The U.S. Space Force’s recently released Commercial Space Strategy is designed to push leaders to consider novel approaches to industry partnerships and technology, according to Lt. Gen. Shawn Bratton, deputy chief of space operations, strategy, programs and requirements for the service branch.
During a conversation hosted by the Atlantic Council, Bratton explained that the strategy encourages leaders to “make ourselves a little uncomfortable and go into areas where we haven’t explored” for collaboration, the Department of Defense reported on Wednesday.
Along with promoting new perspectives on government-industry partnerships, Bratton said the strategy also aims to “build on just this long history where we’ve worked with commercial partners in more traditional areas like satellite communications.”
It follows four foundational lines of effort designed to operationalize the integration of commercial space capabilities, the first of which is collaborative transparency. This part of the plan aims to increase the Space Force’s understanding of commercial culture and development timelines and collaborate continuously.
Operational and technical integration, the second line of effort, targets the integration of commercial space offerings into a hybrid space architecture. This goal will be executed through the development of policies, processes and procedures to support data and hardware integration with the Space Force.
Through the third line of effort, risk management, the USSF intends to work alongside commercial organizations to identify and mitigate any risks associated with their technologies. The Space Force also aims to secure the future by establishing a process to consistently evaluate new commercial capabilities.
The strategy is meant to drive the USSF to connect with commercial innovation in new ways and veer away from the “comfortable” methods through which the service branch has traditionally received commercial offerings.
Today’s advanced technologies present a wide range of capabilities for various mission areas. Bratton said for the Space Force to leverage the “rapidly moving commercial enterprise,” it must start thinking differently.