“Moving forward, we see there are a lot of niche missions where the fine line between what is the tracking mission and what becomes the custody mission…

The organizations aim to demonstrate capabilities on orbit that could be used to detect and track hypersonic weapons and other advanced threats.

L3Harris will join Millennium Space Systems, a Boeing subsidiary, and Raytheon Technologies, in developing sensor payloads for the Space Force.

The plan highlights the DOD’s embrace of proliferated low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellite architectures, which officials view as more resilient than the larger, more expensive spacecraft that currently…