Raytheon Technologies won a $250 million contract last month to build seven missile detection satellites for the US Space Agency. David Broadbent, head of space systems and control systems at Raytheon Intelligence & Space, said the company is working to deliver seven satellites by 2025, but plans to follow a different strategy for future SDA satellite purchases. Rather than competing as a prime contractor offering fully integrated satellites, Raytheon wants to move into a commercial supplier role providing satellite buses and payloads to other prime contractors.

“Being on top of the mission didn’t deliver the results we were looking for and we’re now focused on trading strategy,” he said. Space News .

Raytheon has traditionally been a prime contractor integrating other companies’ subsystems. But Broadbent says this approach hasn’t helped the company win satellite contracts and take advantage of innovative space products manufactured by its subsidiaries Blue Canyon Technologies and SEAKR Engineering. Blue Canyon and SEAKR manufacture satellite buses and space electronics, respectively.

SDA monitoring level

The seven satellites Raytheon is building will be part of the SDA Tracking Layer, a low-Earth-orbit military network designed to track ballistic and hypersonic missiles launched by alien enemies. Broadbent noted that prior to taking this order, Raytheon had previously competed for SDA contracts and mostly unsuccessfully.

Raytheon’s $250 million reward for the first tranche of the SDA monitoring tier in February was due solely to the agency’s 2023 budget receiving an unplanned funding increase from Congress. Two contractors – L3Harris and Northrop Grumman – for Tracking Layer Slice 1 were selected last summer and each signed contracts for 14 satellites. Raytheon competed for Tranche 0 and Tranche 1 contracts in 2020 and 2021. In 2020, the company unsuccessfully appealed against the decision on Slice 0. “Unfortunately, that put us away from the SDA for a while,” Broadbent said.

In the Tranche 1 contest, Raytheon placed third out of five bidders, so when the SDA received additional funding, it decided to give Raytheon seven satellites, which is half of what the top two winners received, he said. SDA was particularly interested in Raytheon’s wide-area infrared sensor developed for the Defense Advanced Projects Agency’s Blackjack program under a $37 million contract signed in 2020.

“It’s a unique payload because it has a single aperture capable of both missile detection and tracking,” Broadbent said. Said. “The configuration is suitable for a pole task.”

At a recent space symposium in Colorado Springs, Broadbent met with several defense contractors who were purchasing satellite buses and other components for the upcoming SDA satellite competition. Blue Canyon’s X-SAT Saturn bus could be used for both the SDA tracking layer and the transport layer of communications satellites, he said. Broadbent said Raytheon’s wide field of view payload and communication systems developed by SEAKR will also be offered to prime contractors.

We are making a very conscious turn.” “I believe we can optimize our chances of success by acting as a commercial supplier or subcontractor and seeking partnerships with other trusted aerospace companies,” he added. “And that’s where we are now.”

A different way of doing business

Broadbent said SDA’s approach to purchasing satellites from multiple prime contractors under fixed-price contracts was “revolutionary in space acquisitions.” According to him, the agency was “a great destroyer”.

“Let’s call him whatever,” Broadbent added. “Raytheon and most of our traditional defense assets are built on a classified single-source business with cost-plus and five- to seven-year acquisition cycles.”

According to him, these markets no longer exist. “So we had to take a very close look at ourselves and move to a much more efficient production capacity model.”

Overall, Raytheon Technologies had to restructure after acquiring new companies through mergers and acquisitions. Broadbent said. “We found ourselves in a situation where we had an incredible number of mission and product capabilities, but we needed to simplify them.”

Blue Canyon and SEAKR Engineering competed for Raytheon SDA opportunities, bringing “a culture and atmosphere of innovation to the company that we really try to capitalize on”.

According to Broadbent, the wide field of view infrared sensor developed for DARPA is 95% ready, but DARPA has decided not to place the payload on Blackjack satellites, so the sensor will be provided to the SDA as “government equipment”. Later this year, DARPA plans to launch four Blackjack satellites mounted on Blue Canyon buses and equipped with SEAKR RF payloads. This mission is a milestone of trust for us.”