SCHRIEVER SPACE FORCE BASE, Colo. –
The Joint Task Force-Space Defense awarded ExoAnalytical Solutions with a contract to provide space domain awareness data via the Space Domain Awareness marketplace following their participation in a recent Sprint Advanced Concept Training series.
Threat-focused SDA is critical to the JTF-SD’s mission to, in unified action with mission partners, deter aggression, defend capabilities and defeat adversaries throughout the continuum of conflict.
JTF-SD conducts three SACTs annually to advance the readiness of current and future space capabilities and warfighting forces to meet the demands of a rapidly changing operational environment. During these SACTs, the JTF-SD has interacted with more than 50 commercial industry companies in the past two years and many are repeat participants.
“Through these SACTs we are able to see the resources that are available and how we can integrate them to meet our mission requirements,” said Lt. Col. Stephan Cummings, JTF-SD chief of current operations and space reconnaissance.
This is a new approach to learning what’s possible and is driving down costs at the same time.
“We used to generate requirements and then put them out for bids, not knowing what those capabilities were or how we could integrate them into our operations,” said Cummings. “With ExoAnalytic Solutions, the capabilities proved valuable in a SACT and were subsequently available at a much cheaper price via the Space Domain Awareness marketplace.”
Space Systems Command operates the marketplace to give companies a venue to compete and allow users to take better advantage of non-traditional data sources. Additionally, the marketplace is synchronized with the Unified Data Library that ensures provided data is “delivered where it needs to be securely, reliably and normalized for easy consumption,” according to their website.
Bids are loaded anonymously into the marketplace as are the responses, preventing favoritism and potentially becoming vendor locked while taking advantage of industry innovation at the speed of need.
“This [process] proves competition matters,” said Cummings.
Once on contract, those capabilities feed the JTF-SD Commercial Operations cell that improves commercial integration and mission effectiveness enabling operators to share indication and warning information, which includes commercial partners, through commercial sources that are inherently shareable.
“Through our JCO we are working with tens of commercial companies at any given time to compound our space domain awareness sight picture,” said Col. Scott Brodeur, National Space Defense Center director of operations. “We are excited about growing these partnerships to mitigate potential gaps and allow for increased sharing of indications and warning.”
To get more information on the SDA marketplace, go to https://www.sdamarketplace.com/marketplace/#/?returnUrl=%2Fhome.