The United States Space Force (USSF) continues to take bold steps to integrate commercial space capabilities into its operations. Its Commercial Augmentation Space Reserve (CASR) framework aims to leverage the rapidly advancing commercial space sector to enhance military space capabilities, increase resilience and ensure the U.S. maintains its competitive edge in space. At the recent Space Force Association Spacepower 2024 conference, an industry expert panel explored CASR’s challenges and opportunities and provided recommendations for success.
What is CASR and Why is it Needed?
The Commercial Augmentation Space Reserve (CASR) is a strategic initiative designed to integrate commercial space capabilities into military operations. The USSF introduced this concept as part of broader efforts to adapt to the evolving space domain and capitalize on the innovation and agility of the commercial space industry.
The USSF needs CASR for several reasons:
- Rapid technological advancement: The commercial space sector innovates at a pace that often outstrips traditional military procurement cycles.
- Cost-effectiveness: Leveraging commercial capabilities can be more cost-effective than developing and maintaining similar in-house capabilities.
- Increased resilience: By diversifying space assets and capabilities, the USSF can create a more resilient and survivable space architecture.
- Surge capacity: CASR allows the military to quickly scale up capabilities during times of crisis or conflict.
- Fostering innovation: Closer collaboration with industry can drive innovation and lead to new solutions for military space challenges.
The USSF’s “Space Capstone Publication” (SCP) emphasizes the importance of partnerships and integration with commercial and interagency space operations. CASR aligns with this doctrine by creating a framework for seamless integration of commercial capabilities into military space operations.
Key Aspects of CASR
Several principles form the foundation of the CASR. They reflect a strategic shift towards greater integration, collaboration and flexibility in military space operations by leveraging commercial space capabilities. These core elements provide insights into the significant implications for both the military and commercial space sectors.
Integration of Commercial Capabilities
CASR aims to integrate game-changing commercial capabilities into peacetime operations while ensuring these capabilities remain scalable and searchable across the spectrum of conflict. This approach allows the USSF to benefit from cutting-edge commercial technologies while maintaining the flexibility to adapt to various operational scenarios.
Partnerships and Collaboration
CASR emphasizes the importance of partnerships between the military and commercial space sectors. As Brad Cheatham, CEO and President of Advanced Space noted, “Partner to win” is a crucial concept in the space industry. These partnerships extend beyond simple procurement relationships, and involve collaborative problem-solving and shared innovation.
Responsive Space Missions
Responsive space missions involve the ability to launch, deploy and utilize space assets on short notice. This critical capability for modern military operations is crucial to address emerging threats, replacing damaged satellites or rapidly augmenting existing space capabilities during crises. The success of such missions relies on streamlined processes, pre-positioned assets, maintaining inventories, developing rapid integration capabilities and maintaining close coordination between government and commercial partners.
Jason Kim, CEO of Firefly highlighted his company’s successful VICTUS NOX mission provides an example of what can be achieved through close collaboration between commercial providers and the Space Force. This rapid deployment capability, from the warehouse to on orbit in just a week’s time, demonstrates the potential for quick-reaction space assets to support urgent national security needs.
Multi-Orbit Strategy
Fred Taylor, Vice President for Space and Cyber Applications at Viasat, emphasized the importance of a multi-orbit strategy involves utilizing satellites and space assets in Low Earth Orbit (LEO), Medium Earth Orbit (MEO), and Geostationary Earth Orbit (GEO) to provide comprehensive coverage and increased resilience. Such an approach recognizes that different orbital regimes offer unique advantages and capabilities, and a comprehensive space architecture should leverage assets across various orbits. Each orbital regime offers distinct benefits:
- LEO: Provides lower latency and higher resolution for Earth observation and communications.
- MEO: Offers a balance between coverage area and latency.
- GEO: Enables continuous coverage of large geographic areas.
By integrating capabilities across these orbits, with a focus on interoperability and delivering mission effects, the Space Force can create a more robust and flexible space architecture. This approach enhances resilience by diversifying assets and reduces vulnerability to potential threats targeting specific orbital regimes.
Challenges and Opportunities
The integration of commercial space capabilities into military operations presents both significant challenges and exciting opportunities. As the Space Force works to implement the CASR framework, industry has identified several key areas that require attention to ensure successful collaboration and maximize the potential of commercial space technologies.
Navigating the Acquisition Process
The complexity of the government acquisition process remains one of the primary challenges. Lee Rosen, co-founder, CEO, and president of Orbital emphasized that the complexity and difficulty of navigating the various government entities involved in space acquisitions can prove particularly challenging for smaller companies with limited resources to dedicate to proposal writing and contract management.
The acquisition process often involves multiple agencies, each with its own requirements and procedures. This can lead to confusion, delays and increased costs for commercial partners seeking to work with the government. Simplifying and streamlining this process could significantly enhance the effectiveness of CASR and encourage greater participation from innovative companies, especially smaller ones.
Recommendation: Streamline acquisition processes. Simplify and consolidate the various government entities involved in space acquisitions to make it easier for commercial companies, especially smaller ones, to participate in CASR.
Interoperability and Integration
Viasat’s Taylor highlighted Interoperability is critical for CASR to succeed. The ability to seamlessly integrate various commercial capabilities with existing military systems will create a truly effective and resilient space architecture.
However, interoperability challenges can arise from differences in technical standards, data formats and operational procedures between commercial and military systems. Addressing these challenges requires close collaboration between government and industry partners to develop common standards and interfaces that enable smooth integration of commercial capabilities into military operations.
Recommendation: Invest in integration. Allocate resources for creating training environments and integration frameworks to ensure commercial capabilities can be seamlessly incorporated into military operations.
Defining Clear Requirements
Several panelists emphasized the need for clear, well-defined requirements from the military. Jason Miller, Vice President of Global Solutions at Umbra Space, noted that commercial providers often receive mixed signals about the military’s needs. This makes it difficult to align their offerings with military requirements. Clear and consistent requirements enable commercial partners to develop and tailor their capabilities to meet military needs effectively. This includes not only technical specifications but also operational requirements, timelines and integration expectations. Improved communication and collaboration between military planners and commercial providers could help address this challenge and ensure that commercial capabilities better align with military needs.
Recommendation: Develop specific requirements. Work closely with military operators to define clear, specific requirements that can guide commercial partners in developing relevant capabilities.
Balancing Urgency and Long-term Planning
Tim Bodi, Senior Space Solutions Architect at Leidos, stressed the importance of maintaining a balance between the urgent need for new capabilities and long-term planning and integration. For example, creating environments for training and integration early in the process could ensure smooth operationalization of commercial capabilities.
Recommendation: Practice like you play. Conduct regular exercises and simulations that incorporate commercial capabilities to identify and address integration challenges before real-world crises occur.
Other Recommendations to Improve CASR
Industry leaders suggested several additional ways to enhance the effectiveness of CASR:
- Increase transparency: Continue and expand efforts to communicate clearly about CASR’s goals, requirements, and processes to industry partners.
- Encourage collaboration: Foster partnerships between commercial providers to address complex challenges and create integrated solutions.
- Consider pre-positioning and inventory: Explore options for pre-positioning commercial assets or maintaining inventories to enable rapid deployment during crises without disrupting commercial operations.
The Future of Space Warfighting: Commercial Integration
The CASR represents a significant shift in how the U.S. military approaches space capabilities. By leveraging the innovation, agility and resources of the commercial space sector, CASR has the potential to dramatically enhance the resilience and effectiveness of U.S. space operations.
However, realizing this potential will require ongoing collaboration, clear communication and a willingness to adapt on both sides. As the space domain continues to evolve, CASR will likely play an increasingly important role in ensuring U.S. space superiority and supporting national security objectives.
The success of CASR will depend on the ability of both the military and commercial sectors to work together effectively, overcome bureaucratic hurdles, align incentives, and foster a culture of innovation and collaboration. As this framework continues to develop, it will be crucial to maintain open dialogues, learn from early experiences and remain flexible in the face of rapidly changing technologies and geopolitical landscapes.
By embracing the potential of commercial space capabilities through initiatives like CASR, the U.S. Space Force hopes to position itself at the forefront of space innovation to meet the challenges of today and tomorrow in this critical domain.