EXCLUSIVE: First Space Force civil reserve ‘pilot’ contracts go to 4 space watch firms
The Space Force is “still working through some issues or obstacles or challenges with industry,” including clauses that would allow the Pentagon to direct a CASR participant to deny service to other customers, and when military users would get “priority of service,” Col. Richard Kniseley told Breaking Defense.
Col. Richard Kniseley, head of Space Systems Command’s Commercial Space Office. (US Air Force photo by Cherie Cullen)
WASHINGTON — The Space Force has signed the first contracts to “pilot” its new Commercial Augmentation Space Reserve (CASR) program to companies providing space monitoring data, the head of the service’s Commercial Space Office told Breaking Defense today.
“Those went live 1 March,” Col. Richard Kniseley said in an exclusive interview. “We awarded to four companies, and they are [for] space domain awareness. Because of funding, we did only award to four, but also they are multi-month contracts … instead of one month, we did three months. If there were more funds available, I think we could have done more.”
Together the contracts are worth $1.1 million, he said, while declining to name the winning firms.
But more than the relatively small amount of money, the CASR awards mark an early foray into a potentially consequential framework that could be used in a time of crisis to increase Space Force capacity across its multiple mission areas down the line — although there remain bureaucratic and legal kinks to be worked out.
CASR is the Space Force’s planned version of the Civil Reserve Air Fleet (CRAF) for leveraging commercial airlines to support military logistics operations when needed managed by US Transportation Command (TRANSCOM). The idea is that commercial space firms could be called upon in wartime to surge delivery of satellite-derived capabilities, such as satellite communications [SATCOM] bandwidth, tracking of adversary satellites, and imagery of ground-based targets.
He explained that the Commercial Space Office decided to start with a “pilot program” because the Space Force is “still working through some issues or obstacles or challenges with industry” for a broader effort, including clauses that would allow the Pentagon to direct a CASR participant to deny service to other customers, and when military users would get “priority of service.”
The issue of when the US government can force US commercial satellite companies to cut off services either across the board or to specific countries, often referred to as “shutter control,” long has been controversial — although for many years it also has been the price of business for those remote sensing firms who provide commercial imagery to the Intelligence Community.
Kniseley said that his team also is working the Defense Department’s space policy shop and the Department of the Air Force General Counsel on a study of “financial protection” for CASR members in case their satellites or other assets are harmed during their wartime service.
“But I didn’t want to wait for the 100 percent solution,” he said. “The goal of the pilot was to start exercising some of our processes and to ensure that the framework was sound. So, we got the easier things on the pilots contracts.”
Kniseley elaborated that each of the four companies under contract “are providing a peacetime level amount of capability, which is what I asked for CASR. This isn’t a zero-to-60 moment.”
Last October, he told reporters here that his office had been working US Space Command’s multinational Joint Commercial Operations (JCO) cell, headed by Barbara Golf, to craft the contracts based on those already in place via the Global Data Marketplace.
The contract include a “pre-negotiated, pre-priced surge” capacity so that the Commercial Space Office will know how much it will cost to “ramp up” in wartime, Kniseley said, as well as “exclusive access” to some “wargaming” with the Space Force.
Meanwhile, the service is having its first, more open wargame with industry on March 25, he said. “That will be focused on commercial SATCOM. So we are excited about that. Many different companies are going to be involved in that it’ll be a full day, morning and afternoon scenarios.”
The plan is for the CASR contracts to eventually be expanded to include other Space Force mission areas: satellite communications; positioning, timing and navigation; and what the Pentagon calls “tactical surveillance, reconnaissance and tracking,” or TacSRT.
Kinesely said his office already has completed a “mission area analysis” of what is needed from commercial SATCOM providers by Indo-Pacific Command, and a similar analysis is underway of European Command needs.
“So, we’ll be doing the same type of analysis with, like, TacSRT,” he said.
