Ballistic Missile Defense System Space Programs

Space Applications for Missile Defense (SAMD) provides the functional elements of the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) Contractor Support Services, Federally Funded Research and Development Center/University Affiliated Research Center, and civilian manpower into a single entity that provides acquisition, financial, and technical support across the MDA Space Capabilities enterprise. In addition to the functional elements, this activity provides for developing and prototyping new space-based capabilities to support missile defense. SAMD also provides the MDSEA platform, Missile Defense Space Center (MDSC) infrastructure and Test and Integration Lab (TIL) which provides multi-mission ground segment and test integration support for current and future Missile Defense System Space Programs, to include the Discriminating Space Sensor (DSS) program. MDSEA is a highly scalable compute platform that provides mission commanding, data processing, and data storage services for the missile defense space architecture. The Spacebased Kill Assessment (SKA) system was composed of two segments: a space segment and a ground segment. The space segment was composed of a network of small infrared sensors (sensors, processor cards and cabling), each mated to a different satellite. The total number of sensors and their network placement was specifically tailored for the hit and kill assessment missions. The space segment included key design features to improve its resiliency. The ground segment monitored the health and status of the on-orbit sensors, commanded the sensors to perform the hit and kill assessment mission, and analyzed the data to make a hit/kill assessment determination. The ground segment also included the equipment necessary for communications security and information assurance. The Missile Defense Space Center (MDSC) provided the critical infrastructure for SKA data, routing SKA data between the commercial payload integrator and the multi-mission MDSEA. Due to higher Department of War priorities, the SKA experiment was cancelled in FY 2026 after successfully demonstrating hit-assessment capabilities from space.

PWS contains non-headquarters management costs in support of Missile Defense Agency (MDA) functions and activities across the entire Missile Defense System. These functions include Government Civilians and Contract Support Services. This effort provides integrity and oversight of the Missile Defense System as well as supports MDA in the development and evaluation of technologies that will respond to the changing threat. Additionally, PWS includes personnel to support global deployments performing deployment site preparation and activation, and provides facility capabilities for MDA Executing Agent locations worldwide. Other MDA wide costs include: physical and technical security; civilian drug testing; audit readiness; the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) program; legal services and settlements; travel and agency training; office, equipment, vehicle, and warehouse leases; utilities and base operations across multiple geographic locations; commercial and ancillary facility services; management of all facility aspects regardless of lifecycle stage; supplies and maintenance; compliance with statutory environmental requirements; data and unified communications support; materiel and readiness and central property management of equipment; Facilities Sustainment, Restoration and Modernization (FSRM) program (formerly Real Property Maintenance) to keep the Department's inventory of facilities in good working order; and similar operating expenses. PWS is allocated on a pro-rata basis across most Agency PEs and, therefore, fluctuates per PE by FY based on the total Agency budget in that FY.

Ballistic Missile Defense System Space Programs Cyber Operations sustain the Missile Defense Agency Risk Management Framework (RMF) and Security Controls Assessments/Controls Validation Testing activities, analysis of validation results, risk assessments, and reviews of proposed Program Manager/Information System Security Manager Plans of Action and Milestones (POA&Ms) for Ballistic Missile Defense System Space Program mission systems. Activities in this project are necessary to comply with the Federal Information Security Management Act.

HBTSS will demonstrate a resilient, flexible, and global capability to detect and track hypersonic missiles and detect and track ballistic missiles in the boost phase of flight. The fire-control quality tracking data will allow long range engagement of the threat while enhanced tracking accuracy through missile burn out will provide the Warfighting community increased capability in missile defense weapons systems engagement and higher accuracy impact predictions. The HBTSS prototype demonstration's priority is to maintain the pace of the development schedule given the urgent Warfighter need to address rapidly developing threats. To meet this priority, HBTSS must use high technology readiness level components, take advantage of existing government capabilities to minimize development, use a management culture that does not slow down the pace of development, and use the Other Transaction Authority (OTA) to minimize contracting cycle times. OTAs allow the government to work with traditional, non-traditional, and new space businesses to identify and implement innovative solutions. The HBTSS prototype demonstration seeks to demonstrate the ability to meet requirements derived from United States Strategic Command Prioritized Capabilities List, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2019, and the Joint Requirements Oversight Council Capability Development Document for Missile Warning (MW)/Missile Defense (MD) Overhead Persistent Infrared (OPIR). The HBTSS developed target detection algorithms and evaluated them in a Signal-chain Processing Demonstration, providing insight into the constellation architecture, communications approach, and preliminary command and control design aspects. These results informed the development of the HBTSS prototype demonstration Space Vehicles (SVs) and demonstrated the ability to detect and track dim targets in a cluttered background along with the sensitivity necessary to support the hypersonic kill chain. Operationally, the HBTSS fire-control capability will be part of Space Development Agency's Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture and will detect hypersonic, ballistic, and other advanced threats much sooner than terrestrial radars, providing hypersonic threat-tracking data for hand off through linked missile defense weapons.