DoD Releases Strategy to Bolster Efforts to Leverage Commercial Space Sector
Dr. John Plumb, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Space Policy spoke at Space Symposium in 2023. Photo: Space Foundation
The Defense Department on Tuesday released its first Commercial Space Integration Strategy that outlines priorities for pursuing commercial solutions and describes the national security space mission areas where these capabilities have a role.
The strategy is essentially meant to strengthen ongoing efforts within the department to leverage commercially-developed capabilities to meet DoD missions.
“I think what this strategy hopes to do is say, ‘Yes, continue working on bringing commercial entities in,’” John Plumb, assistant secretary of defense for space policy, said during a media briefing. “’This is actually a thing we want you to do, not just the thing you should be experimenting with.’ And so I think, over time, this should provide better integration, better ways forward, and hopefully as we identify those mechanisms or those capabilities that can benefit national security, an additional lever for the department to say, ‘Yes, let’s help that through. Let’s scale that. Let’s figure out how we can incorporate that not just into peacetime but into crisis and conflict.’”
The National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), which are both DoD agencies and members of the intelligence community (IC), acquire commercial solutions to help meet their needs. However, commercial solutions providers frequently lament the low rate of spending for their capabilities and continued barriers to entry with the DoD and IC.
Last September, in response to an information request from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) on ways to overcome these barriers in the use of commercial overhead data and analytics services, the heads of five U.S. commercial satellite remote sensing companies responded collectively that the government takes too long to plan, acquire, and sustain commercial satellite imagery.
Despite presidential and congressional directives calling for maximum use of commercial space capabilities, “This is not often reflected in contracts and funding opportunities,” the heads of BlackSky Technology, Capella Space, HawkEye 360, Planet Labs, Maxar, and Umbra, wrote in a Sept. 21, 2023 letter to Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines.
They also said that the requirements process for commercial products and services is slow and lacks transparency. Citing a 2022 Government Accountability Office report recommending that the DNI and secretary of defense direct NGA and NRO to create “specific performance goals” toward using commercial satellite imagery, so far, “we are unaware if these performance goals have been established but would request this recommendation be completed.”
The satellite company chiefs also highlighted public comments by the U.S. Space Force that the IC may not be providing timely support to warfighters to meet planning and mission needs.
That letter was followed a day later by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to the ODNI’s Office of Policy and Capabilities — in response to the same information request from ODNI — noting that while senior DoD and IC leadership frequently mentions the value in commercial satellite imagery and analytics services for national security missions, the government “has lagged in establishing the programs, mechanisms and processes to leverage this existing capability.”
The Space Force is expected soon to release a strategy for its commercial sensing and analytics needs. Plumb said that his office and the Space Force “are very much aligned,” adding that he thinks the Space Force “is a little bit more focused on service specific acquisition.”
The priorities outlined in the DoD strategy are ensuring that commercial solutions will be available across the spectrum of conflict, achieve integration in peacetime, create security conditions to integrate commercial space solutions, which could include defending commercial assets, and finally, help bring to market commercial solutions that could support the joint force.
As for mission areas, there are 13 in the national security space arena, the report says. Primary government mission areas include things like power projection, command and control, electronic warfare, missile warning, and positioning, navigation, and timing.
Hybrid commercial and government areas include satellite communications, space domain awareness, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, spacecraft operations, and environmental monitoring.
Commercial mission areas where the government has an interest include space access, mobility, and logistics, and potentially in-space servicing, assembly, and manufacturing, the strategy says.