Lockheed Martin’s experimental nanosat payload Pony Express 1 was launched in December as a hosted payload on Tyvak’s Tyvak-0129 spacecraft. Photo: Lockheed Martin

Lockheed Martin said that it plans to launch three company developed satellites next year to help demonstrate Joint All-Domain Operations (JADO).

The effort is part of the company’s Space-Augmented JADO Environment (SAJE) test bed.

“In 2023, Lockheed Martin will launch its own constellation of small satellites to demonstrate how space can provide global battlefield awareness, sensing and connectivity in even the most austere, denied or contested areas,” per Lockheed Martin.

The three are two Pony Express 2 satellites and one tactical intelligence, surveillance & reconnaissance (ISR) and communications satellite (TacSat).

The space-based JADO test bed “will provide a variety of sensors, processors and communications links in space to perform live on orbit demonstrations and experiments” for battle management command and control, ISR tasking, mission data processing at the edge–SmartSat, and direct downlink, Lockheed Martin said.

The company announced SmartSat in March 2019 to allow satellites to be configured for new missions while in orbit through smartphone-like application updates.

Pony Express 2 is a follow-on to the Pony Express 1 nanosatellite mission that Lockheed Martin said launched in 2019. In addition to SmartSat, Pony Express 2 is to demonstrate mesh networking, tactical communications, and Lockheed Martin’s HiveStar distributed application technologies, while TacSat–based on the Space Development Agency’s Transport Layer Tranche O design–is to host the “first-ever 5G.MIL payload on orbit” and to feature on-orbit processing, ISR sensing, and advanced communications,” per Lockheed Martin.

“The timing for fielding this new [SAJE] space testbed in 2023 couldn’t be better, as SAJE will be available to participate in the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command’s Northern Edge exercise,” the company said. “SAJE would also be available for JADO demonstrations to advance the U.S. Air Force’s Advanced Battle Management System (ABMS), the U.S. Navy’s Project Overmatch and the U.S. Army’s Project Convergence.”

This story was first published by Via Satellite sister outlet Defense Daily.