The Space Development Agency is seeking industry input for a draft request for proposal involving the Tranche 3 Transport Layer Upsilon, or T3TLυ, space vehicle variant of the Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture.
Tranche 3 Transport Layer Upsilon Draft RFP
The agency said Thursday the draft solicitation requests feedback regarding potential builder-operator teams that will work with the SDA on the development and operation of the T3TLu. SDA plans to purchase around 40 T3TLu space vehicles, specifically four orbital planes of ten SVs each.
The contract will potentially be awarded to two vendors, depending on the available funds. Interested parties have until Feb. 10 to submit their responses to the draft RFP.
The PWSA T3 Transport will involveT3TLυ SVs, including optical communication terminals. These OCTs will support in-plane and cross-plane crosslinks, links to terrestrial OCTs and crosslinks to compatible SVs external to the transport layer.
The Tranche 3 programs will build upon the capabilities of Tranche 2, including enhanced defense and tracking capabilities and missile warning coverage, sensitivity and accuracy. They will also boost tactical data link coverage, resilience and capacity along with positioning, navigation and timing—a.k.a. PNT—resilience.