Missile tracking satellites for SDA’s Tranche 2 Tracking Layer advance to production
NewsAugust 05, 2025
MELBOURNE, Florida. L3Harris Technologies completed the Critical Design Review and Production Readiness Review for the Space Development Agency’s (SDA) Tranche 2 Tracking Layer, moving the program into the production phase, the company announced in a statement.
The Tranche 2 Tracking Layer is part of SDA’s Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture (PWSA), a low Earth orbit satellite constellation intended to provide near-global missile warning, tracking, and defense capability, the statement reads. L3Harris says the design incorporates technology to detect, track, and target missile threats at low latency and builds on designs from earlier Tranche 0 and Tranche 1 efforts, as well as the Missile Defense Agency’s Hypersonic and Ballistic Tracking Space Sensor satellites.
L3Harris reports that production facilities are already manufacturing major assemblies for the Tranche 2 space vehicles. The company is also supplying eight electro-optical infrared payloads for SDA’s Fire-control On Orbit-support-to-the-war Fighter (FOO Fighter) program.
The PWSA Tracking Layer is being developed in multiple tranches to support a layered missile defense architecture capable of tracking advanced threats in real time, according to the statement.
