With the upcoming launch of two satellites, Lockheed Martin expects to demonstrate how space can add to the military’s global power to gather intelligence and act on it.

The military’s vision for its future Combined Joint All-Domain Command and Control is to “sense, make sense, and act” across land, sea, air, cyber and space — a concept similar to tying together all the appliances in a smart home, but far more complex.

Lockheed Martin Space in Littleton expects to push the concept forward with Pony Express 2, a pair of small satellites funded by the company, that will demonstrate new technology such as running applications in any software language and greater autonomy, said Maria Demaree, vice president and general manager for Lockheed Martin National Security Space. The satellites will be launched in the coming months, no sooner than March, a news release said.

“The Pony Express 2 mission will showcase how we can keep our warfighters connected from space across every domain even in the most austere and contested environments,” she said in a news release.

Through Lockheed Martin’s HiveStar program, the satellites will transfer tasks among themselves without any human input, which will save military members time during fast-paced future conflicts, Demaree said.

“You are not going to have time to do things by hand anymore,” she said in an interview.

The two new satellites will also have proactive troubleshooting and artificially intelligent software that will autonomously monitor spacecraft telemetry.

The satellites could fly within a couple of kilometers of each other, using more efficient ion propulsion, which is unique for such cooperative operations, according to a news release.

Once the concepts are proven, Demaree said, Lockheed Martin could build out the satellite constellation depending on interest from the military.

Lockheed Martin’s investment in constellations of small satellites that can be developed quickly is in line with the Department of Defense strategy to stop relying as much on satellites that weigh thousands of pounds and take many years to build.

The Space Development Agency is fielding hundreds of small satellites intended to ensure that targeting a single one of the U.S. satellites would not be worth the effort in a conflict. Lockheed Martin is contracted to build satellites for the new constellations.

This week a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched new missile detection, missile tracking and networked communications satellites into orbit as part of that effort.