Government-commercial space partnerships have long faced the paradox: water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink. Commercial space domain awareness (SDA) vendors produce oceans of near real-time data across global networks of radar, electro-optical and passive RF sensors that cannot be easily ingested by government systems.
Industry is eager to provide high value, low-cost SDA capabilities to the U.S. Space Force, and the Space Force is eager to utilize cutting-edge solutions that fit its mission. So, why has the path from commercial innovation to military operations been so challenging?
It’s a question that both sides have been actively working to answer. “I was asked recently by a very senior Space Force official essentially the exact same question,” said Slingshot Aerospace senior VP of global policy and government strategy, Audrey Schaffer. “If commercial is so great, why haven’t we done more of it?”
The tide is beginning to turn. Technological and institutional barriers are beginning to come down. A new SDA software platform reached operational acceptance earlier this fall. The 2026 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) moved the needle favorably toward DoD exploiting commercial services. And a series of executive actions are prioritizing speed to capability, streamlined requirements and modernized acquisitions.
Not every problem has been addressed, but momentum is growing to meet one of Space Force’s most critical priorities: the ability to track, characterize and respond to activity in an increasingly complex space domain.
The Current Architecture
In the six short years since its establishment, the U.S. Space Force has built multiple pathways for commercial integration—the Joint Commercial Operations (JCO) space data marketplace, the Commercial Integration Cell (CIC), the Commercial Augmentation Space Reserve (CASR), plus SpaceWERX technology accelerators and incubators, and the SDA Tools, Applications and Processing (TAP) Lab.
Today, the JCO is the main channel for purchasing commercial SDA. Housed under Space Systems Command (SSC), it’s the first multinational commercial space data-sharing cell that works at the classified and unclassified level to support 18 partner nations.
Government and commercial data are uploaded to the Unified Data Library (UDL), a cloud-based repository and data federation environment where information can be pulled from various commercial and government sensors, fused and shared across missions. The UDL serves thousands of users across more than two dozen countries.
Expanding UDL accessibility—and access to commercial SDA solutions—is one of the missions of ATLAS, the Advanced Tracking and Launch Analysis System, an SDA software platform designed to replace the legacy Space Defense Operations Center (SPADOC). In September 2025, SSC announced ATLAS reached operational acceptance, a critical milestone for the program that has been described as one of Space Force’s “problem children.”
ATLAS sits atop of Warp Core, a Palantir data management layer, designed to pull information from the UDL. Together, these systems form what the Space Force envisions as the Combined Space Operations Data Architecture (CODA)—a unified operational picture that will integrate government, commercial and allied sources.
Today, Space Force is working on an integration effort, the UDL API Gateway, to align UDL data formats with the ATLAS standard. The Gateway will act as a data broker to process federated datasets and push data into ATLAS for operational use.
The Operational Challenge
The UDL is a necessary bridge between commercial and government data sources, but its operational relevance has been questioned. A 2023 Government Accountability Office report found Space Force units responsible for tracking space objects weren’t using the UDL. Why? Because it wasn’t integrated into their operational systems. The report documented "significant disincentives for using the UDL,” such as operators having to manually search for data and route it through multiple data formatters before incorporating it into command and control systems.
Retired Col. Brian Bracy worked on ATLAS and its predecessor, the Joint Space Operations Center Mission System (JMS), and he is currently director of solutions architecture at Kratos. He explained there are significant technological and operational hurdles when moving from legacy systems to digital age solutions.
“If I’m an operator, I’ve been trained to read data off U.S.-owned systems that have been around and are more proven. Now, say I’ve got this cool new commercial radar, but it doesn’t fit into my system. How do I use that data to give the same internal approach I have with my legacy system?” he said. “It doesn’t fit.”
According to SSC, improvements in the UDL and ATLAS will begin to address this challenge.
“Enterprise architectures like UDL and ATLAS are enhancing how Guardians access and exploit federated data,” the Battle Management Command, Control, Communications, and Space Intelligence (BMC3I) Program Executive Office (PEO) said in a statement to Constellations.
“Because UDL functions as the backbone of SDA—quietly fusing inputs from innumerable sources—many Guardians may not even realize how much of their operational picture is already built on this federated data environment,” the PEO continued.
The Space Force recognized the challenges with operational acceptance and is working to accelerate how new capabilities are used in daily missions. According to the BMC3I PEO, “Emerging SDA innovation-to-ops (operations) pipelines are helping streamline evaluation, testing and integration of novel commercial and government tools.”
Overcoming Institutional Hurdles
Technology is not the only hurdle. Decades of institutional incentives have created cultural and acquisitions processes that cannot keep pace with identified threats. Chief of Space Operations Gen. Chance Saltzman recently addressed this in the context of actualizing the Commercial Space Strategy.
“The way we field systems in terms of testing is going to create new levels of discomfort for assurance of mission,” he told an audience at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “Are we ready to take on those uncomfortable feelings, take on the awkwardness of saying, ‘This is going to be done differently’? We’re going to be unanchored, unmoored for a little bit as we explore a better way to do this. That’s the real challenge that is in front of us.”
Both the U.S. legislative and executive branches are targeting reforms to make it easier for DoD to exploit commercial capabilities at speed. The White House’s April 2025 executive order on modernizing defense acquisitions and the November DoD acquisition reform memo restructuring acquisition authorities, signal a willingness to bridge the commercial-military technology gap.
In Congress, the 2026 NDAA initiated a series of acquisition reforms, including explicit authorization for services to purchase “consumption-based solutions” (e.g., software, hardware, data or labor as fixed-price units). This essentially validates the subscription model used by many SDA vendors. The legislation also reenforces “buy before build,” requiring agency heads to search for commercial solutions before building their own (i.e., they must make a “non-commercial determination”).
The TacSRT Model
Even with cultural and technological progress, reliable funding is a lingering source of frustration for JCO and industry. Currently, SDA vendors can win “agile” short-term contracts (approximately four to six weeks). According to the JCO, these short-term contracts help spur commercial competitiveness and innovation, but they tend to clash with commercial business models.
As recently as September 2025, the JCO announced a reorganization to provide more stability for acquiring commercial data and products and greater operational relevance across the joint force and U.S. allies. According to reports, JCO Director Barabara Golf said the reorganized cell would shift from an experimental testbed to an "enduring construct" designed to be "a data provider and analytical services provider" with staying power.
The shift that would position the JCO to routinely deliver commercial SDA data and analysis to Space Command and the 11 combatant commands. It would mirror the successful model of the Tactical Surveillance, Reconnaissance and Tracking (TacSRT) program, which JCO absorbed in October 2024.
TacSRT operates through the Global Data Marketplace to deliver short-term surveillance and tracking products at the request of the combatant commands. Already, the program has proven its value in providing rapid, on-demand imagery and analysis for humanitarian and force protection operations.
TacSRT’s success motivated the U.S. House of Representatives to establish it as a program of record in the 2026 NDAA. However, the approved compromise legislation curtailed the effort and authorized “a study on the feasibility and advisability of establishing a program of record for tactical surveillance, reconnaissance and tracking capabilities” by July 31, 2026. In total, Congress authorized $86.6 million for commercial TacSRT — up from approximately $60 million in the previous budget.
Slowly and Surely
For years, industry and government have been locked in a frustrating paradox: solutions everywhere, but few capabilities Space Force could operationalize. That’s changing.
Today, Space Force is closer than ever to fielding a modern SDA software system. The latest NDAA is validating commercial business models. And the JCO is working to anchor itself as an enduring capability. The barriers between commercial innovation and military operations are coming down. The water is starting to flow.
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