The Space Force has selected BAE Systems to provide 10 satellites for the second phase of its Medium Earth Orbit Missile Warning and Tracking program, awarding the company a $1.2 billion contract.
The service announced the award Monday, making the company the first to be on contract for the program’s second installment, dubbed Epoch 2.
“This allows for additional resiliency in the missile warning and tracking satellite architecture,” Lt. Col. Brandon Castillo, materiel leader for Epoch 2, said in a statement.
The program is one layer of the Space Force’s plan to strengthen its ability to detect and track Chinese and Russian missile threats from space, including medium Earth orbit, or MEO, which resides between 1,200 and 22,000 miles above Earth.
The service plans to deliver new MEO satellites every two years. Millennium Space Systems is on contract to build 12 satellites for Epoch 1, the first of which should be available to launch by 2026. L3Harris is also on contract to develop a prototype for the program.
Under BAE’s Epoch 2 contract, the firm will deliver its first spacecraft in 2029.
Missile defense is a key focus for President Donald Trump, as evidenced in an executive order he signed just days into his second term directing the Pentagon to draft plans to build a homeland missile shield capable of detecting and intercepting a range of traditional and advanced missile threats.
Details are light on the makeup of that architecture, now known as Golden Dome, but it is expected to be made up of systems currently on orbit and in development as well as new capabilities like space-based interceptors.
Trump has since said he expects the initiative to cost $175 billion and be operational within three years.
The MEO constellation and the rest of the Space Force’s missile warning and tracking architecture — which includes the Space Development Agency’s plans for a mega constellation in low Earth orbit — will likely be part of the administration’s Golden Dome plans.
Those capabilities are poised to see a funding increase if Republican lawmakers succeed in passing a reconciliation package that includes $150 billion for Pentagon priorities. The bill, which passed the House last month, would add $7.2 billion to develop and buy space-based missile-warning sensors and $5.6 billion for space-based intercept capabilities. It also proposes $2 billion for a nascent Space Force effort to use satellites to track air-moving targets and $2.4 billion for nonkinetic missile defense effects.
Courtney Albon is C4ISRNET’s space and emerging technology reporter. She has covered the U.S. military since 2012, with a focus on the Air Force and Space Force. She has reported on some of the Defense Department’s most significant acquisition, budget and policy challenges.
