The plan is to award two vendors 24-month Direct to Phase II SBIR grants worth $3M each to demo low-cost, low-weight radars on Space Force satellites in geosynchronous Earth orbit.
"[T]his capability is so important to where we're headed in the next couple of years, with having the capacity to make the SCN [Satellite Control Network] stand up to all the new systems that are coming and all the new mission requirements that they're going to have," Hammett told Breaking Defense.
CDAO’s Advana data analytics platform is ingesting data from about 500 DoD business systems.
Space RCO Director Kelly Hammett envisions that his shop will feed tech into the Space Force's new effort to contract commercial firms to replace the Geosynchronous Space Situational Awareness Program (GSSAP) satellites for monitoring the heavens.
Kelly Hammett, director of the Space Rapid Capabilities Office, said his organization risks being “inordinately impacted" by workforce reductions underway with the Trump administration.
'I think there [are] things that we will need to be able to, I guess I'll say, 'dogfight' in space," Lt. Gen. Doug Schiess, commander of Space Forces - Space, the Space Force unit that undertakes operations for US Space Command, told reporters on Wednesday.
"I'm not criticizing ATLAS, but on the record, if it doesn't get there on time, I'm gonna find an alternative, because that's why I exist," Space RCO Director Kelly Hammett told Breaking Defense.
Modeling and simulation get an AI upgrade for more realistic training and improved autonomous platforms.
The new office, led by Claire Leon, will work to integrate acquisition programs across Space Systems Command, the Space Development Agency and the Space Rapid Capabilities Office, Breaking Defense has learned.
Under the contract, SpRCO's Rapid Resilient Command and Control project, nicknamed R2C2, will buy ground software in "bite-sized pieces" to support new Space Force satellites capable of rapid and sustained maneuver.
Space Rapid Capabilities Office Director Kelly Hammett declined to share much about the new "threat warning" sensors, but gave updates on other closely held programs.
"Right now, the position of my combatant commander is: 'I wanna move, I wanna refuel, I wanna have life-extension and I wanna live'," SpRCO Director Kelly Hammett told Breaking Defense.
Onshoring and investment in military-specific semiconductors anchor a cornerstone of the defense industrial base.
A future challenge for the R2C2 program will be figuring out how it fits under the Pentagon's overarching Joint All Domain Command and Control (JADC2) efforts, Kelly Hammett, director of the Space Rapid Capabilities Office, told Breaking Defense.
BADGER's first demonstration, held in late August, "marks the first end-to-end test of the steerable phased array modules and software," Col. Greg Hoffman, of SpRCO's Strategic Capabilities Acquisition Delta, said.
From antennas that can only "talk" to one satellite at a time to much of the work in the control center being done by paper, operators told reporters on a rare tour of the ops center that they're in dire need of modernization.
SpRCO head Kelly Hammett told Breaking Defense in an interview that the "operational integration" process involves "tens of force generation elements with POAMS [plans of action and milestones] that take years to close everything out."