ORLANDO, Fla.—Commanders have an insatiable appetite for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance. Space Force commanders are no different: They’re hungry for more commercial space products, leaders said at the Spacepower Conference this week.
From Africa to Europe to the Indo-Pacific, USSF leaders are ramping up consumption commercial satellites data feeds.
“Every combatant command has underserved users when it comes to commercial imagery—or any imagery for that matter,” said Brig. Gen. Anthony J. Mastalir, commander of U.S. Space Forces Indo-Pacific.
Most ISR from space comes from the Intelligence Community, especially the National Reconnaissance Office and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. But the IC’s primary customer is the President and intelligence, not tactical military applications, and military commanders have complained about not getting the data they need fast enough. IC assets are also limited; there are only so many government satellites on orbit that can be tasked at a given time.
In recent years, however, the expansion of commercial alternatives has attracted the NRO, NGA, and the Space Force to the additional sensor capabilities now on orbit. All three are looking to use more commercial imagery, and the Space Force’s commercial space strategy lists tactical surveillance and reconnaissance among its top needs from industry.
USSF’s Tactical Surveillance, Reconnaissance, and Tracking program, or TacSRT, functions as a sort of marketplace for military users to acquire information and imagery from commercial providers.
Chief of Space Operations Gen. B. Chance Saltzman has referred to it as “surveillance as a service,” and it provides critical information to commanders who otherwise might not be able to get their ISR requests filled.
“Even though INDOPACOM, you could argue, gets the lion’s share of imagery from national assets—that doesn’t mean that at the lower echelons, there are some requirements that don’t even make it up to the J2 for actual collection,” Mastalir said. “And engaging with those components, and at that level, we’re able to identify potential applications for commercial [sensing]. I’m really, really excited about the future of not just the TacSRT program, but about how we can better use commercial imagery in military planning.”
Brig. Gen. Jacob Middleton, head of U.S. Space Forces Europe-Africa, declined to say how he uses TacSRT for military operations, but he did note that the program’s ability to deliver intelligence “at scale and at the speed of relevance is significant.” Demand from his users is enormous: “Anything where you need information at speed and relevance about what’s going on around you is what I’m being asked to provide,” Middleton said.
One of the few operational examples leaders cite was this summer, when U.S. troops were leaving Air Base 201 in Niger amid civic upheaval; TacSRT helped security forces keep an eye out for potential threats. Mastalir and Middleton also said TacSRT has helped with humanitarian and disaster responses, which can be valuable in demonstrating the value of U.S. partnership.
Space Domain Awareness
While commanders like Mastalir and Middleton seek more commercial imagery from space, other Space Force leaders want to leverage commercial satellites for increased understanding of what is going on in space.
Lt. Gen. Douglas A. Scheiss, commander of Space Forces Space (S4S), is eager for increased space domain awareness. Just like his colleagues, who focus on terrestrial intel, Scheiss wants as much information as possible in his area of operations.
“If there’s a capability out there that somebody has that can give me more space domain awareness, more characterization, more information on an adversary’s platform or payload or whatever, and they’re selling it, then I want to buy it,” he said.
While commercial capabilities do not supplant the need for Space Force-owned space domain awareness systems, Scheiss said, “I want as much data as I can get.”
Indeed, space domain awareness is also among the assets USSF cited in its Commercial Space Strategy.
Across the board, operators and planners will need commercial industry to provide them with as much information as possible, said Lt. Gen. Stephen N. Miller Jr., head of Space Operations Command.
“The simple fact is the commercial vendors are in this game and providing capability that we can either leverage or not,” he said. “We’re going to leverage it to the max we can, whether … it’s some type of imagery or surveillance and reconnaissance capability that we can leverage for planning, all the way to space domain awareness.”