Space Development Agency pauses plans to provide PNT capabilities

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — The Space Development Agency is reconsidering whether or not it will further develop position, navigation and timing (PNT) capabilities as part of its mega-constellation of satellites in low-Earth orbit.

SDA was looking to build out additional PNT capacity in the Tranche 3 transport layer of the Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture (PWSA) — which will comprise hundreds of satellites providing data relay and missile warning and tracking capabilities to warfighters. But because the agency did not include funding for the Tranche 3 transport layer in its budget request for fiscal 2026, its plans to flesh out PNT in future PWSA tranches are effectively on hold.

Acting SDA Director Gurpartap “GP” Sandhoo told reporters Monday at AFA’s Air, Space and Cyber conference that previous tranches were built with an organic alternative PNT that enabled the constellation to operate in GPS-denied environments. Those capabilities include the ability to find adversary GPS jammers and a payload package that transmits alternative signals.

The intent with Tranche 3, Sandhoo added, was to see if that capability could also be provided to warfighters across the force.

“We will still have this organic PNT capability, just because we need to fly the constellation in denied environments,” Sandhoo said. “We’ll have that, it’s not that we will not build it. The question is — if we don’t have [Tranche 3] transport, can you transmit that out to the users? I don’t have an answer for that.”

Although contracts for the Tranche 3 transport layer were expected to be awarded this year, the Department of the Air Force is now considering canceling the competition in favor of a classified program known as MILNET — envisioned as a government-owned, contractor-operated constellation comprising hundreds of SpaceX’s Starshield satellites. The department is in the midst of conducting an analysis of alternatives on future LEO data transport architectures.

The PWSA’s transport layer is considered the foundation of the Pentagon’s Combined Joint All-Domain Command and Control (CJADC2) effort, as it’s designed to enable warfighters to quickly move data between previously siloed sensors and shooters. SDA launched the first operational transport satellites in Tranche 1 of the constellation on Sept. 10, and plans to continue its campaign through the end of the year.

As for other satellites under Tranche 3, Sandhoo said that contracts for the next missile tracking layer will be awarded “soon.”

Tranche 3 also included plans to integrate a custody layer to continuously keep eyes on time-sensitive targets, but that effort is currently on hold as SDA waits for future budgetary guidance, Sandhoo told reporters.