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Space Force Commercial Integration Cell Adds New Companies

Umito November 7, 2024

The Space Force Commercial Integration Cell, a program designed to integrate commercial space companies into U.S. Space Force operations, has grown from ten to 15 companies, with plans to add two more by early next year, according to a senior service official.

Lt. Gen. Doug Schiess, who is commander of Space Forces-Space (S4S) and Space Command’s Joint Forces Space Component, said the program expands not only the number of participating companies, but also the range of mission areas.

“This means that these companies already have a contract with the US government. When we first created it, it was primarily about commercial communications (satellite communications), but it has looked into imagery, domain awareness and other things,” Schiess said at the Mitchell Institute event on Wednesday.

“Because of their contracts that they already have, they have the ability to obtain very secret/sensitive compartmentalized information on individuals, and we then have the connection that allows us to provide them with threat intelligence in both meaning, telling them ‘Hey, here’s what’s going on’ at the top secret SCI level. They can also provide us with information. We have people on the Combined Space Operations Center floor, not 24 hours a day. and 7 days a week at the moment, but they have the ability to call the CSpOC floor and they can say, “Here’s what I’m experiencing.”

The CIC, launched in 2015 as a pilot program, facilitates the sharing of real-time information and threats between military and commercial satellite operators.

Hughes Network Systems, Maxar Technologies, Eutelsat America Corp., SpaceX, Inmarsat, SES Government Solutions, Intelsat General Communications, Iridium Communications, Viasat and XTAR are long-standing members of the CIC.

Schiess said that while there is no limit on the number of companies that can join the CIC, the challenge lies in the Space Force’s ability to effectively manage all of those connections.

“Do we have the number of personnel? How many people does it take to do this? I don’t see an upper limit to the ability to bring in companies. The question is simply how to manage these connections? » said Schiess.

The CIC is located at Vandenberg Space Station in California. All CIC companies sign non-disclosure agreements to ensure that any information shared between CIC members remains confidential and is not used for competitive advantage or profit.

The program played an important role when an Intelsat satellite broke up unexpectedly in orbit: the company quickly informed Space Command, allowing it to issue a public alert about the debris generated by the breakup of the satellite. satellite and to warn other operators of the potential risks of collision.

“We knew this information because this company spoke to us right away. We also had our own people review it, and we were much quicker to get that information out to other people than in the past because we could work together with our business entities,” Schiess said.

SPACECOM also launched the Joint Commercial Operations Cell, formerly known as the Joint Task Force-Space Defense Commercial Operations Cell, designed to integrate commercial space capabilities with military operations. The cell includes a network of allies, partners, academia and industry contributing to space operations 24/7 around the world.