The US military took a big step toward a future space network this week

Enlarge / The Space Development Agency plans to build out a network of optical communications satellites by 2024. (credit: Space Development Agency)

On Monday, the Space Development Agency announced new contracts to Lockheed Martin and York Space Systems for the development of "space vehicles" that would operate in the "transport layer" around Earth. This language obfuscates what is actually a pretty big deal in how the US military plans to communicate and control its weapons systems in the coming decades.

With the new contracts, these two Colorado-based companies will each build 10 relatively small satellites—likely on the order of 100- to 200kg each—that will be launched no later than September 2022. These will essentially be test satellites for what will eventually grow into a constellation of several hundred satellites at roughly 1,000km above the Earth's surface.

Transport layer

So what is the transport layer? To answer this question, let's start at the beginning: in early 2019, the Pentagon formally created the "Space Development Agency" to identify future threats in space and to oversee development of satellites and other assets to ensure technological and military superiority.

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