The origin for TLJ’s ‘Hyperspace Tracking’ is found in the Tarkin novel

In the Tarkin novel by James Luceno, Tarkin’s flagship, the *Carrion Spike*, is stolen by a group of thieves.

Darth Vader is temporarily able to track the ship’s location due to his connection with his meditation chamber that was transferred aboard prior to the mission.

The thieves eventually figure out that the meditation chamber is what Vader is using ti track them and they jettison the chamber and jump to light speed.

Tarkin’s ship is lost and they launch an extensive investigation to pin down where the ship could have gone.

Later on in the timeline, during Rogue One, Jyn goes through the databases on Scarif where the plans for all projects under the Tarkin Initiative are kept.

Among these, obviously the Death Star - which Tarkin was involved with from the start as seen in Catalyst -

Project War Mantle - Which we see in the Bad Batch under Tarkin’s supervision.

And a project labeled ‘Hyperspace Tracking’.

Now the Empire was never able to finish the project and use it for themselves. But the First Order inherited a lot of these projects as we see with Starkiller Base ( which the Empire was already working on as seen in Catalyst and Jedi: Falllen Order.)

And would later perfect and apply to their ships in The Last Jedi.

TL;DR: Tarkin was so pissed over his ship being stolen that he commissioned a project specifically so he could be able to track specific targets through hyperspace. The First Order then finished the project