The Space Force‘s Space Systems Command (SSC) and the service’s SpaceWERX innovation arm are to launch an In-Domain Orbital Logistics Challenge to find and advance commercial technologies to sustain satellites.
“It’s $20 million dedicated to looking at the opportunities with logistics architectures to take that joint logistics enterprise that we have on the ground and extend it to space, what are the technologies needed to do that,” Col. Scott Carstetter, SSC’s director of servicing, mobility, and logistics, told reporters on Wednesday. “We’ll take a subset and develop and advance them.”
SSC said that it will examine technologies in areas such as orbital warehousing, propellant distribution, orbital transfer vehicles, precision metering and inspection, and “novel orbital network mechanics for assured resupply and maneuver.”
The Air Force Research Lab, Defense Innovation Unit, the Space Force’s Combat Forces Command, U.S. Space Command, the Defense Logistics Agency, and U.S. Transportation Command will also be involved in the challenge, SSC said.
The command has two upcoming demonstrations — one on refueling and the other on orbital maneuver.
In April last year, SSC awarded Astroscale U.S., a subsidiary of Japan’s Astroscale, a $61 million contract to demonstrate hydrazine refueling above Geostationary Orbit (GEO).
While Astroscale U.S. had expected to launch its 300-kilogram ASPR refueling spacecraft this summer for the demonstration, SSC said that the demonstration is on the USSF-23 manifest for launch on a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Vulcan Centaur rocket early next year.
In addition to the Astroscale demo under SSC’s space access portfolio acquisition executive (PAE), SSC’s space combat power PAE is managing the Elixir refueling payload program.
Space Force has planned to demonstrate Elixir on the service’s Tetra-6 mission next year. Northrop Grumman received a contract for Elixir in April last year.
In addition to refueling, Space Force is examining maneuver, and repair and upgrades–all on orbit–as part of the service’s future mission.
Early this year, SSC awarded Starfish Space a $54.5 million contract to prepare the company’s Otter space vehicle for a demonstration of maneuver on orbit for various missions, including satellite disposal.
Carstetter said on Wednesday that Otter “will be ready to launch by the end of the summer” but that it, like the Astroscale demonstration, is on the launch manifest for the USSF-23 mission early next year.
Thus far, the Space Force has not invested huge sums in on-orbit servicing, mobility, and logistics (OOSML). The service requested no funding for OOSML in fiscal 2027, but Congress has appropriated a total of $29 million for the efforts in fiscal 2025 and 2026.
“On one side, we’re waiting to see the results of the demos to develop our force design and recognize where the funding on a larger program of record can be distributed to be most effective,” Carstetter said in response to a question why budgeted amounts for SML are so low, given Space Force officials’ statements on its future importance. “I think it’s also an aspect of a lot of the funding that is going into SML isn’t going through my accounting line. The RG-XX program could be one of the additional adopters of SML for refueling, but that funding line wouldn’t come through me.”
“I believe that [funding] will change in the future, if it does become an enterprise solution,” he said.
The Geosynchronous Reconnaissance & Surveillance Constellation (RG-XX) is to succeed the Northrop Grumman-built Geosynchronous Space Situational Awareness Program (GSSAP). Last month, Space Force’s Space Systems Command awarded 14 companies more than $1.8 billion in firm fixed price “Andromeda” contracts for RG-XX.
Five GSSAP satellites maneuver to conduct rendezvous and proximity operations to monitor and inspect other satellites, and the RG-XX constellation may be significantly larger.
RG-XX satellites are to have on-orbit refueling. The fiscal 2027 future years defense plan contains more than $2.7 billion for RG-XX, including $355 million in fiscal 2027.
