PETERSON AFB, COLO. – The Pentagon’s first official estimate for the Space-Based Space Surveillance (SBSS) Block 10 satellite is $823.9 million, and the Air Force expects to launch it by early 2009.

The Pentagon released the cost as the first baseline for the program, which was included in a larger list of acquisition program pricing sent to Capitol Hill April 7.

SBSS is being built by a Boeing/Ball Aerospace team. The spacecraft will include an optical telescope that is highly responsive to quick tasking orders, allowing it to shift from target to target quickly in space. It is designed to fly in low-Earth orbit, peering upward and collecting data on satellites flying in the highly populated geosynchronous (GEO) orbits.

The system will provide a new capability for the Pentagon – data on spacecraft in GEO in the daytime. The Ground-based Electro-Optical Deep Space Surveillance (GEODSS) system, a series of passive sensors, can only collect information on satellites during the night time and when the sun is reflecting off of target spacecraft. The “glints,” provide basic information to Air Force operators about where spacecraft are. The Air Force uses the data to keep track of what satellites are in space and where they operate.

In addition to daytime coverage, GEODSS also is unable to provide real-time data on events, such as a satellite launches or maneuvers, according to Col. Shawn Barnes, Air Force Space Command’s space situational awareness and space superiority chief. GEODSS sensor sites are in New Mexico, Diego Garcia and Hawaii. These sites also are unable to operate through weather.

SBSS, however, will be able to track these changes as they occur, and without weather restrictions..

“We will able to work in an event driven mode – in other words to be able to help us understand what is going on when we see changes,” Barnes said during an April 7 interview. With today’s systems “You might recognize that there was a satellite here and now the satellite is not there, but it takes me a while to go and find it. With SBSS, we are going to have a good ability to be able to track those changes.”

SBSS Block 10 is one component of a multifaceted space situational awareness (SSA) roadmap for the command. After China’s 2007 anti-satellite test, the Pentagon put more emphasis on improving its SSA. Today’s system was designed during the Cold War, and is designed to monitor activities in the former Soviet Union. However, as other nations like China and Iran continue to push to design boosters and space systems, the Pentagon hopes to extend its sensors’ reaches.

The top priority for the fiscal 2010 budget, which is now being assembled at the Pentagon, is to draw more data from existing sensors that aren’t part of the current ground-based architecture. This could include radars from other agencies, including the Missile Defense Agency’s radars and Navy sensors, U.S. systems on foreign soil and systems owned by allies.

The second priority, which Barnes says the command hopes to work in parallel, is to provide a network-based information technology backbone to link the data from the disparate sensors. Third on the list is to sustain the existing infrastructure, including the Space Fence and other radars.

The final issue to be determined is how to proceed with a follow-on for SBSS, which is expected to last about five years on orbit. Barnes says this issue is important, but falls below the others because SBSS is nearly ready to launch.

Barnes declined to discuss the cost of these efforts, citing the yet-to-be finalized FY ‘10 budget request.

Image: Boeing