In March, the Space Force awarded the first pilot contracts of the Commercial Augmentation Space Reserve (CASR) program, kicking off a new effort to build military-industry partnerships.
Constellations spoke with Colonel Richard Kniseley, Senior Materiel Leader at the Commercial Space Office (COMSO) at Space Systems Command, to learn more about the development of CASR, the key mission areas of the program, and how commercial capabilities can be integrated into military infrastructure for use in times of crisis.
Listen to the full conversation, or read four takeaways below.
Takeaway 1: Military-industry partnerships give the Space Force a tactical edge in the field.
The Commercial Services Office was rebranded to the Commercial Space Office in April 2023. COMSO seeks out industry partnerships to fulfil the “buy what we can” approach of Space Systems Command, Kniseley explained.
“We wanted to tap into the innovative nature of the commercial industry in order to better equip our joint warfighter and get capability out there as quickly as possible,” he said. The Space Warfighting Analysis Center has shown that commercial capabilities play a vital role in how the Space Force will be able to compete with players like Russia and China, which are also rapidly expanding their capabilities.
COMSO mission areas include satcom, where around $1 billion is spent each year to bring services to the field. Tactical surveillance, reconnaissance and tracking (TacSERT) is another mission area that has become a major focus in the last year. To get TacSERT capabilities into the hands of the warfighter, the Space Force makes use of the global data marketplace, where combatant command asks commercial analytic providers to deliver answers in less than 72 hours. “That’s less than three days to provide real-time or quick-time answers back to the warfighter,” said Kniseley. “Answering things at a tactical speed is huge.”
These types of military-industry partnerships will be key to the Space Force mission going forward, especially as industry pushes ahead in building creative solutions to tactical problems that the Space Force faces every day in the field. One answer to getting those solutions into the hands of the warfighter is the CASR program.
Takeaway 2: The CASR program will integrate commercial capabilities into military infrastructure during peacetime.
The Commercial Augmentation Space Reserve (CASR) was established in February 2023, as part of an effort to “understand the appetite of industry,” Kniseley said. The program was initially modeled after the Civil Reserve Air Fleet, from the air domain, but “quickly moved away from that, as space is inherently very different from the air community.”
A key part of the CASR mission is to have commercial capabilities on contract during peacetime. In a time of conflict, these capabilities can quickly be accessed and made available to the warfighter.
The majority of contracts will require capabilities to be scaled through “a spectrum of conflict,” said Kniseley, and contracts will have different requirements for different mission areas. “Remote sensing operates completely different than the satcom community, both in operations, customers, incentives, types of contracts, and number of different providers,” he explained, which is why each mission area will have a tailored framework.
Takeaway 3: To become resilient, CASR must embrace proliferated architecture.
In March, the first CASR contracts were awarded to four different space domain awareness providers. These initial contracts will run for a three-month performance period, longer than the typical one-month contract. Kniseley hopes to expand the contract period even further in the future to give commercial partners a greater guarantee of stability.
The CASR program also includes an incentive plan for industry that includes “increased threat sharing, access to exercises at war game and longer duration of contracts,” said Kniseley.
COMSO hopes to work with several different providers, as a proliferated architecture will create better resiliency in times of conflict. “If a provider were to go down, I know that I can continue my mission because I have a number of different members out there,” Kniseley said. To understand how many providers will be needed to guarantee a stable level of resiliency, COMSO is analyzing factors like the surge of spectrum needs during times of sudden conflict.
“Commercial capabilities provide an added layer of resiliency, as well as speed of fielding,” Kniseley said, which means that commercial will bring capabilities to the warfighter quickly and efficiently, which could be key in a sudden conflict scenario.
Takeaway 4: Communication with industry is a top priority.
“Back in the day, it was kind of frowned upon to have very frank conversations with industry,” Kniseley said. But he hopes that culture will change and that conversations between industry and military players will only increase in clarity and frequency, especially as commercial capabilities become a driver of military defense infrastructure. “Commercial is out there right now providing capabilities to the warfighter,” he said. “They’re in a fight whether they like it or not.”
Commercial players often have better insight into the range of possible solutions to a problem. “What I really want commercial industry to do is provide a solution,” Kniseley said. “I don’t want to provide the solution or prescript a solution to them. I want them to come with their ideas on how to get after our problems.”
The Space Force isn’t looking for a perfect answer, Kniseley said, just the best options available on the commercial market. “I’m not looking for the 100% solution right now,” he said. He hopes to work with industry players that “have a capability that meets 30, 40, 50, 60 percent of what we need in our requirements.”
For more on COMSO, tactical surveillance, and recent RFIs, listen to the full podcast episode.
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