Millennium Space completes review for missile tracking space vehicle

London, 29 November 2023.- Millennium Space Systems, a Boeing company, announced on the 27th of November that it has completed the critical design review (CDR) for its Missile Track Custody (MTC) space vehicle. The CDR investigated not just an individual spacecraft, but also the overall constellation design. 

The MTC program is part of Space Systems Command’s (SSC) Space Sensing Resilient Missile Warning, Missile Tracking, Missile Defence program office. The program aims to rapidly deliver missile tracking satellites into medium Earth orbit, with a focus on defending against advanced threats like intercontinental ballistic missiles and hyper-glide vehicles. 

The Preliminary Design Review was completed over four months, followed by the space vehicle CDR which has been conducted under five months.

“We incorporated digital engineering to streamline coordination, data products and analyses as the space vehicle design matured, which also helped to improve communication across the internal team, partners and customers,” said Doug Hulse, director, Sensing Portfolio, Millennium Space Systems. “Because our internal common core components make up the key parts of the space vehicle architecture, we have a deep understanding of the system – we know where to insert margins to accelerate decision-making.”

Millennium Space Systems won the contract in July 2021, with a focus on mission payload development. The company passed a CDR in November 2022, leading to authorisation to develop the first space vehicle. Now the space vehicle CDR is complete, Millennium is authorised for five more space vehicles for the constellation. 

Millennium satellites are part of “Epoch 1”, which intends to lay the foundation for ground operations and communications infrastructure.