The Space Force spent nearly $124 million on commercial space data and services between 2023 and 2025—and a little known interagency working group could help facilitate even more data buys going forward.
commercial space
The Space Force is exploring ways to incentivize acquisition leaders to leverage more commercial innovation across their programs, including a new “scorecard” to quantify their efforts.
Senate lawmakers introduced a bill June 10 to require the Pentagon to consider how it might leverage the commercial space industry’s rush to build on-orbit data centers.
The Space Force’s fiscal 2027 budget request includes about $2.5 billion for commercial services like satellite communications and off-the-shelf capabilities, but officials say commercial components and technology are embedded throughout programs, making the true allocation much higher.
U.S. Space Command will host the first in a series of “commercial wargames” on March 23, inviting industry participants to engage with “hard problems in orbit” at a classified level, according to SPACECOM’s director for joint force development.
In the race to out-innovate adversaries, the U.S. Space Force has one key advantage over its international rivals: a robust, dynamic commercial space industry.
Lawmakers and Space Force officials alike are preparing for long-term changes to how the Pentagon manages space launches amid surging demand and aging infrastructure, recent legislation and strategy documents show.
A new RAND report shares lessons for U.S. policymakers based on how Ukrainian and Russian forces used space systems over three years of war.
The launch last month of Orbital Watch, the new Space Force program to share declassified U.S. government threat intelligence with private sector satellite operators and other commercial space companies, comes amid increasing concern about Chinese and Russian development of anti-satellite weapons.
Space Force acquisition leaders were already looking to see if they could shift some of their biggest programs to use commercial services or technology, but one of President Donald Trump's executive orders, signed April 9, that could super-charge that effort.
The Space Force took its first tentative steps last month toward leveraging commercial space providers to augment military capabilities with four small, short-term contracts to enhance space domain awareness.
Chief of Space Operations Gen. B. Chance Saltzman offered a vote of confidence in the ability of America’s defense base to produce space-based missile interceptors.
