The Space Force is making sure its commercial space strategy isn’t just another document that sits on the shelf.

Using its own strategy, released in April 2024, in conjunction with the Defense Department’s broader commercial space integration strategy, Space Force leaders aim to bring in technologies from the private sector that have a direct impact on their mission areas.

Col. Richard Kniseley is the senior materiel leader of the Commercial Space Office in the Space Systems Command for the Space Force.

Col. Richard Kniseley, the senior materiel leader of the Commercial Space Office in the Space Systems Command for the Space Force, said the agency is leveraging the approach to pursue different mission areas that leaders believe will benefit most from commercial-sector capabilities.

“We are actively executing a mission area that we just started last year called tactical surveillance, reconnaissance and tracking. So [we are] taking advantage of the phenomenal technologies that are being procured by our intel friends at the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), and utilizing commercial analytics to get things out to the command commands very fast,” Kniseley said during a recent AFCEA DC lunch, an excerpt of which was played on Ask the CIO. “We are doing that at tactical speeds right now. So from query to competition to delivery of that product is right now at less than 72 hours, and we’re getting, after all, different missions of the combatant commands, not just Russia and China, but we’re talking about counter-drug proliferation too.”

This example of a program would seem more in line with what Chief of Space Operations Gen. Chance Saltzman wanted in the first place. Space Force delayed the release of the commercial space strategy after Saltzman sent the draft back to its authors, requesting a more comprehensive, concrete roadmap for industry on how to work with Space Force instead of being an “aspirational” document.

First war game just completed

Kniseley said one way the Space Force is leaning into the spirit and intent of the strategy is through the Commercial Augmentation Space Reserve (CASR). CASR is a “framework allowing the Space Force to accomplish the necessary transition throughout this continuum by entering into pre-negotiated contractual agreements which would be activated in times of crisis or conflict.” CASR’s goal is to identify voluntary commercial participants and ensure interoperability through training, war games and exercises, while also crafting pre-negotiated contracts with commercial space companies to provide surge capacity when needed. These services could include: satellite communications; tactical surveillance, reconnaissance, and tracking; and space domain awareness.

He said understanding during peaceful times how to properly partner with commercial industry and integrate those capabilities will pay big dividends in the event of a conflict or national emergency.

“I’m not bashful to say that we started this two years ago. We were successful, awarding our first set of pilot programs [in March]. We started with space domain awareness, and we are also doing missionary analysis for commercial satellite communications. We just finished a study with the IndoPacific, and we’re moving on to European Command,” he said. “We’re also holding because our first CASR war game, where we’re going to invite a bunch of members of the SATCOM community, and we are going to have an all commercial war game.”

The Space Force completed that war game in April, revealing areas of opportunity to better maintain secure and reliable satellite communications in times of conflict.

Like the Space Force, the Defense Innovation Unit is trying to access commercial technology more quickly and easily.

Kate Stowe, the Defense engagement lead for cyber at the DIU, said the organization continues to be focused on prototypes of technology that could help warfighters.

“It all starts with a really good problem from our warfighter, and that problem can come out of a program executive office. In fact, I welcome that and would enjoy that because it means now I have a partner into transition and sustainment. But oftentimes we do get them from our users,” she said. “Once we have that problem, we’ll put that on the street to all of you, it’s a total of one to two pages. That’s all you have to read for two weeks. Then we ask in return, if you want to make a proposal, is five pages total. We don’t take any more than 5 pages or 15 slides. It allows us to really not burden you. We understand many of our innovative, small companies don’t have a proposal machine. They don’t have massive amounts of people working dedicated to proposal writing. Many of them are engineers working on programs already, or they’re out seeking funding because they’re that young, and we want to lower that barrier to entry.”

Through the front door

Stowe said DIU then brings together a team of experts to review the proposals and participate in vendor pitches, that last for about an hour.

“Now I’ve asked what five written pages, and if you make it to the next round an hour or so of your time, we’re going to do our business intelligence and all that while that process goes on, and then we’re going to down-select and turn it over to our contracting officer, who’s going to negotiate commercial terms and get you on contract,” she said. “That’s a heck of a lot less work than I asked of many [vendors] before. It’s not a one-size fits all. It is a tool in our acquirers toolbox to use, and it is geared towards non-traditional commercial technology and prototypes, but I think that we can reduce a lot of risk in our programs and get after technology much, much faster.”

Stowe said the DIU approach has proven not just faster timelines to get capabilities in the hands of warfighters, but it reduces risk to both the DoD and the vendor.

Space Force also is trying to simplify its approach to working with commercial vendors. Kniseley said the organization develop a “front door,” or one stop shop for industry to go to help the Space Force understand the companies’ capabilities and do some due diligence about the firm.

“We try to understand your technical readiness level. We also do a due diligence on your investments. Do you have any nefarious capital? Who else are you contracted with? From there, we have the discussions and show you capability gaps or the requirements that we have,” he said. “One thing that we also learned through the front door is we’re trying not to hide behind the cloak of over classification. So we’re also looking into how to stand up a no-cost contract to get a couple clearances to some of these new startups so that they better understand some of our requirements. But through that front door, we also have mechanisms to do investments.”

The Space Force launched SpaceWerx in 2020 to better connect with commercial space companies.

“One of the things that I did when I first got into that chair was notice that SpaceWerx was awarding 75% of their budget toward Phase One contracts. If you know what a Phase One contract is, these are like $75,000 contracts, where you get great paper studies, but what are we doing here?” Kniseley said. “What I did was took a notice of how mature the commercial market was, and we pivoted that budget, so now it is 40% going toward Strategic Funding Increase (STRATFI) program five. So now we’re looking at getting things more in the prototype realm, and then that helps us kind of bridge that valley of death a little bit more so that I can work with the PEOs to now transition these capabilities into a more program of record, or a capability of records.”

The post Space Force, DIU open the door wider to commercial technologies first appeared on Federal News Network.

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