Space Force unveils multi-front push to fix its Unified Data Library

Path of the debris from Russia’s Nov. 15, 2021 ASAT missile test over the first 24 hours after impact with the Soviet-era Cosmos 1408 satellite, according to COMSPOC. (COMSPOC/CSSI volumetric analysis, with rendering by AGI, an Ansys Company)

WASHINGTON — The smallest military service has a big problem with its data, but a new strategy document released Wednesday lays out a multi-point approach to finally fixing the Unified Data Library.

The UDL was created in 2019 with a contract to startup Bluestaq to pool commercial information on objects in space, from dangerous debris to foreign satellites. So far, however, the project has failed to integrate that data with the computer systems Space Force units actually use to monitor the increasingly crowded heavens, as Space Force officials have themselves acknowledged.

Now, in the newly released Data & Artificial Intelligence FY 2025 Strategic Action Plan [PDF], the Space Force has revealed its plan to convert the slow-moving project into a formal Program of Record — using the streamlined Software Pathway (SWP) favored by new Defense Secretary Peter Hegseth — and implement a long litany of improvements.

That said, the UDL is not the only focus in the 12-page plan. The document also touches on topics from institutional culture and “digital fluency” to generative AI and rigorous evaluation of Large Language Models. It lists both vague aspirational goals, like “continue research into emerging topics,” and a litany of specific action items for fiscal 2025, from co-hosting the classified AI Space conference with the NRO (which happened in January) to establishing a multi-layered system of policy governance bodies.

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But the main recurring theme throughout the Strategic Action Plan is improving UDL, which comes out over and over again — and in some of the most specific to-do items with the hardest deadlines.

The first of these (item 3.1.1) was to change UDL to a Software Pathway program. That’s a streamlined acquisition process, devised under the first Trump administration in 2019 and heavily promoted by Hegseth in the early days of the second Trump administration. It aims to imitate the rapid development and adaptation of commercial software, rather than bog down coding projects in procedures devised for industrial age arms programs. Transitioning to an SWP involves officially registering UDL as such with the Office of the Secretary of Defense, along with collecting and reporting the necessary metrics and cost estimates.

As space acquisition chief Frank Calvelli previewed last year, the plan also says “the UDL prototype [will transition] to an established program of record,” which would institutionalize it and establish it firmly in the service’s long-term acquisition plans. (The plan’s deadline for these two action items has actually passed, but a spokesperson for the Space Force confirmed Thursday morning that both transitioned last fall, on Nov. 13.)

But there’s plenty more to come. Among other UDL tasks, various Space Force sub-commands are directed to:

• develop an official Capability Needs Statement defining formal requirements for UDL “data layer integration”  by the end of this month (“FY25 Q2”);
• establish an Application Programming Interface (API) gateway for UDL by the end of the fiscal year on Oct. 31 (“FY25 Q4”);
• integrate data from critical government-run Space Development Agency sensors into UD, also by Oct. 31;
• and, most critically, integrate UDL into “high value” Space Operations Squadron systems, again by the end of the fiscal year.

Other action items don’t specifically mention the Unified Data Library, but are inextricably intertwined with it. That includes increasing collaboration with the Commercial Space Office — the Space Force’s chief link to the private-sector providers feeding UDL — and “identify[ing additional] commercial datasets,” for which the logical destination would be UDL.

All told, the Strategic Action Plan lays out an ambitious and comprehensive strategy to get UDL on track this year — assuming funding battles and changing administration priorities don’t get in the way.

UPDATED 3/20/2025 at 9:05am ET to incorporate Space Force confirmation that UDL’s transition to a SWP program of record had in fact occurred.

Theresa Hitchens contributed to this story.