Northrop Grumman
Every Cosmic Herald story on Northrop Grumman — missions, launches, discoveries, and the business of space, newest first.
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Military Space
SDA's Fourth Tranche 1 Launch Flies After Five-Day Scrub, Putting 21 Northrop Grumman Data Satellites in Orbit
Five days after an automated abort, a Falcon 9 lifted 21 Northrop Grumman Transport Layer satellites from Vandenberg on Oct. 10. That brings the Space Development Agency to 84 of the 126 data-relay satellites planned for Tranche 1, with five of nine launches still to go.
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Military Space
Final-Minute Scrub Holds Up SDA's Fourth Tranche 1 Launch; Falcon 9 Now Aiming for Oct. 8
SpaceX called off the Space Development Agency's T1TL-A launch of 21 Northrop Grumman data-transport satellites in the final minute of Monday's count at Vandenberg, and the next try is set for Thursday, Oct. 8.
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Military Space
Space Force Spreads $60 Million Across Five Companies to Keep Its New Satellite Network From Having a Single Point of Failure
Amazon, Lockheed, Northrop, Rocket Lab, and York each pocket roughly $12M to prove their satellites can talk to a backbone SpaceX is building — and to each other.
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Military Space
Guetlein Opens Golden Dome's Doors to Startups With a New 'Ecosystem Hub' — As Funding Runs Toward a Cliff
At the Huntsville missile-defense symposium, Golden Dome's director unveiled a website for startups to pitch concepts directly — even as he and Space Command's outgoing chief warned the $185 billion program could stall for lack of funding by October.
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Military Space
All 12 Golden Dome Interceptor Contractors Clear First Design Milestone — But a Funding Cliff Looms
SpaceX, Northrop Grumman, and ten other contenders have passed Gate 1 of the Pentagon's space-based interceptor competition, but officials warn the $185 billion Golden Dome missile shield could stall as soon as October without new funding.
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Military Space
Golden Dome Gets Real Deadlines: Interceptor Ground Tests by Year-End, Orbital Flight Demos in 2027
The Pentagon has put firm dates on Golden Dome's hardest problem: space-based interceptor ground tests by end of 2026, two orbital flight tests in 2027, and an intercept demo in 2029 — with up to $3.2 billion spread across 12 companies and Gen. Michael Guetlein holding the program to a falsifiable clock.
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Military Space
Pentagon's Missile-Tracking Constellation Grows by 36 as SDA Hands Out $1.75 Billion
L3Harris and Sierra Space will build 36 new missile-tracking satellites for $1.75 billion, pushing the Space Development Agency's Tranche 3 constellation to 104 spacecraft in support of the Golden Dome missile-defense architecture.
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Military Space
Space Force Bets on a Jam-Resistant Swarm: First Two PTS-G Satellites Ordered for $437.7M
The U.S. Space Force awarded Viasat and Intelsat General contracts totaling $437.7 million to build the first two operational PTS-G 'Swarm 1' satellites — small, maneuverable, dual-band anti-jam spacecraft meant to replace the aging AEHF fleet, with launch slated for 2028.
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Military Space
Northrop Grumman Says It Can Scale Solid Rocket Production — But Washington Has to Commit First
The solid rocket motor maker argues the industrial base is ready to ramp up, but short-term government contracts make it nearly impossible to justify the capital investment needed to do so.
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Military Space
Space Force's Top Rapid-Acquisition Leader Decamps for Nuclear Weapons Center as Congress Rewrites the Playbook
Kelly Hammett's move from the Space Rapid Capabilities Office to Kirtland AFB comes as both chambers of Congress prepare to fold the agile procurement shop into a broader acquisition framework.
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Military Space
The SDA's Transport Layer: America's Proliferated Military Satellite Constellation
The Space Development Agency is building a mesh network of hundreds of small military satellites in low Earth orbit — a fundamentally different approach to space-based command and control than anything the US has operated before.
