I/ITSEC 2025 — One of the biggest goals in 2026 for the Space Force’s Program Executive Office for Operational Test and Training Infrastructure (PEO OTTI) is to create the final requirements for its main training domain to ultimately become available at the unit level across the Space Force enterprise, according to the head of the program.
Over the next 10-12 months, Col. Corey Klopstein is focused on building out the requirements for the Space Warfighter Operational Readiness Domain (SWORD) program, a “distributed” digital training environment used to prepare guardians for space warfare, he told reporters Monday. Initially used by the 392nd Combat Training Squadron in Delta 11, Klopstein said he’d like SWORD to become the right synthetic environment for whole units across the Space Force’s enterprise domain.
“We now want to expand it for the enterprise. We want to make it higher fidelity. We want to make it more accurate. We want to bring more types of systems into it. We want to make that cloud based. We want to raise it to the SAP [special access program] level, so that we can bring in some of our classified systems,” Klopstein, who is dual-hatted as commander of the Space Force’s new System Delta 81 organization, said. “We want to make it accessible from wherever our units are.”
SWORD is a simulated digital training environment where guardians learn to use space domain awareness, satellite control network, electronic warfare and orbital warfare skills and tools. After the 392nd successfully demonstrated SWORD in a recent large-scale exercise called Space Flag, where 380 guardians were able to train on the platform, Klopstein and his team decided it was time to develop the program at a larger scale for units across the entire force. He said such a training environment is necessary for guardians to be prepared in the “most realistic environment possible.”
The planning to scale SWORD began with the acquisitional framework for the program, Klopstein said, which involved creating a Commercial Solutions Opening (CSO) opportunity and eventually awarding an Other Transaction Authority (OTA). Such acquisition avenues allow the service to “leverage the commercial market and deliver capabilities quickly,” Klopstein said. Though he declined to say who won the OTA in September, Klopstein said it was “a prime with multiple subs.”
Further, Klopstein and his team “declared” the SWORD program a Software Acquisition Pathway (SWP) program, which means it can use streamlined methods to procure software programs into DoD requirements, in turn helping PEO OTTI expand SWORD at a much faster rate, Klopstein said.
Using these acquisition vehicles aligns with the overarching acquisition overhaul Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth called for last month, Klopstein said, as Hegseth’s reform speech focused on leveraging commercial vendors and using CSOs. Additionally, an earlier memo called on the Pentagon to use SWPs as the preferred method for software development.
“We’re bringing on different vendors to enhance the fidelity of the capabilities we have within SWORD, and ensuring that we’re meeting the needs of the space operator. So, bringing in the mentality that the Secretary has from an acquisition standpoint is a war-fighting imperative,” Klopstein said.
Now that the acquisition framework has been laid, it’s time to move onto the requirements process, Klopstein said.
“The purpose of the operational test training infrastructure is to provide that arena, to provide that range, so that we can train our guardians effectively, and we can test our systems effectively, and we can evolve to what that the space domain, and ensuring that the Space Force can gain and maintain space superiority,” Klopstein said.