Maj. Gen. Kim Crider

WASHINGTON: The US military’s ambitious effort to create a command and control network to run future All Domain Operations is “predicated on effective space-based capabilities,” says Maj. Gen. Kim Crider, Space Force acting chief technology innovation officr.

Joint All-Domain Command and Control, really, is grounded in space. Space is a joint all-domain fight,” she told me in an interview. “Space depends on information from other domains so that we can assure our space assets and we can understand where there might be threats that could impact space coming from other domains, to include the cyberspace domain. … So, space is fully a partner in the Joint All-Domain Operations and significant contributor to Joint All-Domain C2.”

Crider, whose position within Space Force is new and unique among the services, actually is an old hand with regard to creation of Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2), and the Air Force’s Advanced Battle Management System (ABMS) program that is developing technologies to underpin JADC2. She is the brains behind the creation of the Unified Data Library (UDL), in her former position as the Air Force’s first chief data officer.

As Breaking D readers will recall, the UDL was first developed in 2019 to bring together in one accessible, cloud-based environment data from all the military’s space sensors and allow access to that data based on all users — to include allies — based on security status. Since that time, the UDL has been expanded include data sensors in other domains, including cyber, and now has evolved into a component of ABMS.

“The Unified Data Library is a phenomenal capability,” she said. “We have it running in a production cloud environment — we have users that are pulling data from the Unified Data Library into their various applications, to be able to understand what’s happening in the space domain or other domains. So, the Unified Data Library is able to pull data through from other sensors and other domains, and we’ve integrated the Unified Data Library as a core component of the dataONE capabilities of ABMS.”

Crider said that the Space Force plans to continue to evolve and enhance the UDL. “It’s a kind of capability that will never be ‘quote, unquote’ done,” she said. “We’ll always be adding new sensors and new services and new features … because JADC2 is never done. We need to ensure that we can always stay ahead of the threat; we stay ahead of our adversaries.”

Crider’s job isn’t just to shepherd the Space Force’s role in JADC2, however. In his Chief of Space Operations Planning Guidance, Gen. Jay Raymond put a high priority on risk taking and innovation as the new force organizes, trains and equips its forces — on Friday, finally and awkwardly named Guardians (I AM GROOT!) — for space operations. Crider is charged with seeing that Raymond’s order is implemented as Space Force pursues new science and technology (S&T) initiatives.

That includes pushing the acquisition community and working with Space and Missile Systems Center (SMC) to focus resources on integrating cutting-edge tech into development programs. “As a headquarters function, we kind of lead strategy and policy advocacy for the future capabilities in the technology and innovation space,” she said.

“I am looking at the S&T portfolio, and the roadmap for what kind of S&T capabilities we need within the Space Force, partnering very closely with Air Force Research Lab as our primary provider of S&T,” she elaborated. “But of course we work very closely with, not only Air Force Research Lab, but the larger DoD lab community, and partners at NRO and NASA as well on various S&T initiatives.” She added that her shop also collaborates with commercial industry to take advantage of their efforts “to advance the future of space capabilities. So that’s a really important part of the portfolio.”

“Digital transformation” is perhaps the part of Crider’s portfolio that is receiving a lot of attention, she said, both within the Department of Defense but also from Congress and outside experts. “It’s a very very exciting area,” Crider said. “I would say that I spent a significant portion of my time in really looking at how do we infuse digital technologies, digital capability, digital processes, digital skill sets, and the application of digital skills across the service — across all of our commands down to the individual space professional level, and on up.”

The CSO Planning Guidance lists “Create a Digital Service to Accelerate Innovation” as one of Raymond’s five key priorities. Raymond himself is fond of saying Space Force “was born digital.” Given that Space Force in reality has been handed responsibility from the former Air Force Space Command for legacy space systems — from satellite communications networks to the Space-Based Infrared System (SBIRS) missile warning satellites — I asked Crider to explain what exactly that catch phrase means.

“So, Space Force being the first digital service, or being ‘born digital,’ it’s a a really important statement to make.” she responded. “I think it speaks to the fact that, as a new service, we have an opportunity here to really establish ourselves in a new way — leveraging digital technologies, and leveraging digital processes and practices in a new way to really enhance our mission set and enhance our ability to achieve our priorities.”

Crider said Space Force needs to move to digital processes because it needs “to be very agile, very adaptive and very flexible” due to its small size — both to be able to stay on top of an “ever-changing threat environment” that will demand rapid decision-making, and to be able to advocate its needs within the Pentagon’s large bureaucracy.

“We need to be able to access data, analysis and information at the speed of need,” she elaborated. “And the only way to do that, especially given that we’re very flat and very small, is to leverage digital technologies and to be a digital service.  So, the idea is, ‘hey, we’re starting out as a new service, let’s start out with a ‘born digital’ mindset, with the idea that we are going to infuse ‘digital’ into everything that we do’.”

That need to be able to gather data, analyze it and generate actionable information thus means that “infrastructure and data analytics” compose another major “thrust area” for the technology and innovation office.

Crider said her team is working closely with Air Force Chief Information Officer Lauren Knausenberger, and Air Force Chief Data Officer Eileen Vidrine to ensure “that we’ve got the right IT infrastructure in place” both for today and the future. This includes “defending and protecting our information.”

Regarding data analytics, Space Force is working to apply machine learning techniques “to really ensure that we get the most out of that data to enhance our decision making processes, both from a business standpoint through our digital headquarters initiatives, as well as operational analysis and the capabilities we need to enhance our operational decisions.”

Crider said she sees Space Force in many was as leading the way for DoD in its overarching digital transformation effort and in implementing the new “DoD Data Strategy” released by then-Deputy Defense Secretary David Norquist in October.

“I think that we are leading in many ways,” she said. “That’s certainly part of the idea of ‘born digital.’  We have that opportunity to try some new things. Our chief has really encouraged that — that we try and that we really lean forward, and we allow ourselves the opportunity to really look at new and better ways to do things and not be burdened by the ways of the past.”

Further, she said, because of its small size, Space Force has “the ability to more easily experiment, if you will, with the new capabilities, and to pilot some new ideas that we can scale a little bit more quickly because we’re scaling it over a relatively small sized organization. … And I know the other services are looking to us to try some of these things, see how they play out, to see if they may be able to adopt some of these new ideas.”