SpaceX, L3Harris Technologies Get Pentagon Contracts to Track Missiles from Outer Space

SpaceX, L3Harris Technologies Get Pentagon Contracts to Track Missiles from Outer Space

The Pentagon’s Space Development Agency—which will become part of the U.S. Space Force in 2022—selected SpaceX and L3Harris Technologies to produce satellites and sensors that can track and target advanced missile threats from outer space. 


Award notices published to the federal procurement site beta.sam.gov Friday afternoon indicate that SpaceX could receive more than $149 million and L3Harris could receive more than $193 million to produce capabilities for the Tracking Layer of SDA’s Tranche 0, Wide Field of View Program.


SDA is a relatively nascent agency, launched in early 2019 with the strategic intent to “define and monitor the [Defense] Department’s future threat-driven space architecture,” former Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan wrote in a memo at the time it was established. 


News surfaced in early 2020 that the agency would become part of the Space Force in 2022, and the original statement of work connected to the Tracking Layer solicitation, originally launched in May, listed a U.S. Space Force facility in Colorado as a potential location of work on the project. 


Through the broader program, SDA aims to implement a spacex l3harris technologies pentagon contracts track missiles outer space