New operations center on Grand Forks Air Force Base will operate more than 100 satellites by end of 2025

Jul. 27—GRAND FORKS — Hundreds of new satellites operated by the Space Development Agency are expected to launch in the next two years as its Grand Forks operations base comes online, the agency's top official told reporters Friday.

SDA Director Derek Tournear was joined by U.S. Sen. John Hoeven and several Air Force and Space Force officials on a tour of the SDA's facilities on Grand Forks Air Force Base.

The buildout of the space agency's new Operations Center North is "98% complete" and set to be completed in August. The operations center is one of two set to take command of a new tranche of military satellites next year as those satellites come online, Tournear said.

A total of 160 satellites are expected to launch beginning at the end of the year and continuing through the end of 2025, when Operations Center North will be considered fully-online.

"To put that in perspective, that's more satellites than the Space Force has flown in its history," Tournear said. "By this time next year, the Space Force will have three times as many satellites operating as it does now."

By the end of 2027, Tournear said, that should grow to 250 new satellites.

The satellites join part of what is known as the Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture, currently a network of 27 satellites in low-earth orbit that serve as a high-speed communications network.

In the long run, this technology is also expected to mature into an advanced fire control system capable of pinpointing opponents.

"This is the tip of the spear," Hoeven said. "This is the stuff that goes up against Russia and China."

Reporters and military and civilian space personnel stepped into the operations center's "Mission Control," a gleaming white room with rows of Dell desktops in front of a wall of flatscreen monitors.

Fifty-six personnel, mostly civilians and personnel from defense contractors including Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics, Iridium, York Space Systems and Lockheed Martin, will work out of Mission Control.

Tournear said the expansion of the number of satellites represented a "paradigm shift" in how the military operated its satellites.

Whereas before, multiple technicians would have been assigned to one satellite's operations, now one operator would be assigned to several satellites at once.

"We don't view our satellites as pets, we view them as cattle," Tournear said. "We think of our satellites as a constellation."

Some 75 new personnel are expected to man the facility, including three Space Force Guardians and two Navy sailors; 26 have been hired already.

The Space Force has assigned Lt. Col Daniel Boyd to the air base as part of the buildout, to serve as director of space operations.

SDA is planning to award a construction contract next month for separate facility on-base that will house defense contractors to test and troubleshoot satellites. The facility will be known as the Technology Acceleration Center, in lieu of its old name, the Test and Checkout Center.

Completion of that facility is expected sometime in 2026.