The last vestige of old space architectural thinking

As we head into 2024 and look around, the space industry is fundamentally different from what it was decades ago, thanks to first- and second-order effects from embracing commercial innovation. SpaceX set a record-breaking cadence of nearly 100 launches last year, heralding a new revolution in access to space. The Space Development Agency (SDA) operationalized several tranches of its layered hybrid architecture and paved the way for the Defense Department’s orbital blueprint, the Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture. And all branches of the United States military, not just the Space Force, set into motion how they plan to leverage space in mesh networks supporting joint all-domain command and control systems.