Space Force taps Millennium for 6 additional missile warning, tracking satellites
Millennium Space Systems will deliver six more satellites for the Space Force’s upcoming medium-Earth orbit (MEO) missile warning and tracking constellation, the service’s acquisition arm announced Wednesday.
Space Systems Command (SSC) awarded Millennium, a Boeing subsidiary, a second contract valued at $386 million for the service’s Resilient Missile Warning and Missile Tracking – MEO (MEO MW/MT) effort. Under both the new agreement and one previously given to the firm in 2023, Millennium will deliver a total of 12 space vehicles for the first phase of the program, known as Epoch 1.
“Once on orbit, Epoch 1 satellites will play a vital role in delivering advanced missile warning and tracking capabilities,” Lt. Col. Nathan Terrazone, materiel leader for the Epoch 1 space branch at SSC, said in a statement. “Our commitment is to rapidly deliver operational requirements. Awarding this additional plane lets us do that without skipping a beat.”
The announcement comes after the Space Force discontinued Raytheon’s (RTX) contract for the MEO MW/MT program in June. RTX was originally contracted to build three space vehicles for Epoch 1, but was ultimately dropped from the effort due to significant cost growth, slips in launch schedule and unresolved design challenges experienced by the company, according to SSC.
Millennium initially received a $509.5 million contract in 2023 to build six satellites for the MEO MW/MT program. The six original satellites are on track to deliver by fiscal 2026, and the additional space vehicles are expected to deliver in early fiscal 2028, according to SSC. Once launched, the 12 birds will be split evenly across two orbital planes, a press release noted.
Part of the Space Force’s plan to build a resilient architecture of missile warning and tracking satellites across multiple orbits, the MEO MW/MT constellation is intended to track a range of high-speed missile threats.
Much like the Space Development Agency’s Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture in low-Earth orbit, the constellation will be launched in successive phases — or “epochs” — every two-to-three years in order to incrementally build operational capabilities.
The Epoch 1 space vehicles will serve as the constellation’s baseline architecture, while its follow-on Epoch 2 will deliver initial warfighting capability in early fiscal 2029, according to SSC. The service released a request for proposal for Epoch 2 in August, seeking up to 18 satellites that will “provide the nation with expanded global tracking capability to counter hypersonic and other advanced missile threats,” an SSC press release stated.
