Northrop Grumman [NOC] said this week that it recently finished a preliminary design review (PDR) for the U.S. Space Force’s Next Generation Overhead Persistent Infrared (Next Gen OPIR) polar (NGP) satellites and that the company “is on track to begin production.”
“The design review establishes the company’s technical approach for the full integration of the Eagle-3 spacecraft with the infrared sensor, auxiliary and high-bandwidth communication payloads being developed at our Northrop Grumman site in Azusa, Calif.,” the company said.
The Department of the Air Force’s fiscal 2024 budget requests
more than $1 billion for the Next Gen OPIR polar program, compared to a fiscal 2024 appropriated amount of $849 million. The two satellites in polar highly elliptical orbit (HEO) are to provide upper latitude coverage of missile launches (Defense Daily, March 16).
“Northrop Grumman is on an accelerated path to delivering an early-warning missile system capable of surviving attacks from space, ground or cyber elements,” Alex Fax, Northrop Grumman’s vice president for NGP, said in a statement. “NGP satellites will maintain a direct line of communication back to the continental United States, limiting dependency on overseas ground station sites.”
In March last year, Northrop Grumman announced its partnership with Ball Aerospace [BLL] to design and develop the two polar HEO satellite payloads in the first phase of a $1.89 billion contract from the Space Force.
Northrop Grumman said that the NGP satellites will track ballistic and hypersonic missiles over the Northern Hemisphere.
“Broad coverage over the polar region offers the highest probability of spotting potential missile launches,” the company said. “NGP can identify the infrared heat signatures of incoming threats and transmit this mission data to the ground. Based on the threat, decision-makers can then make responsive and informed decisions. This enhanced communication system also has resiliency features that reduce vulnerabilities to counter-space and cyberattacks.”
The Space Force fiscal 2024 budget zeroes research and development funding for one of the three planned Next Gen OPIR geosynchronous orbit satellites by Lockheed Martin [LMT], as the Space Force posits that having a band of many, smaller satellites in lower orbits will complicate an adversary’s anti-satellite targeting and improve deterrence against ballistic and hypersonic missile attacks.
Space Force is requesting a $1.1 billion increase over last year’s appropriated amount for the lower orbit missile tracking systems–the so-called “resilient missile warning/missile tracking” architecture.
The service’s request for the Low Earth Orbit (LEO) portion of the architecture is nearly $1.3 billion–a $480 increase over last year, while the Space Force’s ask for the Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) part is $538 million, about $130 million more than last year’s appropriation.
In addition, the Space Force requests almost $506 million for a new funding area for the architecture–the integrated ground segment.