As concerns mount about whether the world’s industrial base can keep up with the demand for satellite production, the Space Force is working with its close allies to craft a strategy aimed at strengthening the space supply chain.
The effort started in earnest last fall, when the service’s primary acquisition arm, Space Systems Command, met with international partners and industry leaders to discuss supply chain challenges and identify areas for collaboration.
Now, that work is feeding a larger strategy to close supply gaps and strengthen the military space industrial base, command spokesman Edgar Nava told Defense News — a strategy that could be completed as soon as Fiscal Year 2025.
The command is currently working with the United Kingdom and Canada on the document and expects to partner with other nations as the effort moves forward, Nava told Defense News in an Aug. 8 statement.
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This global approach to shoring up space supply chains comes amid concern that the industrial base may not be positioned to support growing demand across military, civil and commercial markets. An April report by several U.S. government space agencies called for more collaboration among international partners to bolster supply chains for satellites, launch infrastructure and advanced communications.
“There are significant concerns regarding our collective production capacity, commercial production capacity and ability to source both the necessary quality and quantity,” the State of the Space Industrial Base report states.
Space Systems Command hopes to better understand how countries can work as a collective, both on the government level and within industry, to strengthen purchasing power, collaborate on shared requirements and reduce vulnerability within specific supply bases.
One challenge to that effort, Nava noted, is over-classification on certain programs or missions, which can limit how much information foreign governments share with allied partners.
Over-classification within the U.S. military space enterprise has received senior-level attention in recent years, with Space Force officials calling for changes to the policies that keep the service from sharing information and deepening its cooperation with key international partners.
The Pentagon is making some strides in this area, including a recent rewrite of its space classification policy that will lower information-sharing restrictions for some of its most secretive programs.
From the Space Force’s standpoint, continuing to reduce classification barriers could have very practical ramifications for international collaboration, allowing countries to share more detailed information about the processes and requirements that drive their industrial base so that other nations know how to better work with them.
“There are often unique requirements or processes within the international industrial base, such as limited need for repeatability of components which affects suppliers’ cost and performance objectives across the international supply chain networks,” Nava said. “This is where we need a more open classification approach to sharing those resources and investments with our international partners.”
Courtney Albon is C4ISRNET’s space and emerging technology reporter. She has covered the U.S. military since 2012, with a focus on the Air Force and Space Force. She has reported on some of the Defense Department’s most significant acquisition, budget and policy challenges.
