What Happened
Restarting Deployment of Pentagon's Low Earth Orbit Network
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched 21 satellites for the Space Force’s Space Development Agency, restarting deployment of the Pentagon’s first operational low Earth orbit military data network after a months-long pause. The satellites, built by York Space Systems, are part of the Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture, designed to support missile warning, missile tracking, and military data relay. With this launch, SDA will have 63 Tranche 1 Transport Layer satellites on orbit, half of the planned 126-satellite Transport Layer for Tranche 1. The launch was first reported by SpaceNews.