 0 missile-tracking satellites made by L3Harris projected to launch on a U.S. Space Force–Missile Defense Agency mission later 2023.
Four additional Tranche 0 missile-tracking satellites made by L3Harris are projected to launch later 2023 on a U.S. Space Force–Missile Defense Agency mission flown on a Falcon 9 under the National Security Space Launch Phase 2 contract.
Four L3Harris tracking satellites that are part of Tranche 0 will not launch with the other Tranche 0 satellites and are being moved to a future launch with other Missile Defense Agency sensor satellites.
The U.S. Space Force is collaborating with the Missile Defense Agency and the Space Development Agency under the Chief of Space Operations to develop a unified Overhead Persistent Infrared (OPIR) Enterprise solution for missile warning, missile tracking, and missile defense.
The West Coast Solutions HBS achieved TRL 5+ in the recently-completed Missile Defense Agency SBIR Phase II.
Leidos was one of four companies that competed in 2020 for a Missile Defense Agency contract to design a hypersonic and ballistic missile-defense satellite and lost the contract to L3Harris and Northrop Grumman.