U.S. Space Force officials said the service is close to completing a plan to build a commercial space reserve meant to assure military access to commercial satellites in the event of a conflict, SpaceNews reported Wednesday.
Gen. Chance Saltzman, chief of space operations and a 2023 Wash100 awardee, said the Commercial Augmentation Space Reserve program focuses on “doing the planning and the expectation management before you actually need the capability.”
It would “pre-work the contract vehicles, stating how we would get access to services rapidly if we needed to, so that when the crisis occurs, we don’t then start the contracting action and we’ve already done a lot of that legwork,” according to Saltzman.
Lt. Gen. Michael Guetlein, commander of Space Systems Command, said Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall, a four-time Wash100 awardee, has greenlighted the initiative. Funding for CASR, he added, would be sought in the 2025 and 2026 budgets.
“We’re hoping that it will be rolled out by the administration this fall,” Guetlein said of the CASR program.
With CASR, the Space Force will make agreements with companies to make sure the U.S. government has priority for remote sensing, satellite communications and other related services during national security emergencies.
