In 2024, the Defense Department built on its efforts to deepen ties with the commercial sector, including releasing its first formal strategy to govern cooperation with industry and expanding its use of commercial space imagery.
Here are five of our top national security space stories for the year:
Pentagon Releases First Commercial Space Strategy: The Pentagon released its first strategy for working more closely with the commercial space sector, which includes plans to boost cooperation during times of peace and protect commercial assets in times of conflict.
Space Force Turns to TAP Labs To Bridge Tech Gaps: If the Space Force is going to figure out how to get eyes on orbital bogies, it needs the most advanced software devs working on the challenge. But there’s a problem: The military’s launch alert data is too highly-classified to hand over to a bunch of programmers in a start-up. Enter Space Systems’s Command’s Space Domain Awareness Tools, Applications, and Processing Lab.
A Controversial Pilot Program is Expanding the Military’s Use of Commercial Space: A Defense Department pilot program hired private satellite operators to provide intelligence directly to battlefield commanders—and became the newest flashpoint in an argument between the defense and intelligence communities over who should fill the military’s commercial space imagery demands.
The DoD Is Ramping Up Its Commercial Satellite Spend: The Pentagon opened up the spigot for satellite internet providers, increasing the spending ceiling on commercial satellite services over the next four years from $900M to $13B, a Space Systems Command official told Payload.
Space Force Backs Multi-Vehicle Commercial RPO Demos: Rocket Lab and True Anomaly will square off in orbit next year under a demo mission funded by the Space Force, the two companies said.
