How Space Development Agency contractors are mitigating supply chain issues
Source: C4ISRNET
Published: June 8, 2022
Long before the Space Development Agency awarded its first contract, officials knew that building a diverse, strong supply base would be an important part of its plan to produce and field constellations of hundreds of small satellites. The agency’s vision for using these proliferated constellations to augment and boost the resilience of traditional U.S. Department of Defense systems required a more flexible approach from the government and industry, officials told C4ISRNET. And so, from the beginning, SDA leadership challenged its prime contractors to find ways to foster competition among their supplier base and build redundancy into their strategies.
Space Development Agency’s satellite contractors team up to deal with supply shortages
May 17, 2022
SpaceNews
Facing a tight schedule to launch 28 satellites between September 2022 and March 2023, the Space Development Agency and its contractors have had to scramble to deal with parts shortages and other supply chain problems that have affected the entire space industry.
Some satellite programs have been impacted by delays in the deliveries of microprocessors and focal planes arrays but SDA mostly has had to contend with a shortage of lower-end items, the agency’s director Derek Tournear said May 17.
Tournear credited SDA’s satellite manufacturers for having “a pretty good handle from the beginning. They knew from day one that the supply chain would be a risk factor for those space qualified parts.”
Additionally, SDA has reached out to other government agencies to borrow components, he said. “And that’s how we’re able to continue towards this Tranche 0 timeline.”
Source: Space Development Agency’s satellite contractors team up to deal with supply shortages – SpaceNews