United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket launch

A United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket lifts off Dec. 7, 2021, from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Fla. (U.S. Space Force photo by Joshua Conti)

WASHINGTON: While the Defense Department, the Space Force and the Intelligence Community all have recognized that the the boom in commercial space activity presents opportunities for improving military capabilities at lower costs, the national security community is still struggling to tap into the possibilities, officials said today.

“The pace of innovation on the commercial and industry side is such that in order to be good stewards of the government, or the taxpayer dollar, we need to find better ways to leverage the commercial innovation,” Col. Tim Trimailo, of Space Force’s Space Systems Command, told a TechCrunch symposium today.

DARPA’s Blackjack satellite program (DARPA illustration)

Trimailo serves as the service’s liaison to DARPA on the Blackjack and Commercially Augmented Space Inter-networked Operations (CASINO) programs, which explore the capabilities of small, commercial satellites and components.

“You’re seeing these smaller satellites, smaller more more capable components, supercomputing, all the technology that’s coming out of the industry side,” he said. “And at the same time … the US government’s not the only government around the world that sees the explosion in innovation that is possible to leverage. So here at SSC, we’re laser-focused on the threat and we recognize that we need to kind of shift our mentality to more of a buy before we build sort of construct.”

Trimailo explained that Pentagon space acquisition programs in the past have largely relied on augmenting “bespoke custom solutions with commercial capability when we when we needed to fight.” Now, SSC is “trying to flip that a little bit for certain missions,” looking first to see how much of the requirement can be filled by commercial technology and only building a “custom solution” to fill any gap.

“It may be only 40, 50, 80% of the 100% of requirement that’s needed,” he said. “But let’s start there. And then if we still need that last 10, 20, 30% of requirement to be met, then let’s go build the custom solution that the government needs. But that commercial solution might might be enough in the near term to do the job.”

Likewise, Pete Muend, director of NRO’s Commercial Systems Program Office (CSPO), said the spy satellite agency is attempting to do the same thing, although he noted that there remain challenges such as ensuring that commercial systems have enough cybersecurity built in.

“And that really is simply put, we’ll look to commercial and look to buy commercial everywhere we can that cost effectively meets our needs,” he told the symposium. “Where we can’t of course, we’ll continue to build government and national systems to meet those needs and allow some of the cost effectiveness [of buying commercial products] to better focus and leverage those scarce resources on the national side to go after those even harder and more sensitive targets that we have.”

Steve Isakowitz, CEO of the non-profit federally funded research and development center Aerospace Corporation, said the “good news” is that the government is “very interested in the commercial opportunities.”

“But,” he said, “from the industry standpoint, it’s hard to figure out like what door to walk through and how to how to make that contact.”

To help provide a bridge between commercial firms and the Pentagon, Isakowitz said, Aerospace has launched a “commercial space futures organization” designed to “up our game in terms of how we work with industry and it’s really to go after four of what we see as the major obstacles.”

These are, he explained: finding the “front door” just to be able to meet with and understand national security needs, being able to implement both the requirements and the necessary security measures — from cyber to supply chain to foreign investment, understanding the regulatory and policy environment and having opportunities and facilities access to prototype new tech.