The U.S. Space Force released a new plan on April 10 that realigns and reprioritizes the service branch’s steps to better integrate commercial space capabilities.
The Commercial Space Strategy serves as a companion to the Pentagon’s Commercial Space Integration Strategy released on April 2. The Pentagon’s strategy outlines how it will try to increase its use of commercial space technologies, while the Space Force’s strategy goes into further detail on how it will execute that effort with a particular focus on acquisition.
“We must tap into the spirit of American entrepreneurship, innovation, and vibrant competitive markets to be successful and sustain our competitive advantage across the spectrum of conflict in this era of Great Power Competition,” said Chief of Space Operations Gen. Chance Saltzman, who unveiled the strategy during his remarks at the Space Symposium on April 10.
The Space Force’s strategy is guided by four overarching mandates required by the Pentagon – finding a balance between government and commercial solutions; interoperability; resilience to increase the number of providers and diversify supply chains; and responsible conduct to ensure tax dollars are spent wisely.
The service branch refined those four broad requirements into four goals specific to the Space Force.
The first is collaborative transparency which demands all stakeholders be aware of the capabilities and limitations of their partners.
According to Saltzman, if the private sector doesn’t understand the service’s challenges, “they cannot contribute and if we do not understand what industry can bring to bear, we miss opportunities.”
Operational and technical integration is the second goal, and it is designed to help the service avoid the technological mismatches and blind spots that have slowed product development in the past. Through this line of effort, the service will work to integrate commercial space solutions into a hybrid space architecture. But to get there, Space Force will need to develop “policies, processes, technical standards and procedures that allow the commercial sector to integrate data and hardware with the Space Force,” Saltzman said.
Priority mission areas for new commercial integration are: Tactical Surveillance, Reconnaissance, and Tracking; Space-Based Environmental Monitoring; Positioning, Navigation, and Timing; and Space Access, Mobility, and Logistic. Those are in addition to the continued integration of commercial capabilities into mature mission areas like Satellite Communication, Launch, and Space Domain Awareness.
The third line of effort is risk management, under which the service branch will work to ensure that all stakeholders understand risks and receive actionable, timely data to aid in risk mitigation.
The final line of effort – “securing our future” – speaks to the service branch’s commitment to continued investments in emerging technologies in the commercial space sector that have the potential to support the joint and combined force.
According to Saltzman, the strategy marks a deliberate move away from “old ways of doing business.”
“This strategy acknowledges that old ways of doing business will not produce the results we need,” Saltzman said. “The Space Force must harness the benefits for technological innovation and emerging capabilities if we are going to be able to outcompete our competitors – or the Space Force will lose; the joint force will lose, and the U.S. will lose.”
However, as important as the new strategy is it doesn’t provide all the answers, Saltzman explained.
“The Commercial Space Strategy is not a panacea; it does not provide the answers. But I do think it frames the discussion that must take place, it sets the conditions for productive collaboration, and it starts the critical processes needed to accelerate the purposeful pursuit of hybrid space architectures,” he said.
