SDA Tranche 1 Transport Layer A

SDA Tranche 1 Transport Layer A launched on a SpaceX Falcon 9 Block 5 from Space Launch Complex 4E, Vandenberg SFB, CA, USA on October 10, 2026 at 07:39 UTC. It was SpaceX's 736th launch, 117th this year and humanity's 7,412th orbital launch attempt. It was the 637th Falcon 9 Block 5 flight and the 111th this year. Booster B1103 flew for the 6th time and landed at Landing Zone 4. The payload was bound for Polar Orbit (PO). SDA-NG-T1TL-301, one of 21 catalogued objects, reached a 953 × 960 km orbit inclined 81.5°.

Tranche 1 Transport Layer A is one of six missions by the United States Space Force Space Development Agency (SDA) for the Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture (PWSA) Tranche 1 Transport Layer constellation, which will provide assured, resilient, low-latency military data and connectivity worldwide to the full range of warfighter platforms from Low Earth Orbit satellites. The constellation will be interconnected with Optical Inter-Satellite Links (OISLs) which have significantly increased performance over existing radio frequency crosslinks. It is expected to operate over Ka band, have stereo coverage and be dynamically networked for simpler hand-offs, greater bandwidth and fault tolerance. This launch carries 21 satellites manufactured by Northrop Grumman.