Sierra Space will join Rocket Lab as a current or former venture-backed aerospace company seeking a major satellite deal with the military.
The Space Development Agency (SDA) selected Sierra to build 54 satellites along with Lockheed Martin and L3Harris in a deal worth a total of $2.5 billion. Today’s announcement follows last week’s news that Rocket Lab was awarded a similar contract for up to $515 million.
The award, along with Rocket Lab’s, shows that a growing number of companies are seeking a piece of a market in military satellites that has until now been the exclusive domain of defense products. Recently, Sierra completed a $290 million Series B round of financing, with its valuation soaring to $5.3 billion.
The 54 satellites will form part of the SDA Proliferation Battle Space Architecture, a large missile detection and tracking constellation in low Earth orbit that is being built and launched in “batches.” The three contracts announced today involve 18 satellites in the Tranche 2 tracking layer: L3Harris’ contract is worth $919 million; Lockheed Martin, $890 million; and Sierra Space, $740 million.
“We are pleased to welcome new additions Sierra Space as a key supplier to the SDA team as we continue to work with L3Harris and Lockheed Martin on Tranche 2,” SDA Director Derek Tournear said in a statement. “Market “We are responding to the demand signals of our spiral development model. Agility across the aerospace industry is critical as we provide the warfighter with trouble-free mission capabilities for missile warning, missile tracking and missile defense.”
The 54 satellites will include 48 dedicated to missile detection and tracking and 6 for missile defense. All will be equipped with infrared sensors, although the sensors on the six birds dedicated to missile defense will be able to generate what the SDA calls “fire control quality trajectories” that are sensitive enough to guide interceptors to shoot down an aggressor. of missiles.
While Lockheed and L3Harris have a strong track record of winning SDA satellite manufacturing contracts, this is the first such contract for Sierra Space. The latter is best known for the “Dream Chaser” space plane and the “Orbital Reef” private space station project, rather than large-scale satellite manufacturing.
These satellites are expected to be launched by April 2027 at the latest.
