For the past few months, the renewal of American advanced ballistic alert capabilities has been the subject of demonstrated voluntarism. A major program of the new "US Space Force", taking into account the new threats, the "Next-gen Overhead Persistent Infrared" (OPIR) has passed an important step in recent days via the validation of preliminary design examinations of the infrared payload satellites.
Main effector of the future satellite system in geosynchronous orbit, the design then the development of infrared sensors (IR) is the subject of particular care. Competitively designed and developed by Raytheon Space and Airborne Systems and Ball Aerospace, they will pass a critical review by the fall of 2021. The selection and integration will be up to the manufacturer of the three satellites concerned: Lockheed Martin. The US Space Force relies on development parallelism to meet its schedule, with the launch of the first constellation vector in geosynchronous orbit scheduled for 2025.
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