Northrop Selects Geost to Supply Optical Sensor Payloads for Tracking Layer Satellites

Northrop Grumman has awarded LightRidge Solutions company Geost a contract to supply eight optical sensor payloads for the Space Development Agency’s Tranche 1 Tracking Layer satellites.

Under the contract, Geost will deliver Starlite payloads, a smaller and more affordable version of the company’s sensors for large geostationary satellites. Starlite will be designed with the capability to support various government and commercial distributed satellite constellations.

Joshua Hartman, LightRidge Solutions’ chief growth and strategy officer, said the payloads will add resiliency to the Tracking Layer.

As part of the contract, a ground system integrated with the Tranche 1 Tracking Layer will also be provided to Northrop to operate the payloads, Geost said.

In July 2022, Northrop won a $617 million contract from SDA to produce 14 Tracking Layer satellites for missile detection as part of the planned Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture. The satellites are planned for launch beginning in 2025.