Goal is to create virtual, immersive environments that train Guardians and rapidly develop systems
By Courtney Albon
WASHINGTON — Last fall, the U.S. Space Force gave defense companies an unprecedented look at its initial plan to make missile warning satellites more resilient against potential threats from China.
The business fair was unique in a few ways. It offered industry a deeper understanding of the challenges the service expects to face over the next few decades as adversaries advance space and missile technology and test on-orbit weapons. It also paired that analysis with a roadmap of the capabilities the Space Force thinks it needs to protect against these growing threats — work the service doesn’t typically reveal until much later in the acquisition process.
Perhaps the most significant feature of that October 2021 meeting was that the models it shared with industry to show its analysis of the space environment and the counter-space threats were all digital.
Speaking at the Air and Space Force Conference in National Harbor, Md., last month, Chief of Space Operations Gen. Jay Raymond said the meeting and those models were a first step toward creating what the service calls a “digital thread,” which is essentially a virtual record of a product that continues throughout its lifecycle.
The idea, he said, is for programs to have that thread from the beginning, making it easier to define capability gaps, build a system, test it, inject into a simulated training environment and operate it over time.
“If we do this right, we can take everything from force design to requirements . . . to acquiring the capabilities and testing the capabilities and training our Guardians on those systems — all using the same digital thread,” Raymond said Sept. 20. “That’s nirvana. We’re not close to that. But we’ve taken a good step. We’ve done the digital design, we’re figuring out what that digital requirements process is, and I think it’s going to pay significant dividends for us as we move forward.”
While the thread is central to the Space Force’s vision to be the world’s first fully digital military branch, it’s only one piece. Last May, the service released a vision document that laid out its priorities in this area, which include developing a “digitally fluent” workforce, connecting its field commands in a virtual environment and ensuring that decision-making is informed by data.
Lisa Costa, the Space Force’s Chief Technology and Innovation Officer, told C4ISRNET in an interview that as the service’s leader on implementing this digital vision, her team is focused on three critical areas: creating virtual, immersive environments to train Guardians and develop systems; working with industry to procure digital infrastructure; and identifying future problem sets and capabilities to inform technology and research investments.
Continue reading… “Space Force’s digital push focuses on ‘Spaceverse’”
