Space Development Agency Delays Orbital Mesh Network Rollout

"We have not started yet," SDA director G.P. Sandhoo told reporters at the AFA 2026 conference, bluntly acknowledging a delay that now stretches to at least a year.

G.P. Sandhoo’s timeline: from three months behind to a year

Sandhoo arrived at AFA 2026 with a revised schedule. Just over six months earlier, he had told the Satellite 2026 conference that the Space Development Agency (SDA) was “about three months behind” on its orbital mesh network and hoped to begin building within six months. That self-imposed deadline, he said, was due to expire in 10 days. Instead, Sandhoo said the agency won't start for another three months at minimum, pushing the expected total delay to at least a year. He described the program as the “number one priority” for the next three to four months and said he pushes the team every week to get the next step done.

Optical Communication Terminals (OCTs): the technical and supply-chain pinch point

The central technical hurdle Sandhoo cited is access to high-quality optical components. The network’s link hardware—referred to by SDA staff as “optical heads” or Optical Communication Terminals (OCTs)—must be engineered finely enough to send and receive clear laser signals while also being robust enough to survive launch. Supply-chain shortfalls in those components are one of the “multiple issues” he cited.

Compounding the technical difficulty, SDA’s contracting approach for the first tranche resulted in the initial group of Tranche 1 satellites all ending up with the same OCT supplier. Sandhoo said, “That vendor is having issues with throughput and not able to deliver.” He added he has not seen the improvement he wanted in Tranche 1, tying the schedule slip directly to the vendor’s delivery problems.

Why the mesh network matters for the Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture (PSWA)

The delayed orbital mesh network is designed to streamline data transfers across SDA’s Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture (PSWA). PSWA is intended to encompass hundreds of satellites providing missile warning, tracking, and fire control. The mesh will let satellites transfer data directly to one another using laser beams—optical links—instead of routing signals through ground stations, a change SDA sees as necessary to speed the flow of priority data and reduce space-to-earth bandwidth demands.

Tranche 2 response: creating a parallel supplier path

To avoid repeating Tranche 1’s single-supplier bottleneck, SDA says it has built risk mitigation into Tranche 2. Sandhoo described plans to create “a parallel path … so you have options later in the design” and to be able to swap in OCTs from another supplier. The agency used firm fixed-price contracts to keep initial costs down for Tranche 1, a choice that—in practice—left the program dependent on one vendor’s throughput.

How the Space Force’s edge computing and AI ambitions hinge on getting satellites up

Looking beyond raw connectivity, Sandhoo said the Space Force aims to put edge computing and artificial intelligence capabilities on PSWA satellites so they can “digest vast amounts of data in orbit,” conserve space-to-earth bandwidth, and speed delivery of priority information. But he was explicit about sequencing: “We plan to leverage all of that as we get into this,” he said, “But we are not going to start with transformative AI. … We’ve still got to get the satellites up first.”

What this means for the Space Force, procurement leaders, and satellite engineers

• Space Force program leads: will watch whether Tranche 2’s parallel-supplier approach resolves the OCT throughput constraints and whether the revised start date holds to avoid further slips in PSWA capability delivery.
• Procurement leaders and program managers: face a clear trade-off between low-cost, firm fixed-price contracting and supplier concentration; the Tranche 1 experience may prompt revised contracting strategies to preserve options and reduce single-vendor risk.
• Satellite engineers and systems integrators: must work around both the technical demands of precision optical heads—high fidelity plus launch survivability—and the practical limits of supplier throughput while preserving future design flexibility for edge compute and AI payloads.

Sandhoo’s admission pinpoints two intertwined shortfalls—precision optical components and supplier capacity—that have slowed a program central to SDA’s vision of a rapidly networked constellation. The immediate next milestone is clear in his remarks: begin building the mesh in the coming three to four months. Whether the OCT supply issues and Tranche 2 risk mitigations deliver on that compressed timeline will determine when PSWA can start to realize laser-based satellite-to-satellite data flow and, later, onboard data processing ambitions.

Original reporting: SDA misses self-imposed deadline on orbital mesh network — Breaking Defense