Artist’s conception of the General Atomics Electromagnetic Magnetic Systems prototype weather imaging satellite to replace the Space Force’s aging DMSP birds in the short term. (Image: GA-EMS)

WASHINGTON — The Space Force has restructured its contract with General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems (GA-EMS) for a prototype weather imaging satellite as a gap filler between the dying Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) constellation and a follow-on — to include buying a second “operational demonstration” bird and extending the systems on-orbit lifetime.

“This proactive approach ensures we remain ready to meet our national defense objectives,” Lt. Col. Brian Pitman, space-based weather systems material lead at Space Systems Command’s Space Sensing directorate, told Breaking Defense in an email.

The new contract includes five years of GA-EMS support to keep the satellites functioning through 2030.

This will give the Space Force two extra years in its two-pronged Electro-Optical Infrared [EO/IR] Weather Systems (EWS) program to orbit a next-generation weather imaging system to replace DMSP’s capabilities — which includes a separate contract with Orion Space Solutions, which in March launched a CubeSat for a one-year demonstration of advanced sensor tech. Both the Orion and GA-EMS prototypes will provide imagery, including cloud characterization data.

The new GA-EMS contract is worth $380 million, vice the original 2022 contract’s value of $189 million, he said.

But the biggest difference between the two is the fact the new contract is a firm-fixed price vehicle that “transitions the cost risk to GA-EMS, effectively minimizing government financial liability,” rather than a cost-plus, fixed-fee vehicle for which the Defense Department “bore 100% of the cost risk over the contract’s original value,” Pitman explained.

The change aligns with the call by Air Force space acquisition czar Frank Calvelli — under his nine “space acquisition tenets” issued last November — for Space Force program managers to eschew cost-plus contracts.

The first of the GA-EMS satellites is expected to launch this year, according to a July 11 company press release.

“Our goal is to be a USSF mission partner for the long haul, providing capabilities critical to ensuring that reliable and timely weather prediction data is available to support military decision makers worldwide,” the release quoted Gregg Burgess, vice president of GA-EMS Space Systems.

The Pentagon’s long-running effort to replace the DMSP satellites, which are expected to run out of fuel and cease operations next year, has seen more than its share of setbacks and troubles.

Most recently, Orion’s first CubeSat “suffered an on-orbit separation anomaly” [PDF] following its launch in January 2023 on SpaceX’s Transporter-6 rideshare mission — setting back results of the experiment by more than a year.

But plans to replace the 1960s era DMSP satellites date back to the 1995 and the ill-fated multi-agency National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS) that collapsed in 2010 following multiple Nunn-McCurdy breaches for its skyrocketing costs.

In 2018, the Air Force decided to build two separate constellations to replace DMSP: the Weather System Follow-on Microwave (WSF-M) effort, and the Operationally Responsive Space Number 8 satellite which was to carry an EO/IR sensor suite — the latter of which was killed almost at birth.

The EWS program began in 2019 to fill the EO/IR gap left by the cancellation of Operationally Responsive Space Number 8. At that time, the plan was to launch for on-orbit demonstration by 2023, rather than 2025 as now planned.

The WSF-M program, meanwhile, centers on the use of passive microwave imaging radiometry to monitor weather patterns over the oceans, rather than EO/IR sensors. The Space Force ordered the first WSF-M satellite in 2018 from Ball Aerospace; and in November 2022 exercised a contract option worth $78.2 million to buy a second bird for launch in 2028. The first satellite was launched in April.