SPAR Institute Begins Latest Effort to Develop Nuclear Propulsion for Space

Maneuver Without Regret, In-Space Assembly and Manufacturing Among Potential Use Cases

In late 2024, the United States Space Force established the Space Power & Propulsion for Agility, Responsiveness & Resilience (SPAR) Institute with $35 million to develop nuclear-powered systems for spacecraft propulsion. The initiative demonstrates the latest effort by the Space Force, in partnership with the Air Force Reserarch Laboratory (AFRL), eight universities and 14 industry partners, to explore nuclear fission as an energy source in space. If successfully developed and deployed, nuclear-powered systems can unlock a broad range of capabilities: from ”maneuvering without regret” and in-space assembly and manufacturing (ISAM), to orbital clean-up and natural resource extraction.

“Retired Lieutenant General John Shaw’s catchphrase ‘maneuver without regret,’ means we need to operate and maneuver satellites without compromising the satellite’s lifetime energy supply,” said Tom Cooley, PhD, partner at Elara Nova: The Space Consultancy and former Chief Scientist at AFRL. “The current energy consumption costs of maneuvering space assets adversely affect the Space Force’s long-term capabilities. Nuclear energy has long been considered a potential solution, and the SPAR Institute will explore its viability.”

Traditionally, maneuvering in space has been generated through electric or chemical propulsion. But both approaches have their respective limitations.

“While electric propulsion is extremely efficient, it can’t generate enough power to change an orbit quickly, so it tends to be used for lower impulse per unit time activities like station-keeping,” said Brad Tousley, PhD , partner at Elara Nova and former director for the Tactical Technology Office at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). “Meanwhile, chemical propulsion rockets have greater impulse per unit time, but fuel is volume and weight-constrained by the spacecraft. So chemical propulsion requires the Space Force to address on-orbit refueling and logistical challenges.”

Alternatively, nuclear fission carries both high-impulse thrust and low-consumption rate qualities. Nuclear fission works by splitting an atom’s nucleus within a controlled reactor to generate energy in a way that could revolutionize dynamic space operations.

“Nuclear fission’s latent energy is simply far more per unit volume compared to electric or chemical power sources,” Dr. Tousley said. “Regulatory and safety issues still exist that can inhibit nuclear development and deployment. But from a physics and energy density perspective, nuclear power can change how we approach building resilient architectures and systems in space.”

Therefore, nuclear-powered spacecraft are an attractive endeavor for both national security and civil space applications.

“The Space Force is interested in nuclear energy because maneuvering to change orbits requires a lot of energy,” Dr. Cooley said. “Maneuverability can also enable in-space logistics, like on-orbit refueling or conducting maintenance repairs on a spacecraft. Then for NASA, human habitation on the moon requires a reliable source of energy, especially during the two-week lunar ‘night.’”

Nuclear-Powered Systems vs. Nuclear Weapons

Nuclear-powered systems are not nuclear weapons. Whereas a nuclear weapon splits an uranium or plutonium atom in an uncontrolled manner to maximize energy consumption, a nuclear reactor can house this same atom-splitting process in a way that generates a low-carbon, long-term energy source.

It’s the same technological process leveraged by nuclear power plants and even the United States Navy.

“There’s no better analogy for using nuclear power in space than how it changed the U.S. Navy’s global operations,” Dr. Tousley said. “The Navy went to nuclear-powered aircraft carriers because the infrastructure to supply carriers with conventional fossil fuels was burdened by long-distance deployments. So today’s Navy depends on nuclear energy for their global power projection.”

To this end, developing and deploying similar nuclear reactor technology for space is legally within the bounds of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty.

“The 1967 Outer Space Treaty is clear that we must not put nuclear weapons in space,” Dr. Cooley said. “But a nuclear reactor simply uses nuclear technology to generate electricity. Some of the most successful NASA programs used radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTGs), which similarly leveraged nuclear technology for deep space or interplanetary exploration.”

Nuclear Thermal Propulsion Programs

Historically, the United States has embarked on a series of research and development programs for nuclear energy in space. Nuclear-powered systems can be delineated in two ways, the first of which is nuclear thermal propulsion (NTP). In an NTP system, hydrogen fuel is used to split a uranium atom within a nuclear reactor to generate heat, which can create thrust.

One of the earliest NTP efforts was the Nuclear Engine for Rocket Vehicle Application (NERVA) program, overseen by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC).

“NERVA aimed to develop an upper-stage rocket engine using nuclear thermal propulsion, because the heat generated by a nuclear reactor is much greater than the heat you get from a chemical reaction,” Donna Dickey, Elara Nova partner and aerospace engineer, formerly of AFRL and now supporting DARPA. “The NTP process generates twice the efficiency, while maintaining the thrust levels of a traditional chemical rocket – so it’s the best of both worlds. The NERVA program developed several nuclear reactors to be integrated into a rocket engine, and even started testing before the program ended in 1973.”

While the nuclear-powered rocket engine NERVA developed was never launched into space, the program has been considered a successful proof of concept for nuclear thermal propulsion.

Today, similarly-inspired DARPA programs have emerged, like the Demonstration Rocket for Agile Cislunar Operations (DRACO) and LunA-10 programs.

“DRACO is focused on demonstrating nuclear thermal propulsion technology on-orbit,” Dr. Tousley said. “Effectively managing the excess heat a nuclear reaction generates continues to be a technical challenge that DARPA and NASA are working through, but the program is an effective example of how we can develop nuclear technology in a way that adheres to the Outer Space Treaty. Meanwhile, LunA-10 was a capability study of the lunar economy and how shared systems could benefit everyone, including nuclear power and propulsion.”

Nuclear Electric Propulsion

The second way to leverage nuclear energy is known as nuclear electric propulsion (NEP), which uses nuclear fission to create electricity that generates the magnetic fields used to accelerate and expel gas propellants like xenon and krypton. The NEP process provides a lower amount of thrust compared to its NTP counterpart, but it can still efficiently propel a spacecraft for extended periods of time.

That’s been the focus of the Joint Emergent Technology Supplying On-Orbit Nuclear High Power (JETSON) program, overseen by AFRL. JETSON emerged after the Kilopower Reactor Using Stirling Technology (KRUSTY) experiment, led by NASA and the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration, safely demonstrated NEP capability.

“KRUSTY created a relatively small nuclear reactor and used that to generate electricity,” Dr. Cooley said. “Now, JETSON gets back to powering an ion thruster with that electric energy, but the hard part is getting the nuclear reactor into space safely.”

Remaining Challenges and Terrestrial-Driven Solutions

Launch presents one of many remaining challenges needed to be overcome before the government, with its industry and academic partners, can successfully adopt nuclear-powered systems for spacecraft propulsion.

“The biggest concern is not launching the reactor structure, but rather the nuclear material itself,” Dr. Tousley said. “But launching the reactor structure on one rocket and the nuclear material on a smaller, more reliable rocket before assembling it in space is one example of how we can creatively reduce the risk of an accident or reentry. Although we would still need mission assurance during the system’s lifetime, and a means for appropriately disposing it at end of life.”

But similar, land-based nuclear energy efforts may in turn facilitate solutions for getting a nuclear reactor to space. For example, the Strategic Capabilities Office’s Project Pele aims to develop a mobile nuclear reactor to power remote military bases.

“It’s difficult to get fossil fuel sources to places like Eilson Air Force Base in Alaska, where winter limits opportunities to resupply,” Dr. Tousley said. So Project Pele’s investment in nuclear research and development for terrestrial power purposes can advance similar technologies for space.”

Land-based applications for nuclear power systems are also drawing the attention, and investment, of technology companies and their private equity partners.

“Companies are developing small nuclear reactor concepts to meet the growing nationwide energy demands of data centers,” Dr. Tousley said. “So nuclear developments may not start with space, but the government is still going to benefit from private capital investments in developing advanced reactors and power systems for terrestrial purposes.”

Enabling the Future of Nuclear in Space

If successful, these programs could enable the development of other space-based capabilities, like in-space assembly and manufacturing (ISAM), orbital clean-up, recycling and even natural resource extraction in space.

“Nuclear energy can solve two problems at once: building the future infrastructure in space, while cleaning up the old one,” Dr. Cooley said. “Nuclear power systems can maneuver space debris into remote orbits, or recylce and manufacture debris into new material. But all of these capabilities would require tremendous amounts of energy that nuclear-powered systems can uniquely provide, and the United States needs to take that risk and invest in these capabilities now if we are going to lead that change.”

However, the government must also make the appropriate regulatory and policy changes if it’s to overcome the risk-averse mindset triggered by nuclear accidents like Three Mile Island.

“Japan, France and the United States led the free world in nuclear power development for electric generation purposes before the 1979 partial nuclear meltdown at Three Mile Island,” Dr. Tousley said. “That accident impacted U.S. public policy and set us back in nuclear development for decades, while Japan and France continued forward. Likewise, we need to be more risk-tolerant in order to make progress because the physics don’t lie – nuclear energy is incredibly efficient.

The complex challenges facing the SPAR Institute and other nuclear energy programs require the type of intersecting technology, human capital, regulatory and policy-driven solutions Elara Nova partners are prepared to provide.

“The SPAR Institute is funding graduate students to work in nuclear development, an area that is critical to the United States,” Dr. Tousley said. “These students will likely go on to work in industry or start their own companies in support of the U.S. government’s nuclear development efforts. That’s where Elara Nova can support them, by bridging the gap between policy and technical challenges to enable their company’s success.”

Elara Nova is a global consultancy and professional services firm focused on helping businesses and government agencies maximize the strategic advantages of the space domain. Learn more at https://elaranova.com/.

The Rise of Commercial Space in Christian Davenport’s “The Space Barons”

Washington Post Reporter to Release New Book, “Rocket Dreams,” in 2025

Christian Davenport, a space industry and NASA reporter for The Washington Post, has announced a forthcoming book: “Rocket Dreams: Musk, Bezos, and the Inside Story of the New, Trillion-Dollar Space Race.” The new book, set to be released in the fall of 2025, picks up where his previous book “The Space Barons: Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and the Quest to Colonize the Cosmos,” concluded seven years ago. While his journalism career began as a metropolitan reporter and editor covering local politics in Washington, D.C., it was Davenport’s experience as an embedded reporter in Iraq and Kuwait that enabled him to recognize a unique story idea that led to writing “The Space Barons,” during a 2014 press conference.

“I was assigned to cover the military-industrial complex when, in 2014, Elon Musk held a press conference at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., to announce he was filing a lawsuit against the Pentagon, specifically the Air Force, for the right to compete for national security launch contracts,” Christian Davenport said. “But Musk started the press conference by talking about building a re-usable launch vehicle that would bring the booster back by catching it. I wrote the story about the lawsuit, but during my research into SpaceX’s efforts to develop reusable rockets I found that Jeff Bezos and Blue Origin were trying to do that, too.”

At the time, the idea of a re-usable launch vehicle that would return to Earth was unproven. But Davenport took to heart an old journalism mantra that harkens back to Watergate: “Follow the money.”

“If the richest people in the world are investing their money in space exploration and advancing state of the art launch technology, then we should be paying more attention to that,” Davenport said. “So I interviewed Elon, Jeff, as well as Richard Branson and Paul Allen, for ‘The Space Barons.’ But while each of them approached their space companies with very different mindsets, there is a common thread through all of them: to lower the cost of access to space.”

A Starting Point for Commercial Space

The billionaires’ ambitions were diverse: Musk wanted to colonize Mars, Bezos wanted to reduce human impact on the Earth and Branson licensed technology from Allen’s StarShipOne to establish suborbital tourism. Each of them self-funded their space company’s efforts to varying degrees, but it was Allen’s original aspirations to win the Ansari X prize that today is viewed as a catalyzing moment for commercial space.

“The Ansari X Prize was a contest to see if a commercial venture can send a vehicle to the edge of space and back – twice – without government money,” Davenport said. “When Paul Allen and Burt Rutan, the famous inventor and aerospace engineer, came up with SpaceShipOne and won the Ansari X Prize, it was heralded at the time as a breakthrough moment for commercial space. But while it showed it could be done, we don’t have regular people going to the edge of space like originally envisioned.”

Davenport’s “The Space Barons” also takes readers inside a 2006 Valentine’s Day conference where the billionaires gathered together to brainstorm how to move the commercial space industry forward.

“Back then, it would have been fair to look at these space barons and say, ‘Commercial space is never going to happen,’” Davenport said. “Space is such an expensive and difficult proposition that requires immense expertise. So there were a lot of skeptics who thought space was always going to be an exclusively government enterprise. Yet, over time, the space barons persisted.”

The motives behind the Valentine’s Day conference meeting have clear repercussions that still resonate today.

“In a sense, they posed a question: ‘Is there a commercial space industry?’” Davenport said. “Well, the next book, Rocket Dreams, answers that question with a resounding ‘Yes,’ because anytime you put human beings in a commercially owned and operated rocket is a big deal. Today, we’re seeing a proliferation of a space market and a space economy beyond just the billionaires.”

The Government’s Role in Commercial Space Growth

A key shift in making today’s space market possible, however, was the actions government agencies made to facilitate the commercial space industry’s growth.

“There was a willingness from the government, from NASA and the Pentagon, to outsource some tasks and space missions to the private sector,” Davenport said. “Today, that outsourcing seems routine, but that was a revolutionary change to trust the private sector with vital space missions that had always been part of the national enterprise. That was a significant paradigm shift that enabled the space industry to take off.”

It took key government figures like NASA’s Mike Griffin or DARPA’s Tony Tether and Steve Walker to advocate for the government to embrace what was – at the time – a budding space industry.

“In the context of the time, there were two space shuttle disasters and the end of the space shuttle program, which meant the United States government would rely solely on Russia to get our astronauts to the International Space Station,” Davenport said. “So government officials began thinking about doing something radically different to access space. It started with industry partners flying cargo and supplies to the International Space Station before flying astronauts – but it was an incremental approach that developed over time.”

The Modern Commercial Space Industry

Today, that once-emerging commercial space market has established itself as a projected $1.8 trillion space industry by 2035. As such, government agencies will be looking more and more to their commercial partners for a variety of space missions.

“We’re seeing the space enterprise understand that if the commercial sector can fly astronauts to the space station, then maybe they should be the ones who land astronauts on the moon and build uncrewed spacecraft for scouting missions,” Davenport said. “The government can also get investors involved to help subsidize the cost of these missions. However, the commercial sector works by experimenting to move faster, which means at times they’re going to fail. So it will be interesting to see what the government tolerance level is for that.”

The balance of success and failure can perhaps be described by two recent commercial space endeavors funded by NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program. In early March, Firefly Aerospace landed their Blue Ghost spacecraft for a successful two-week mission, but Intuitive Machines’ Athena spacecraft had an imperfect landing that left much of its mission goals unfulfilled.

“It’s a balance of how much risk are we willing to take, because whether it’s astronauts on-board or even the cargo and supplies needed to service those astronauts – the government requires success,” Davenport said. “Even SpaceX has recently had problems with its Falcon-9, Dragon and Starship spacecraft. So while we often celebrate the success of American innovation, some of these setbacks call into question how much government oversight there should be.”

A New Space Race

The government has a vested interest in the success of commercial space companies, primarily because the United States has once again found itself in a modern-day space race.

“China has shown amazing progress for moon landings, as they are the first country to go to and bring samples back from the far side of the moon,” Davenport said. “They have a space station in low-Earth orbit and have operated a rover on Mars. But what many people don’t realize is there are no longer American flags on the moon. The flags from the Apollo era have been bleached white by the radiation and vacuum environment, meanwhile China has planted two flags: one made out of composite material specifically designed for space and another made with in-situ resource utilization (ISRU) technology so it can withstand the harsh space environment.”

In “The Space Barons,” Davenport catalogued how the commercial space industry rose up to meet today’s space race needs by delineating the book in three sections: Impossible, Improbable, Inevitable. But now that the commercial space industry is well on its way, “Rocket Dreams” will showcase how these companies will reach their destinations and achieve their goals in the modern space race.

“‘Impossible, Improbable, and Inevitable,’ encompass the narrative of ‘The Space Barons,’ but also the journey of space exploration in the commercial space sector,” Davenport said. “This next book, ‘Rocket Dreams,’ takes a more symbolic approach to its three sections: on the ground, on-orbit, and to the moon and beyond. The book ends more on ideas, because there’s a lot of questions being asked and certainly progress that is being made, but these unpredictable variables are what makes it an exciting time to be a part of the space industry.”

Quantum Technologies to Reinforce Position, Navigation and Timing Capability

Chinese Advancements Raise Stakes for Faster Adoption of Quantum Sensors

China’s advancements in quantum technology have triggered a call-to-action for the United States to accelerate their own investments in quantum research and development. According to the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s Critical Technology Tracker, China surpassed the United States in published quantum research in 2021. China’s lead in published research can be interpreted as a faster pace toward adopting and deploying quantum technologies in space for military purposes, which China already demonstrated in 2016, with plans for launching more quantum-equipped satellites in 2025. In response, the Quantum Economic Development Consortium (QED-C) is similarly advocating for more research and development to support quantum technologies in space, specifically to reinforce the Position, Navigation and Timing (PNT) mission.

“PNT is a combination of technologies that determine location, orientation and time associated with a particular asset,” said Major General (Ret) Kim Crider, Founding Partner at Elara Nova: The Space Consultancy. “Currently, the United States Space Force delivers PNT capability through the Global Positioning System (GPS) of space-based satellites. By broadcasting signals between satellites in space and receivers on Earth, GPS systems can calculate an asset’s position, while tracking and predicting its movements according to a given time standard.”

The Military and Commercial Value of PNT

While GPS is owned and operated by the United States government, it is just one satellite system providing PNT capability under the broader Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS). Allies and adversaries alike have fielded similar PNT capabilities under GNSS and through satellite systems of their own: Russia’s GLONASS, the European Union’s Galileo constellation, China’s BeiDou, Japan’s QZSS and India’s IRNSS/NavIC.

But the PNT capability provided through each of these systems are widely seen as ‘dual-use,’ serving both commercial and military purposes.

Consequently, these systems are subject to near-constant attack.

“There are jamming, spoofing and cyber attacks against our GPS signals every single day, in addition to the changing space weather conditions that can also compromise these systems,” Maj Gen (Ret) Crider said. “Each of these threats create denial-of-service challenges for the Space Force, particularly because PNT is critical in warfighting operations to accurately understand where troops are on the ground or where ships are at sea, while enabling effective communication between forces in a time-synchronized environment.”

Quantum Creates Resiliency for PNT

That’s why the QED-C, a consortium of quantum industry stakeholders established under the National Quantum Initiative Act of 2018, published a recent report that underscored the immediate implications quantum sensors can serve in reinforcing compromised PNT capabilities or support forces in GPS-denied areas.

“GPS signals may not be able to reach assets that are underground, under water, in valleys or canyons and sometimes even indoors, where a roof provides a cover that the satellite signals can’t penetrate,” said Lietuenant General (Ret) Harry Raduege, partner at Elara Nova. “The polar regions can also be a GPS-denied area because of their extreme and remote location, while also becoming more globally contentious as potential areas of future conflict.”

Quantum sensors, however, are inherently more resistant to jamming or spoofing than legacy GPS systems.

“While GPS actively transmits and receives signals, these quantum technologies passively sense changes in the Earth’s environment,” Maj Gen (Ret) Crider said. “Quantum technology collects data and makes measurements at the atomic level, which means they can track precise changes in the way atoms interact in electric or magnetic fields. Therefore, these sensors can create a more precise and accurate understanding of what’s going on in the environment around an asset in a way that GPS currently can’t.”

Quantum Sensors and How They Work

The QED-C report describes two types of quantum sensors that support mapping and navigational efforts: quantum magnetometers and quantum gravimeters.

“Quantum magnetometers and quantum gravimeters can detect and measure minute changes in magnetic fields and gravitational fields, respectively,” Lt Gen (Ret) Raduege said. “So these technologies offer new ways to map the planet, particularly for remote and featureless environments like oceans and the polar regions.”

With these sensors, operators can identify and orient military assets through what the QED-C report calls “magnetic anomaly-aided navigation (MagNav),” and “gravitational anomaly-aided navigation (GravNav)”.

“These sensors look for anomalies in the magnetic or gravitational environments, and can match these anomalies to known magnetic or gravitational maps,” Maj Gen (Ret) Crider said. “For example, a U.S. naval vessel operating in the polar region with limited GPS availability can rely on gravimeters to detect anomalies in the gravitational field around the ship and verify any changes with previously known maps of Earth’s gravitational field.”

Quantum technologies can also go beyond mapping capabilities for PNT verification, to also include quantum accelerometers and quantum gyroscopes that measure an asset’s changes in motion and angle of rotation, respectively.

“Quantum accelerometers and quantum gyroscopes can be networked together to dramatically improve the accuracy and reliability of our sensing capabilities for measuring an asset’s movement,” Lt Gen (Ret) Raduege said. “These tools can also be directly applied to the space domain to provide highly accurate measurements of a satellite’s position and orientation, as well as objects in its surrounding environment to support the space domain awareness mission.”

According to the QED-C report, quantum sensors are particularly valuable in how they can be integrated with legacy GPS systems to enhance their accuracy and reliability.

“It’s important that we network these emerging technologies into our traditional GPS systems to get that added resiliency in providing PNT capabilities to joint military operations,” Maj Gen (Ret) Crider said. “When GPS signals are disrupted or compromised, these quantum sensors can verify the accuracy of those GPS signals while also providing an alternative PNT capability for joint forces operating in those GPS-denied areas.”

Quantum sensors are relevant to various commercial industries as well, such as agriculture, transportation, communications, financial management and even mining for critical resources. As a result, the QED-C proposed several recommendations for the federal government and its industry partners to invest in greater research and development of quantum technologies in a way that facilitates the broader industry’s growth.

Investing in Quantum R&D

One priority is investing in the research and development of photonic integrated circuits (PICs), or microchips that transmit, process and sense information through light-based particles called ‘photons.’ PICs are viewed as faster and more efficient than traditional electronic microchips, which primarily transfers information through electrons.

“The government can invest in the development of PICs similar to how they have taken steps to establish a foundry for electronic microchips in the U.S.,” Maj Gen (Ret) Crider said. “We have to ensure there is a supply chain for developing these photonic components, such that we can create the PICs necessary for quantum sensors.”

The QED-C report also emphasizes the role of partnerships between the government and the quantum community to identify opportunities for standardizing the size, weight, power and cost (SWaP-C) criteria of PICs used in quantum technology.

“Reducing the SWaP-C elements of PICs would enhance their reliability and facilitate the economies of scale needed to broaden the application and commercialization of quantum sensors across industries,” Lt Gen (Ret) Raduege said. “The government must work with organizations like QED-C, academic institutions, think tanks and other industry stakeholders to encourage market studies, pilot programs and test-beds for developing quantum technology.”

Further, by providing third-party validation and verification requirements, like those coming out of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s Quantum Benchmarking Initiative and National Institutes of Standards and Technology, the government can ensure that the quantum technologies it adopts has been proven to be accurate and reliable.

“The federal government can fund organizations supporting standardization and validation measures of emerging technologies, and also support the research labs and academic institutions that provide test-beds for establishing these performance standards,” Maj Gen (Ret) Crider said. “Then the DOD can work with the military services to facilitate the integration of quantum capabilities into warfighting operations.”

Quantum, PNT, and the Joint Fight

With the effective development and deployment of quantum sensors, particularly with legacy PNT systems, the implications for supporting joint force operations across domains can be significant.

“Quantum sensing technologies can support the military across all the different elevation levels that joint forces operate in: from the subsurface to the surface level, which includes both maritime and land domains, as well as the air and space domains,” Maj Gen (Ret) Crider said. “We need that resiliency to create competitive advantage, particularly as China is investing and developing quantum technologies for the same reasons.”

Enabled by the expertise in emerging technologies from the likes of Maj Gen (Ret) Crider and Lt Gen (Ret) Raduege, Elara Nova: The Space Consultancy is particularly equipped to support partnerships that facilitate the development and adoption of quantum sensors across space mission areas.

“Elara Nova can identify the best applications for these emerging technologies and how to engage the entire community of industry, government, academia partners to work through these issues from a quantum perspective,” Maj Gen (Ret) Crider said. “Together, we can bring these capabilities forward into the innovation systems and processes by establishing standards, developing early prototypes, and integrating these technologies into new and legacy systems to create effects that assure space superiority and preserve our national security interests.”

2024 Election Presents Promise and Peril for PPBE Reform to Deliver Space Superiority

Incoming Administration Must Implement Commission’s Recommendations, or Risk Losing Great Power Competition

China’s rapid rise in adopting and deploying innovative technologies has sparked a new “Great Power Competition,” particularly in the space domain. Meanwhile, the budgetary process the Department of Defense (DOD) uses to acquire military capabilities – Planning, Programming, Budgeting, and Execution (PPBE) – is increasingly unable to keep up with the rapid innovations of modern technology. But now, after a Commission on Planning, Programming, Budget and Execution (PPBE) Reform delivered guidance for modernizing the budgetary process, the 2024 election presents both promise and peril for PPBE reform in acquiring the military capabilities necessary to deliver space superiority for the warfighter.

“The doctrinal definition of space superiority is mission-oriented: to provide space capability at a time and place of your choosing,” said Shawn Barnes, partner at Elara Nova: The Space Consultancy. “But in the context of budgeting and strategy, space superiority is about having the space capabilities that provide superior capability to support the warfighter across domains to deter or defeat an adversary.”

According to DOD officials, China is having a “strategic breakout” in space that directly coincides with their adoption of innovative space technologies. Major General Gregory J. Gagnon, the United States Space Force’s chief intelligence officer, recently acknowledged China has over 1,000 satellites on-orbit and has demonstrated a capacity for launching 200 satellites a year.

For added context, Maj Gen Gagnon noted that just 10 years ago China was capable of putting only 24 satellites on-orbit in a single year.

“China has gone from being a potential near-peer competitor to an out-pacing challenge in areas like quantum computing, air and missile systems and space capabilities,” Barnes said. “Meanwhile, one of our nation’s greatest attributes is innovation in the private sector, but the PPBE process no longer serves us as well as it should.”

PPBE From the Cold War to Today

The PPBE process evolved from the Planning, Programming, and Budgeting System (PPBS) originally introduced by Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara in the 1960s. By developing the DOD budget sequentially through four phases, PPBE brought discipline to the DOD’s budgetary process and enabled the United States to acquire the military capabilites it needed to project deterrence through the Cold War and maintain decades of military hegemony after the Soviet Union’s collapse.

But in today’s Information Age, the PPBE process that once enabled military success is increasingly constricting the DOD’s capacity for keeping pace with technological innovation, most notably in space.

“The cost of launch has been reduced dramatically, which enables cheaper and more frequent access to space,” Barnes said. “More capability can also be put into smaller satellites, which can be effectively networked to outperform larger satellites. These changes are accelerating innovation across the space ecosystem.”

In response to this emerging Great Power Competition and the exponential rate of technological innovation, the Fiscal Year 2022 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) mandated a Commission on Planning, Programming, Budgeting, and Execution (PPBE) Reform to evaluate PPBE and recommend policy changes to modernize the process.

Then last spring, the Commission published its Final Report with 28 recommendations across five critical areas to overhaul the budgeting process across the DOD’s military services. But given the inherent interconnection of space and technology, along with the growing reliance on space for Joint Force operations, the Commission’s recommendations can have an outsized influence in delivering space superiority.

The Imperative for Strategy-Driven Budgets

The first critical area the Commission provided recommendations for is to: “Improve the Alignment of Budgets to Strategy.” To do this, the Commission recommends creating a Defense Resourcing System (DRS) to replace the PPBE process and consolidate the PPBE’s four phases into three: strategy development, resource allocation and execution.

“It is absolutely critical that we have strategy-driven budgets, and not budget-driven strategies,” Barnes said. “The Commission proposed an ongoing discussion within the DOD to provide timely updates to strategy that would come before each service’s budget submission to the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD).”

Key documents such as the National Security Strategy, National Defense Strategy, and National Military Strategy will continue to drive the strategy development phase. But significant changes exist in the resource allocation phase, where senior leadership forums informed by strategic wargaming and analytics would produce a Defense Resourcing Guidance (DRG) that would replace the Defense Planning Guidance (DPG) document used today.

“The Defense Planning Guidance is used as a grading mechanism after the services provide their budget recommendations to OSD, but the DPG doesn’t present difficult decisions for the OSD budget,” Barnes said. “So the new DRG would facilitate a more rigorous discussion upfront, where senior leaders across the DOD can evaluate budgetary risk in a more substantive manner.”

The Commission also recommends replacing the Program Objective Memorandum (POM) and Budget Estimate Submission (BES) documents with a single, Resource Allocation Submission (RAS) proposal. This step would streamline what OSD submits as the DOD portion of the President’s Budget that will ultimately go to Congress.

Balancing Discipline with Flexibility

The second critical area identified by the Commission is to: “Foster Innovation and Adaptability.” To this end, the Commission aims to increase the availability of Operating and Maintenance (O&M) funds, which expire at the end of the fiscal year regardless of when those dollars are appropriated.

In other words, if Congress does not pass a budget on October 1st – the first day of the fiscal year – but rather passes a Continuing Resolution (CR) until a budget is passed at a later date, the O&M funds still expire on September 30th of that fiscal year.

“The DOD only has so much time to expend O&M funds,” Barnes said. “Sometimes at the end of the fiscal year, there is a mad rush to spend money as quickly as possible. So the Commission proposes that about five percent of O&M funding be eligible to roll-over as two-year or three-year money to make better use of taxpayer dollars.”

The Commission also recommends the DOD be able to fund new programs and capabilities, known as “new-starts,” which is currently prohibited under a CR. The Final Report also suggests eliminating Below Threshold Reprogramming, or the amount of funds the DOD can transfer between programs without Congressional approval, to facilitate flexibility in responding to evolving military requirements.

A Collaborative Relationship to Streamline Budget Development

Each of these efforts, however, will still require a level of transparency with the Hill. That’s why the Commission emphasizes a need for transparency in its third critical area: “Strengthen Relationships Between DOD and Congress.”

It’s for this purpose that the Commission recommends establishing enclaves for both classified and unclassified information exchanges between the DOD and Congress, which in turn may also promote greater cohesion between the authorizers and appropriators in Congress.

“The Senate Armed Services Committee and the House Armed Services Committee are the ‘Authorizers’ that write the NDAA, a policy bill that describes what money is available for certain requirements,” Barnes said. “But the four Appropriations Committees are more data-driven and focused on their oversight role. Sometimes, different views between the Authorizers and the Appropriators can create tension in the DOD when they receive authorization for a program, but aren’t appropriated the money to implement it.”

The Commission concludes its report by recommending a single, common data system from which each service can build its budget under the fourth critical area: “Modernize Business Systems and Data Analytics,” and providing more education and training related to the budgeting process in its fifth critical area: “Strengthen the Capability of the Resourcing Workforce.”

2024 Election Implications for PPBE Reform

Since its release, Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hick pledged to evaluate the Commission’s Final Report in collaboration with executive and legislative partners. At the same time, the DOD also published an Implementation Plan for the Commission on PPBE Reform’s Interim Report, which was previously released in August 2023.

But the 2024 election creates both promise and peril for the Commission’s recommendations to reform the PPBE process. While a change in executive and legislative branches can facilitate an opportunity to implement these necessary changes, the Commission’s Final Report is also at risk of being neglected during the transition – thus, perpetuating the status quo.

“The Implementation Plan signals that DOD is taking the Commission’s recommendations seriously, and they are willing to work with the Hill to implement it,” Barnes said. “A new Congress also creates an opportunity to adjust the budgetary process and the Commission’s recommendations add flexibility without removing the discipline. We live in perilous times, and space is not unique in suffering the budgeting challenges that the PPBE process has today, so it’s especially important to apply these changes to acquire the innovative commercial space technologies of the future.”

Elara Nova: The Space Consultancy recognizes the significant role government policy serves in the acquisition process, and its’ experts are prepared to support not only the commercial space companies developing innovative technologies, but also the government partners seeking to leverage policy to exploit these technologies to deliver space superiority to the warfighter.

“The breadth and depth of experience at Elara Nova is unparalleled,” Barnes said. “There are Elara Nova experts who understand the resource allocation process, and its relationship between the executive and legislative branches. But there’s also experts who have been program managers and program executive officers leading large acquisition organizations within the DOD. So when a company wants to work with Elara Nova, they get the benefit of all of that experience across the space security spectrum.”

Defense Science Board Offers Commercial Pathway to Integrated Deterrence

Study Recognizes the Value of Commercial Space Systems in Military Requirements

In November of 2022, the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering commissioned the Defense Science Board (DSB) to study commercial space systems and how they can be leveraged in support of Department of Defense (DOD) objectives. As the Federal Advisory Committee to the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the DSB engaged government and space industry stakeholders to assess the opportunities and challenges to integrating commercial space systems into military requirements. The study’s resulting document, “Final Report on Commercial Space System Access and Integrity,” was published nearly two years later with five recommendations toward what the DSB called its bottom line objective: “Integrated Deterrence Requires Integrated Operations.”

“The bottom line of ‘Integrated Deterrence Requires Integrated Operations,’ means we must budget and plan in advance to provide maximum capability to the warfighter,” said Dr. Brad Tousley, partner at Elara Nova: The Space Consultancy and a member of the Defense Science Board. “Economic power is a critical element to our military power. If commercial space capabilities exist that can support DOD objectives, they should be integrated into warfighter training now.”

Dual-Use Technologies in Space

The Defense Science Board’s findings come as an emerging commercial space market is increasingly developing “dual-use technologies,” or commercial space capabilities that can also be applied toward DOD objectives.

“Commercial space systems bring the collection and distribution of information to the fight,” said Mike Dickey, Founding Partner at Elara Nova. “For example, the military needs satellite communications to transmit orders from commanders to troops in the field, ships at sea and airplanes in the air, which is the same technology that puts the World Series in every home. Further, commercial satellite images that support economic monitoring of crude oil movement through ports around the world can also find Russian convoys in Ukraine.”

Commercial space systems have demonstrated their military value since the onset of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February of 2022. However, the Ukrainian military’s reliance on commercial space systems was not planned in advance, but rather came as a result of the inherent responsiveness of commercial space technologies.

Understanding Commercial Space

Now, the DOD is looking to understand how the commercial space industry – and the institutional investors financially backing it – can similarly be factored into their own warfighting plans today.

“Prior to the pandemic, commercial investment in space technologies peaked at about $15 billion a year, which was essentially the same as the Space Force’s budget in Fiscal Year 2021,” Dickey said. “Leveraging that commercial investment becomes a huge opportunity for the Department to double its financial resources toward space capabilities for military operations.”

The Defense Science Board defined “commercial space,” across four elements: innovation, development, products and services. But the report prioritized the two elements that can provide immediate value to a modern or future conflict: commercial products and commercial services.

“From a near-term standpoint, the Defense Science Board’s goal was to offer a set of recommendations for applying commercial solutions to immediate DOD needs,” Dr. Tousley said. “There are a variety of commercial space products or services the DOD can buy now, as demonstrated by the use of commercial space systems in Ukraine.”

Planning for Commercial Integration

To this end, the Defense Science Board offered five recommendations toward facilitating the growth of commercial space markets in ways that also align to fulfilling DOD objectives.

The first recommendation calls on the government to “implement an end-to-end framework to better integrate existing and planned commercial capabilities into national security architectures.”

This recommendation stems from opportunities to utilize commercial space technologies that have already matured, much like the commercial satellite communication (SATCOM) networks that exist today.

“United States Space Command has a Commercial Integration Cell that sits at Vandenberg Space Force Base primarily supporting satellite communications,” Dickey said. “By sitting with Space Command, those satellite communication providers are aware of ongoing operations and threats to their commercial systems, so they can translate those potential issues into enhancements, upgrades or defensive cyber operations to guarantee resiliency against the threat before a crisis emerges.”

While the Commercial Integration Cell at Vandenberg is an example of integrating a mature commercial space capability at the operational level, not all commercial space markets have reached the same level of maturity that makes this collaboration possible. However, the DOD can apply the same financial strategies it uses to buy services from the SATCOM market to support the growth of other emerging capabilities, too.

Budgeting and PPBE Flexibility

One of the significant advantages of a mature commercial space services market is the ability to respond to the ebbs and flows of supply and demand. Long-term budgeting for these variations, however, is difficult to predict. In the SATCOM market, the government has solved this by making use of a Defense Working Capital Fund as a funding tool.

“The working capital fund basically creates a checkbook that the government can use each year in the commercial market to support a certain requirement,” Dickey said. “DOD users can transfer money into that checkbook and have the purchases made on their behalf. With a multi-year funding process and the working capital fund, the DOD can get better market pricing that will drive the cost down for a service, while providing transparency to companies and their investors about the government’s buying habits.”

The Defense Science Board further addressed challenges in the DOD’s budgeting process directly in its second recommendation: “integrate evaluation of and provision for commercial space services into institutional processes.”

The DOD currently develops its budget through an institutional process known as Planning, Programming, Budgeting and Evaluation (PPBE). But the long-established PPBE process lacks the flexibility needed to keep pace with the rapid developments of commercial space technologies.

As such, the Defense Science Board advocates for more flexible funding measures within the PPBE process. In addition to the working capital fund model found in their first recommendation, the DSB also supports the flexible reallocation of operations and management (O&M) funds that were similarly recommended by a Congressionally mandated Commission on PPBE Reform earlier this year.

“Program executive officers need flexibility to move funds between program elements year-to-year, because sometimes one program might under-spend on a service or product, while another might have a greater need,” Dr. Tousley said. “So if the government can adopt a multi-year acquisition reform and leverage working capital fund-like models, the commercial market will have clarity on market demand. Then as long as Congress can review a multi-year appropriation in the appropriations process, their equities are served.”

Guaranteeing Resilience of Commercial Space Systems

A greater reliance on commercial space systems, however, presents its own set of risks for the DOD’s military requirements. These risks influenced the Defense Science Board’s third recommendation: “incentivize trust and build resilience in commercial providers.”

“The government can include resilience of a commercial space capability as a quality-of-service requirement, while acknowledging that quality assurance is going to cost more,” Dr. Tousley said. “But as long as the additional price is factored in as part of the economic model, then the vendors know what they have to do to ensure resiliency, and the government can rely on the enhanced capability as a function of the increased pricing.”

Commercially available space technologies also present the risk of adversaries leveraging them against the United States and its Allies. The Defense Science Board acknowledges this likelihood in its fourth recommendation: “develop suite of capabilities to monitor, assess and respond to adversary use of commercial space capabilities.”

“Commercial partners and the government have to acknowledge that adversaries will want to use the same commercial capabilities that we would want to use,” Dr. Tousley said. “So commercial vendors must ensure the U.S. government’s interest is best protected in a way that does not damage the commercial industry’s international growth.”

Government as Regulator, Investor and Customer

Navigating the complexities of the commercial space market may be a challenging endeavor, but the state of each market can inform how the DOD develops its policy. This dynamic created the Defense Science Board’s fifth recommendation: “account for maturity of the commercial market when making decisions on how it regulates, invests and buys commercial space services.”

The Defense Science Board proposes the DOD do this by avoiding over-regulation, while investing for “market creation, not market monopolization.” As an example, Dr. Tousley points to how the DOD actively relies on the GEO commercial satellite communications market today, while understanding the more nascent proliferated Low-Earth Orbit (pLEO) and cislunar markets will require a more calculated investment to facilitate their growth.

“Over-regulation can restrict a robust domestic market, while inhibiting commercial competition internationally,” Dr. Tousley said. “Competition in the commercial space market serves the DOD’s best interest in the long term with more competitive pricing, so the government must account for market maturity when it evaluates how it’s going to regulate, invest and buy these commercial space services.”

This final recommendation highlights the key challenge for the DOD as it looks to engage the more nascent industries within the commercial space market.

As an “anchor tenant,” the DOD can provide critical, early-stage funding for emerging space companies to grow their capability into a total addressable market. But the government’s influence can also inadvertently prevent other competitors from entering the market by creating “vendor lock” with a single provider, thereby also reducing the resiliency for a given military requirement.

“There are ways to navigate the government’s role as an anchor tenant while avoiding vendor lock,” Dickey said. “The government can put down the first investment in an emerging space technology as its first and majority customer, but the government also needs to mitigate the risk of vendor lock by creating on-ramps for other providers into the market and off-ramps for those who fall short of mutually agreed expectations.”

Achieving Integrated Deterrence

With each of these recommendations realized, the DOD can apply the lessons learned in Ukraine to achieve “integrated deterrence.”

“‘Integrated deterrence’ means the United States must integrate commercial capabilities into its military operations upfront,” Dr. Tousley said. “What happened in Ukraine demonstrates the agility and responsiveness of the commercial space market, but we must remember that wasn’t planned in advance. The government needs to plan for integrated operations now by developing contracts with the commercial space sector, because the DOD can’t just hope that a commercial space company is going to be there in an emergency.”

Now, partners at Elara Nova: The Space Consultancy, are positioned to provide their expertise to stakeholders similarly exploring solutions at the cross-section of military requirements and commercial space capabilities.

“Elara Nova lives at the intersection of the government, industry and the investment market,” Dickey said. “Elara Nova partners have direct experience in each of these sectors of the space economy, so we offer a unique opportunity to support the implementation of the Defense Science Board’s recommendations.”

From GSSAP to RG-XX: Space Force Bringing “Solution-Diversity” to Space Domain Awareness

Commercial SSA Data to be added to the SDA Mission

The United States Space Force is looking to add commercial capabilities to its space domain awareness (SDA) mission. For decades, the SDA mission was driven by space situational awareness (SSA) data from military-operated constellations like the Geosynchronous Space Situational Awareness Program (GSSAP) and the Space Based Space Surveillance (SBSS) system. These legacy programs leveraged space situational awareness data to support a space domain awareness understanding of the evolving threat environment in space. Now, the Space Force is engaging commercial space companies to develop a new program, currently known as RG-XX, which is widely viewed as bringing solution-diversity to the space domain awareness mission.

“SBSS and GSSAP are two of the earliest programs to operationalize space situational awareness data from on-orbit capabilities,” said Col (Ret) Ken Bowling, a partner at Elara Nova. “Space situational awareness is knowing where a space object came from the day it was launched, and maintaining track custody for the entirety of its lifetime. Meanwhile, space domain awareness is overlaid against the kill chain concept: it’s about understanding the behaviors and intent of space objects across all orbital regimes, which is especially important when you’re attributing the source of an attack and enabling your warning systems.”

An Evolving Threat Environment in Space

SBSS and GSSAP essentially function as a “neighborhood watch” in both geosynchronous and sun-synchronous orbits, respectively. Together, they help the Space Force develop a space domain awareness picture that tracks and characterizes man-made objects operating in space.

But the same evolving threat environment in space that triggered the founding of the Space Force, also means the Department of War’s newest military service must expand its resources to better understand, prepare for and respond to, existing and emerging threats.

“Previously, your satellite only had to survive a tough but relatively benign environment: temperature changes, radiation, micrometeorite hits, etc.,” Bowling said. “But almost no thought was put into your satellite operationally surviving a kinetic or even non-kinetic attack. Programs such as GSSAP and SBSS play a role in that warfighting construct. Now, RG-XX could become something different, but it will be a space domain awareness tool that includes the potential for commercial vendors to provide that capability.”

The evolving threat and counterspace landscape include kinetic threats like direct-ascent anti-satellite weapons (ASATs) and non-kinetic threats like cyber and electromagnetic warfare attacks that can compromise a satellite’s operations. As a result, the Space Force and its commercial partners are beginning to think differently about how they build and manufacture their satellites to ensure resilience against these emerging threats.

“The commercial space industry has a business model predicated on satellites succumbing to the environmental effects of space, particularly the radiation,” Bowling said. “When their satellites fail, that’s an opportunity to upgrade the next replacement satellite with new technology. But that’s an operating mindset for a benign environment, like changing a tire. When my car’s tire wears out, I’ll just put on a new tire. But that does not translate into military operations.”

Changing Requirements for Space Acquisition

Now, Bowling acknowledges that the analogy of changing a car tire is a loose one. But nonetheless, the point remains that the Space Force is similarly developing and implementing its own DOTMILPF, a framework known as Doctrine, Organization, Training, Materiel, Leadership and Education, Personnel, and Facilities. DOTMILPF is a policy approach that other military services have leveraged effectively to procure and acquire weapons systems for military operations.

“When the Army, Navy and Air Force design weapons systems, they know those weapons systems are going to be engaged by hostile forces in their natural environment,” Bowling said. “Now, in space we not only have to consider operational satellites attacking other satellites in space, but also adversary effects coming from one domain into the space domain, like a ground-launched ASAT.”

That’s why the Space Force is exploring new ways to better protect its assets on-orbit, similar to how tanks and mine-resistant ambush protected vehicles (MRAPV) are designed to withstand attacks on land.

“In a best-case scenario, a car tire can run on a flat, but tank treads and MRAPVs can take a rocket propelled grenade (RPG) round and still keep going,” Bowling said. “That’s the difference between the drive mechanisms built for military uses, versus commercial or personal use. Today, our satellites are not much more hardened than a car tire. We have very little defensive mechanisms to protect them, other than to attribute an attack to a specific adversary because we had custody of that object until it attacked us.”

While the challenge of hardening space technologies from attack is far more complex than simply reinforcing a car tire to withstand an RPG round, the analogy still reinforces that as it stands today, SSA and SDA data is one of the few tools available to protect and defend Space Force assets on-orbit.

However, the wide-ranging set of threat vectors in space is further challenging the Space Force and its partners about how to design and manufacture the next generation of satellites.

“You could theoretically put armor on a satellite to protect it from a kinetic strike, but even that would be difficult because even a paint fleck traveling seven kilometers per second in low-Earth orbit can cause significant damage,” Bowling said. “Then there’s non-kinetic effects: how do you protect your satellite’s sensors from electromagnetic effects? These are just some of the threat vectors the Space Force is exploring as part of the requirements process.”

Other solutions are being considered, as RG-XX will be the first Space Force program to require a refueling capability. But even then, developing similar solutions are uniquely challenging in the space domain.

“Satellites carry fuel on board to adjust their orbits, but what if they have to maneuver to avoid a collision or to avoid an adversary?” Bowling said. “There’s a lot of talk about on-orbit refueling. But if satellites are designed to be refueled, then they have to have a common interface standard like a KC-135’s refueling probe. Otherwise, you have to think about launching another satellite to repair a damaged one or replenish the capability altogether with a whole new satellite.”

Consequently, as the Space Force develops its warfighting mindset for the evolving space domain, the military service is re-evaluating how it optimizes the development and procurement of its assets.

“Weapon system acquirers are trained to optimize for three pillars: cost, schedule and performance,” Bowling said. “Space systems are expensive and take a long time to develop because they’re simply too important to fail. But we’ve realized that some space technology is already becoming obsolete by the time we’re even putting it on-orbit. So Moore’s Law, which says technology rapidly changes every couple of years, is a persistent challenge.”

Engaging Commercial for Solution-Diversity

The imperative to adapt is driving the Space Force to further engage commercial partners for new and innovative solutions. Despite having unique needs for maintaining SSA data around on-orbit assets, there are opportunities for the Space Force to benefit from the information a commercial space company can provide.

“A commercial satellite might have three or four cameras documenting what’s going on around them for potential insurance liability claims,” Bowling said. “Now, the Space Force doesn’t care about insurance liabilities, but they care about whether a satellite’s failure is the result of an adversary’s attack or threatens the freedom of operations in space. So if a commercial company can provide SSA data to the warfighter on-demand, then the warfighter may benefit from that.”

Now, the Space Force is actively engaging with commercial space companies to gauge their interest in providing SSA data to the broader space domain awareness mission. In August, the Space Force held an industry day that brought out over 150 companies who expressed interest in RG-XX, which aligns well with Major General Stephen Purdy’s publicly-expressed intention of taking a multi-vendor approach to the program.

“It’s dangerous for the Department of War to be solely dependent on a single vendor for any critical technology, and so industry days are set up to get feedback about different approaches, trade-offs or requirements,” Bowling said. “If you have multiple vendors, the inherent competition hopefully drives better price solutions for the Space Force. But this solution-diversity also complicates the adversary’s decision-making by driving up their cost for a more advanced offensive capability.”

While the specific details of RG-XX remain to be determined, Bowling asserts that the Space Force’s approach to the space domain awareness mission is evolving in two distinct ways.

“One: the Space Force knows that the information GSSAP provides is critical to the warfighting capabilities they need moving forward. Two: the Space Force is going into this RG-XX program with the notion that it is both possible and reasonable for commercial capabilities to be included in the pursuit of space domain awareness.”

Now, as more commercial space companies enter the emerging space economy and present their own solutions to the Space Force for programs like RG-XX, Elara Nova stands as an interlocutor to help both the military service and its commercial partners develop the necessary space capabilities of the future.

“Elara Nova has over 90 partners, many of whom have space backgrounds ranging from rocket launch to command and control; payload and satellite development; and operations and sustainment of space capabilities,” Bowling said. “So Elara Nova can provide expertise across the entire spectrum of space operations, from inception to operations and even disposal.”

Elara Nova is a global consultancy and professional services firm focused on helping businesses and government agencies maximize the strategic advantages of the space and aeronautics domain. Learn more at https://elaranova.com/.

NATO Investing in Space Capabilities to Enhance Multi-Domain Operations, Establish Deterrence

Air Marshall Stringer reflects on NATO’s journey since declaring space an operational domain in 2019

Since declaring space an operational domain in 2019, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has sought to reinforce its multinational alliance with space capabilities. Toward this end, NATO has released an Overarching Space Policy, founded the NATO Space Operations Centre and published a Commercial Space Strategy. Each element lays a foundation from which NATO leaders can acquire the space capabilities they need for a future conflict. But for Air Marshal Sir Johnny Stringer, the retiring Deputy Commander of NATO’s Allied Air Command, implementing these plans is more critical now than ever before.

“Strategies are great, but you’ve got to implement them,” Stringer said. “There is a real need and urgency for space capabilities, but we’re still playing catch-up even six years later. A few NATO nations have spending power to acquire space capabilities and that creates a fantastic environment for the commercial space sector to develop, sell and compete in. But for those nations that don’t have that spending power, space is a dual-use domain that offers one of the most vibrant, commercial-public alliance ecosystems we can still exploit.”

NATO’s decision to declare space an operational domain stems from an urgency to overcome what Stringer calls “the two long shadows” that loom over the military alliance today.

“The first long shadow began with the peace dividend, the conscious decision not to invest in defense after the Cold War,” Stringer said. “This led to the second long shadow: counterinsurgency operations against adversaries with little to no counter-air or space capability, electronic warfare or spectrum dominance. That is, until Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022. But even then, the rising threat goes back further to Russia’s invasion of Crimea in 2014 and Georgia in 2008.”

Planning for space in a future conflict

Every four years, NATO follows a framework known as the NATO Defence Planning Process (NDPP), to align Allies’ defense plans with the NATO’s capability requirements. The most recent cycle began in 2023.

“We’re just now getting into phase four of the five-phase space domain implementation plan,” Stringer said. “The campaign plan sets a chart for us in three key areas: establishing a unified space command and control, enhancing our capabilities on space domain awareness and space based-ISR and developing the ability to deliver combat space effects. But the reality is that while some individual NATO nations have long-established combat space effect capability, those that don’t can now contract for it from commercial providers.”

The challenges NATO has in acquiring space capabilities, however, is not unique solely to the space domain. It parallels a broader, historical challenge in that the military alliance itself does not own warfighting capabilities.

This is a challenge Brad Head, Managing Director of International Partnerships at Elara Nova, witnessed firsthand during his time in uniform at NATO’s STEADFAST DEFENDER exercise a few years ago.

“General Christopher Cavoli, the Supreme Allied Commander Europe at the time, asked at the start of STEADFAST DEFENDER exercise about what space capabilities NATO had,” Head said. “But the Army lieutenant colonel who was leading the exercise’s space efforts told him, ‘NATO doesn’t have any space capabilities because member nations retain their sovereign space capabilities and will only provide it to NATO if it’s needed and available.’”

Assuring access to space capabilities

While this challenge is not unique to NATO’s space capabilities – the alliance itself doesn’t own assets like fighter jets, tanks or naval destroyers, either – today’s commercial space industry presents new opportunities for NATO to access the space capabilities it requires.

“NATO’s lacking physical ownership of space capabilities doesn’t worry me, but the assured access to those capabilities definitely does,” Stringer said. “But the commercial driver in space has been there for decades: satellite communications were being driven by commercial providers since 1991, and the cost per kilo of putting payloads on orbit is cheaper now compared to where it was ten years ago. What is changing for the better, though, is a better educated middle and senior echelon that recognizes not just our reliance on space, but also the different opportunities to get the space capabilities we need.”

That’s why moving forward, Stringer identifies two space priorities for NATO to continue building toward to ensure that NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR), a role currently held by General Alexus G. Grynkewich, will have the space capabilities needed to accomplish a given mission.

“Our first priority is to rapidly develop the space cadre of our member nations because that means nations can put more people into the NATO space enterprise,” Stringer said. “That includes developing our overall space education and training capability in member nations to a multinational set of standards. The second priority is ensuring we continually refine NATO’s family of plans and making sure the space capabilities identified in those plans are assured to the SACEUR.”

Responding to a rising space threat

Preparing for a future space fight is not only necessary – it’s vital. There is greater competition in space today that threatens to undermine the relative homogeneity of Western military dominance over the past few decades. This is in part because rising competitors, namely Russia and China, have been able to study the West’s military playbook throughout that same period of time.

”We have enjoyed an unnaturally long period of relative peace in Europe, but we must prepare for war if we want to maintain that peace,” Stringer said. “We’re in an era of stealth technology, precision-guided munitions and the exploitation of space-based capabilities and militarized systems, which was first realized during the First Gulf War in 1991. Our combination of the 5 T’s – technology, thinking, tactics, training, and theory of victory – was phenomenal in 1991, but looked remarkably the same in 2021. Meanwhile, we disinvested in some key areas like integrated air and missile defense, and our competitors have now sought to turn our approach to warfare against us.”

As a result, NATO is making a renewed and greater investment into acquiring warfighting capabilities.

“NATO nations committed to spending five percent of their GDP on defense at The Hague Summit,” Head said. “This means nations are going to be investing significantly and space capabilities will be a key part of that conversation. That means NATO is now in a position to clearly articulate their priorities to their member nations and industry partners.”

One of the highest priorities will be taking the necessary steps to achieve not only space superiority, but the air superiority that will inherently come with it.

“All of NATO’s components must be able to exploit the freedom of access and freedom of maneuver that space-based systems and air superiority provides, but that’s also one of the key elements our opponents have sought to neutralize,” Stringer said. “This means one of our key missions is counter anti-access and area denial, which is not solely to free up access and maneuver for NATO’s air component, but to ensure freedom of access and maneuver for everybody.”

NATO’s imperative for multi-domain operations

This vital intersection of air and space superiority further reflects the multi-domain operations that will be critical to a future fight, but particularly challenging for a multinational alliance like NATO.

“Even with the recognition of space and cyber as being operational domains in their own right, there is more to multi-domain operations than just the three military domains of land, air and maritime,” Stringer said. “Multi-domain operations include all instruments of alliance power. This means fusing intelligence and economic warfare with both traditional military and non-military means across domains within a protracted campaign.”

According to Stringer, laying the groundwork for successful multi-domain operations requires a thoughtful approach that goes beyond acquiring the latest space technologies.

“Multi-domain operations places a premium on two things: how does your command and control system function across nations and how do you empower your commanders and their staff to excel?’” Stringer said. “If you don’t have those two things, all the flashy equipment you might have is not going to perform as you need it to. This is where the space workforce is really important, because otherwise you’re not going to get the maximum return on your investment.”

Establishing and maintaining deterrence

Now, looking ahead, it’s more than just creating an alliance that can deter a future threat, but defeat it.

“You don’t build forces to deter, you build forces to win,” Stringer said. “Therefore, you must have the military forces that can demonstrably win in all five of the operational domains recognized by NATO. Therefore, building the capabilities you need to assure deterrence is important, because if anyone that threatens you will end up significantly worse.”

Deterrence, established and reinforced by a multinational force like NATO, will be pivotal to keeping space open and free for countries around the world.

“It doesn’t matter whether you feel space should be preserved as a sanctified area,” Stringer said. “That decision was made for us when nations were going to space with the rapid expansions of military and commercial space technologies. Space has underpinned our way in warfare to a basic, tactical level. We come back to a classic: ‘Imagine a day without space,’ but now it’s a real challenge that we have to recognize.”

Elara Nova is a trusted guiding partner that builds tailored teams to illuminate unseen opportunities and deliver impact across every domain. Learn more at https://elaranova.com/.

Department of War Seeks Solutions for Emerging Counter-UAS Mission

Real-world Drone Attacks Demonstrate Imperative for an Integrated Command and Control Structure

Recent years have demonstrated the growing prevalence of drones in surveillance and military operations. In 2024, unidentified drones flew over a military base in Langley, Virginia. In 2025, Israel used drones to take out Iranian air defense systems in a coordinated attack, while Ukraine launched “Operation Spiderweb,” using drones to damage and destroy aircraft deep within Russian territory. But a new Department of Defense Inspector General report uncovered a series of challenges for defending the United States’ military installations from similar drone incursions or attacks. These potential vulnerabilities have prompted the Joint Interagency Task Force 401, an Army-led organization tasked with the counter-Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) mission, to release updated policy guidance that requires military installation commanders to prepare their own counter-UAS defense plans within the next 60 days.

“The Ukrainians’ and the Israelis’ use of small UAS’s showed how effective drones can be as part of a large, complex military operation,” said Lt. Gen. (Ret) David “Abu” Nahom, President of Elara Nova’s Aeronautics & Mission Systems sector. “That’s something we’ve got to be very attuned to now, especially when we had small UAS’s around Langley Air Force base a few years ago. We need to be able to quickly identify where they are, who they are and then apply a countermeasure to neutralize it.”

This series of escalating events demonstrates not only how UAS’s are changing the nature of military operations, but also the imperative to find new and innovative solutions to address the emerging counter-UAS mission.

The Air Force categorizes small UAS’s in five different groups based on size, operating altitude, and weight. However, despite these classifications identifying the source, capabilities and intent of each UAS is a complex task, particularly when it comes to determining the appropriate counter measure for an incursion or attack.

“Group classification is important because a weapon that could take out a Group One drone may not be effective against a Group Three drone,” said Col (Ret) JP “Spear” Mintz, Managing Director of the Aeronautics & Mission Systems sector at Elara Nova. “Size matters because a larger drone is easier to detect and a higher operating altitude often means higher speeds. Weight is particularly important for the collateral risk, because taking out a 1,300-lb. drone laden with explosives is vastly different from a 1/2-lb. quadcopter with a camera.”

Government Seeks New and Innovative Solutions

One emerging solution is the DroneHunter F700, a reusable, low-collateral counter drone system that launches tethered nets to capture intruding drones. The Joint Interagency Task Force 401 recently contracted for two of these DroneHunters for further operational testing.

Another potential solution may come from repurposing weapon systems the Department of War already has, namely, the Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System (APKWS). While originally designed for air-to-ground strikes, APKWS has proven effective in air-to-air combat in Ukraine.

This led the Air Force to consider ideas for how APKWS might be launched from a ground system to counter Group One to Group Three drone threats.

“There’s both a dollar and an inventory cost to using high-end, exquisite weapon systems like AMRAMM versus something like the APKWS for smaller threats,” Mintz said. “APKWS was not originally designed to target airborne threats, but it’s proven to be effective as a low-cost response to UAS’s. So instead of a fighter aircraft carrying the APKWS for the counter-UAS mission, the RFI wants to explore what a ground-based launcher for APKWS would look like.”

Lowering the Cost-Curve, Risk for Collateral Damage

While the RFI does not guarantee a contract for a ground-based APKWS launcher will materialize, it does demonstrate how the Air Force is considering lower-cost alternatives compared to other missile defense systems like the Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile (AMRAMM), the AIM-9X Sidewinder or the Phased Array Tracking Radar for Intercept on Target (PATRIOT).

“Previously, we were using expensive missiles on a very inexpensive UAS, and that’s a cost curve that we’re never going to win against,” Nahom said. “So if we can figure out a low-cost solution that can fire many rounds with low-collateral damage, this would make a lot of sense instead of having to launch an expensive and destructive PATRIOT missile. Rather, we can save the PATRIOT for something it was truly designed to defend against, like a theater ballistic missile. This RFI will help the Air Force get after that problem set.”

Minimizing collateral damage is a significant consideration when developing counter-UAS technologies, particularly because some military installations bases and airports are in close proximity to cities and civilian populations.

“Non-kinetic solutions, like GPS denial, cyber attacks, or directed energy can be used to shut a UAS down with less collateral damage,” Mintz said. “But even then, you have to think about what air traffic might be flying overhead or nearby because a directed energy laser can run the risk of inadvertantly affecting a commercial airliner. So even as these counter-UAS technologies develop, we’ll continue to see these other challenges emerge.”

The Command and Control Imperative

Determining the appropriate response, whether kinetically or non-kinetically, reinforces the imperative for a clear and effective command and control structure that can identify and respond to drone incursions or attacks in near real-time.

“Drone warfare underscores the absolute importance of being able to detect a threat, identify it, determine its intent, behind it and the command and control structure to match effectors to the targets,” Mintz said. “But to make that happen in such a fast manner, like in immediate-threat scenarios like Operation Spiderweb where decision times are reduced to near zero, really challenges the current air defense paradigm.”

Similarly, command and control was the publicly-stated number one priority for General Mike Guetlein, who has been tasked with orchestrating the Golden Dome for America.

“Golden Dome intends to defend the homeland against more conventional attacks like ballistic and cruise missiles, hyperglide vehicles and even weapons emanating from space, but it also has to account for threats from other domains,” Nahom said. “But like we saw with the Israeli strikes on Iran, UAS’s could be part of a complex and coordinated attack on our homeland. So Golden Dome’s command and control structure needs to be seamless across domains and that’s a great indicator for industry to focus on not just Golden Dome, but the counter-UAS fight, as well.”

Counter-UAS Solutions as a Dual-Use Technology

The need for counter-UAS technologies, and a command and control system to accommodate them, goes beyond just military applications. In 2019, a drone incursion at a nearby airport disrupted air traffic at Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey, while in 2025 a drone collision grounded and severely damaged a Canadian firefighting aircraft responding to the devastating Palisades wildfire.

The dual-use nature of counter-UAS technologies, particularly non-kinetic ones, could enable new entrants in the market for the government to work with.

“The small, cheap and proliferated nature of the drone threats means a lot of nontraditional and emerging companies can now compete in this market,” Mintz said. “In the past, nontraditional companies couldn’t really compete because of the exquisite, expensive, deeply technical nature of conventional threats. But the counter-UAS mission inherently encourages innovation from the smaller, nontraditional defense companies, particularly because this mission is not just a military challenge, it’s a law enforcement and a public safety challenge, as well.”

So while the Department of War seeks to go “commercial first” as part of its acquisition reform overhaul, the same opportunities apply to acquiring solutions for the emerging counter-UAS mission.

“If industry can come up with a way to keep UAS’s away from a busy airport in a downtown area like Newark Airport in New Jersey, the government can probably use that similar counter-UAS technology at Anderson Airbase in Guam,” Nahom said. “But that’s also where the ‘Valley of Death’ becomes very real for these companies. Government funding efforts like SBIRS and STRATFI present opportunities for small companies to find money to develop new and innovative technologies for things like counter-UAS. But since there’s both a commercial and military application for this technology, that means the technology is going to advance that much quicker.”

The Valley of Death, however, will continue to pose a significant challenge for these smaller, nontraditional companies to develop and deliver counter-UAS solutions to the government. But that’s also where the expertise of Elara Nova’s Aeronautics & Missions Systems sector can enable and empower these new entrants to sustainability.

“Elara Nova can be quite effective in helping these companies manage the Valley of Death,” Nahom said. “Evaluating solutions like pairing with another company or looking for other funding avenues to stay solvent while making sure the government recognizes how valuable and affordable their technology is to this fight is important because the secret sauce to the c-UAS mission is going to be in these small companies and their amazing technologies.”

Elara Nova is a trusted guiding partner that builds tailored teams to illuminate unseen opportunities and deliver impact across every domain. Learn more at https://elaranova.com/.

Defining “Counterspace” in the Theory on Competitive Endurance

Offensive and Defensive Counterspace Capabilities to Preserve a Peaceful Space Domain

In General B. Chance Saltzman’s “Theory on Competitive Endurance,” the Chief of Space Operations for the United States Space Force listed three core tenets of the military’s approach to the space domain: avoid operational surprise, deny first-mover advantage, and undertake responsible counterspace campaigning. Since the document’s release, the third tenet of “counterspace,” has become increasingly relevant for a warfighting domain that has traditionally approached space capabilities with restrictive classification policies and risk-averse language. But now, the imperative to both understand and define “counterspace,” reflects how potential adversaries view space capabilities as both a strategic advantage and potential vulnerability for the United States military.

“Counterspace is the ability to deny an adversary’s use of space, and that includes both offensive or defensive measures,” said Col (Ret) Stu Pettis, Elara Nova partner and former Chief of Space Integration with the United States Space Force. “General Saltzman’s theory recognizes the Space Force needs to continually refine and develop its capabilities to ensure that we never entice an attack on our space systems. Ultimately, if we have credible offensive and defensive space capabilities and we can continually demonstrate those capabilities – it will deter a conflict in space.”

While Gen Saltzman’s theory uses the term “competitive endurance,” instead of “strategic deterrence,” the underlying objective remains the same.

“Deterrence is not explicitly mentioned in the theory, but it’s very much about deterring a rational actor from destroying the space environment,” said Col (Ret) Dave Morrow, Elara Nova partner and former Director of Testing and Evaluation with the United States Space Force. “Competitive endurance is about preserving the space environment so that it can be used by all. The first mover almost always wins in space, so counterspace must have both offensive and defensive capabilities to achieve space superiority.”

As such, the Space Force must account for a variety of counterspace threats that include both kinetic and non-kinetic means of warfare. Specifically, the Congressional Research Service classifies counterspace weapons in four categories:

Kinetic: direct-ascent or co-orbital anti-satellite (ASAT) weapon

Non-kinetic: directed energy lasers or microwaves

Electronic: jamming or spoofing using the electromagnetic spectrum to disrupt satellite signals

Cyber: compromising a satellite’s computer networks

Kinetic Counterspace Weapons

Kinetic warfare, primarily through ASATs launched from Earth (direct-ascent) or from a shared orbit in space (co-orbital), means destroying a satellite with a fired missile or other projectile. This approach, however, has significant implications for the space domain.

“Kinetic attacks create a nightmare scenario called ‘The Kessler Syndrome,’ where you create so much debris that it starts impacting other pieces of debris, which creates more debris in a cascading bad effect,” Col Pettis said. “Space is a shared resource. It’s not just potential combatants like China, Russia and the United States that would be affected. Every nation uses satellites or leverages space capabilities in some way.”

The repercussions of kinetic attacks in space would also carry significant impacts on Earth, particularly considering the prevalent role of space in our way of life.

“Space has been a military domain since the early 1960s, but it has evolved into a far more economic domain since then,” Col Morrow said. “Space capabilities drive the world’s economy. Every single banking transaction worldwide is based off of a very precise timestamp that’s provided through GPS. If that capability alone is compromised, the global economic system will collapse and we cannot allow that to happen.”

That’s why it’s assumed that a rational state actor, one who also relies on space capabilities for military and economic objectives, would likely recognize that a kinetic strike in space would in some respects be self-defeating. However, that hasn’t stopped potential adversaries from conducting their own direct-ascent ASAT tests.

General Saltzman has referred to China’s 2007 direct-ascent ASAT test, which created more than 3,000 pieces of orbital debris, a ‘pivot point’ in space operations. Meanwhile, Russia conducted a direct-ascent ASAT in 2021 that created more than 1,500 pieces of orbital debris and was even found to be developing a nuclear weapon for space.

Then there’s also the possibility that an irrational actor, particularly one who does not rely on space capabilities, may seek to compromise the space domain through a kinetic attack.

“We must also be prepared for an irrational actor,” Col Morrow said. “For example, North Korea has enough of a rocket ability to put a crude nuclear weapon into orbit. This would destroy the space environment for everybody. But North Korea is not reliant on space, so that can level the playing field for their conventional army quite rapidy.”

Non-Kinetic Counterspace Weapons

At the same time, the potentially devastating effects of kinetic warfare also means a growing prevalence of non-kinetic warfare like directed energy, electronic warfare and cyber attacks.

“A laser takes directed energy and focuses it on a very specific point to burn a hole in something,” Col Morrow said. “It’s as though you were directing the sun’s energy through a magnifying glass to a specific point on your hand: it burns. So laser weapons use directed energy to deceive, degrade, deny, disrupt, or destroy a satellite’s capability.”

Electronic warfare, meanwhile, leverages the electromagnetic spectrum to jam or spoof a satellite’s downlink or uplink signals.

“Satellites need a discrete frequency to communicate with a ground station,” Col Pettis said. “Jamming means overwhelming that frequency with noise, whether that be the information a ground station is receiving from the satellite’s downlink or preventing the ground station from communicating with the satellite through its uplink. Spoofing is more specialized in that it emulates a ground station’s communication signal or command to compromise the information a satellite is receiving. Both would effectively deny a satellite’s capability.”

Joint Force operations in other warfighting domains are strategically reliant on accurate data, particuarly for targeting information provided by space systems like GPS. But transmitting that targeting data is also reliant on the Internet, which means the threat of cyber attacks can directly compromise a military action.

“Cyberattacks reinforce the imperative that you must have reliable and accurate data,” Col Morrow said. “The first thing an adversary will want to do is make you believe your data wasn’t accurate, because you want to be absolutely certain of your target coordinates before you shoot. At the same time, the cost of entry into cyberspace is a computer and an Internet connection, so it doesn’t take much to disrupt a network. That’s why our cyber professionals are baked into every space capability.”

Space Domain Awareness and Norms of Behavior

The variety of these counterspace threats also reinforces that space domain awareness, or the ability to identify and understand the location, capabilities and intent of other space systems, is the foundational element to successful space operations.

“The most deadly punch is the one you don’t see coming,” Col Morrow said. “A rendezvous and proximity operation, or RPO, is a very calculated approach that enables one satellite to dock with another is the exact same science a satellite can use to kinetically or non-kinetically compromise one of our space assets. So this gets back to defining and demonstrating acceptable norms of behavior in space.”

The imperative to establish responsible norms of behavior is becoming significantly more important as the space domain becomes more populated with not only government systems, but also commercial systems, as well. Furthermore, the inherently dual-use nature of space systems means that the Space Force’s commercial space partners must also be prepared for counterspace threats.

“The biggest strength of the U.S. military today is how fast we can operate,” Col Pettis said. “That’s enabled by space. So even though today’s U.S. military does not have massive amounts of military forces deployed forward, they are all still one satellite communications signal from getting whatever support they need. But if the military is using commercial satellite communications for military command and control, then that commercial satellite also becomes a valid military target. Our adversaries have had more than 20 years to recognize and identify this – so we need to be prepared to address that threat.”

This growing recognition applies across the commercial space economy, whether contractors are supporting the Space Force with satellite imagery, launch, weather or navigation services. Now, Gen Saltzman’s Theory on Competitive Endurance is signaling a broader shift toward more openness about discussing counterspace threats and capabilities so the Space Force’s partners can fully understand a dynamically changing space environment.

That’s also where Elara Nova, with its portfolio of partners steeped in military and commercial space experience, can help define and understand the emerging terms being used to describe the rapidly evolving space domain.

“One of the big challenges the Space Force has is telling its story,” Col Pettis said. “Elara Nova was created in part to help commercial space companies understand the meaning of terms like ‘counterspace.’ But General Saltzman’s Theory on Competitive Endurance should allay some fears in that we’re not militarizing space. We’re just trying to preserve it for peaceful purposes, and so Elara Nova can help clearly articulate the Space Force’s approach for their commercial space partners.”

Orbital Watch to Enable Sharing of Classified Threat Information

Space Force Front Door Facilitating Engagement Across Commercial Space Industry

An increasingly congested and contested space domain means that commercial space companies must now protect their on-orbit systems from a variety of threats. Today’s space operators must not only account for incidental collisions with space debris, but also prepare for a series of counterspace threats ranging from cyber and electronic warfare attacks to kinetic strikes. Meanwhile, the inherently dual-use nature of space systems, which often support both national security and economic purposes, further reinforces the imperative that the United States Space Force communicates with its industry partners to ensure resiliency of our nation’s space capabilities. Now a new Space Force program, Orbital Watch, aims to facilitate greater information-sharing of both classified and unclassified threats with industry partners.

“Orbital Watch is an initiative to communicate threat information with commercial vendors to help them manage risks to their on-orbit assets, ” said Elara Nova partner Col (Ret) Charlie McGillis, the former Director of Intelligence at 14^th Air Force (Space). “The first phase of the program is a one-way communication channel where a commercial company can register to receive unclassified threat information. But this first phase doesn’t allow vendors to ask questions about – or contribute to – that threat assessment. So in phase two, Orbital Watch will have a secure ‘Commercial Portal’ that will further enable a two-way flow of classified information where commercial providers can not only ask those follow-up questions, but actually share threat information that they’re seeing with the Space Force.”

Originally announced in April, Orbital Watch already disseminated an unclassified threat fact sheet to over 900 companies in phase one. But as the threat environment rapidly advances, so too does the imperative for the Space Force and its industry partners to reach phase two of the program. That’s why Space Force officials recently announced a “Tiger Team” that is collaborating with space industry stakeholders to develop the phase two Commercial Portal to facilitate secure, two-way information-sharing of classified threats.

“If industry partners are going to support the U.S. government and our Allies, they need to understand what is going on in the space environment,” McGillis said. “At the same time, commercial space companies can also warn the Space Force if an attack is happening to their systems. But they need a mechanism to share that information and phase two of the Orbital Watch program will be that mechanism.”

A Lesson Learned from a Real-World Attack

The need for a program like Orbital Watch was recognized in part by Russia’s cyberattack against ViaSat’s KA-SAT satellite communications network at the start of its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The cyberattack, deployed as a “denial-of-service” attack one hour before the invasion, essentially overwhelmed the commercial network the Ukrainian army relied on to communicate.

But according to the CyberPeace Institute, the cyberattack also affected commercial companies, as well. A German energy company lost access to over 5,800 wind turbines and a French internet service provider’s nearly 9,000 subscribers lost service. Another roughly 13,000 internet users also lost access across Europe in Hungary, Greece, Italy and Poland, as well. The wide-ranging effect of the cyberattack demonstrates the dual-use nature of satellites for not only military, but also commercial purposes.

“When Viasat’s satellites experienced jamming at the start of the invasion, that provided an early indication or warning that something nefarious was happening,” McGillis said. “Even though ViaSat is a member of the Commercial Integration Cell, a program like Orbital Watch would disseminate this information to a far broader audience of commercial space operators informing them of the attack so that any jamming they experience might not be incidental.”

Now, threats in space are continuing to evolve. Dynamic space operations rely on capabilities like rapid and unpredictable maneuverability, advanced propulsion, on-orbit re-fueling, modular upgrades and enhanced command and control. Chinese satellites have been seen conducting complex “dogfighting” maneuvers in low Earth orbit, with groups of satellites spiraling, braking and repositioning around each other and other nations’ satellites to practice counterspace tactics.

“China maneuvered two satellites, the Shijan-21 and Shijan-25, into extremely close proximity to each other in what was probably a satellite refueling experiment in GEO,” McGillis said. “Then their TJ-S series of experimental spacecraft conducted a similar rendezvous and proximity operation near a U.S. intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance satellite. China might say these capabilities are intended to serve an economic purpose, but these capabilities can certainly be modified to serve a counterspace purpose as well.”

Information-Sharing Opportunities and Challenges

In response to this heightened threat environment in space, Orbital Watch is just one of the latest programs the Space Force is using to share threat information with commercial space providers. Other programs include the Joint Commercial Operation Cell (JCO) and the Commercial Integration Cell (CIC). Further, the USSF collaborates closely with the commercially driven Space Information and Warfighting Analysis Center (Space ISAC) to share information.

While each program serves a unique purpose, all together they present a wide-ranging set of solutions to facilitate better information-sharing.

“Phase one of Orbital Watch is providing a basic, one-way sharing of unclassified threat information with commercial space companies,” McGillis said. “The JCO goes one step further, requiring training to receive unclassified space domain awareness information for companies supporting national security space missions. Then there’s the CIC, which is an invite-only opportunity for commercial companies already on-contract with the Space Force to receive classified threat information as they support Combatant Commands. Meanwhile, the Space ISAC is a ‘pay-to-play’ model where member companies can provide or receive sensitive, but unclassified information with each other.”

But when the secure Commercial Portal is rolled out in phase two of Orbital Watch, it will provide the most direct and comprehensive platform for companies to engage the Space Force about classified threats. Until it is fully implemented, however, a series of challenges still need to be overcome.

“Sharing classified information is not easy: you have to be on a secure line, in a specific place and have relevant security clearances,” McGillis said. “Not all vendors can store that classified information, either – that requires special permissions. So the Space Force needs to figure out how to communicate threat information with commercial space operators who don’t have an existing DD254 contract, which essentially grants a company’s access to classified information.”

But once done effectively, Orbital Watch will bring about four distinct advantages for the Space Force, according to McGillis.

“The first advantage is enhanced national security and space capabilities, because sustained partnerships with industry is crucial for the U.S to maintain its edge in space for both national security and economic purposes. The second advantage is greater commercial integration into national security space architectures, which will directly improve the third advantage of increasing the overall operational effectiveness of those architectures. Lastly, the fourth advantage is a clear role distinction between government-controlled missions and commercial-supported missions.”

Orbital Watch Demonstrates Strategy in Action

Orbital Watch is being stood up through Space System Command’s (SSC) Front Door program, which was first created in 2023 as a means for commercial space companies to initiate contact with SSC about their capability needs. Now, after more than 14,000 companies have engaged SSC through this effort, Front Door has been re-launched as Space Force Front Door to serve as the industry’s first point of contact across the entire service, as well.

“The Front Door program is a one-stop shop for commercial space companies that want to do business with the Space Force,” said McGillis. “It’s appropriate for Orbital Watch to be part of the Front Door because they have the rolodex of space companies. Some of these companies may not have classified security clearances yet, but are developing capabilities that could still support the Space Force on classified missions. That’s why it’s important to get Orbital Watch to a phase two classified level, which will enable better information-sharing and more meaningful conversations.”

Orbital Watch, and the broader Front Door initiative, further reflects the revitalized effort by the Department of Defense (DOD) and the Space Force to better integrate with its industry partners – as signaled in the DOD’s Commercial Space Integration Strategy and the Space Force’s Commercial Space Strategy.

“Orbital Watch aligns with both strategies,” McGillis said. “General Saltzman frequently says he can’t accomplish his mission without the commercial partnerships outlined in the DOD strategy, whereas the Space Force strategy focuses on service-specific use cases to foster effective collaboration and integration between government and industry through unclassified threat information-sharing. Orbital Watch will allow these commercial partners to integrate and operate their secure, resilient space systems into our national security space architectures.”

Now, as more and more companies look to enter the projected $1.8 trillion space economy, the Front Door and Orbital Watch programs will also have to grow. That’s where Elara Nova, with its portfolio of military and commercial space experts, can help established and emerging space companies better engage the Space Force.

“Elara Nova can act as a critical bridge between the Space Force and the commercial partners by enabling this improved data sharing framework, particularly considering current operational needs and the historical challenge with classification in the space domain,” McGillis said. “It’s important for the Space Force to share threat information with our commercial partners. So Elara Nova can help companies navigate the security clearance process so they can become responsible space operators in support of Space Force missions.”