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Since its inception in 2019, the U.S. Space Force has been an early and frequent adopter of commercial technology across its programs.
For the U.S. Space Force, using commercially derived technology is no longer a recommendation; in 2026, it is an imperative.
The Pentagon is embracing commercial acquisition processes and technology at a greater level, as the six-year-old Space Force has capitalized on a robust market and a growing pool of vendors developing satellites at scale.
- Congress quadruples the force’s commercial space services budget for 2026
- “No-kidding” CASR contracts to be awarded by year-end
Recent executive orders, the fiscal 2026 defense funding bill and new solicitations underscore alignment among the White House, Congress and the Space Force toward a shared goal: Buy off-the-shelf technology and services wherever possible.
Commercial integration is not new to the U.S. military. But innovation in the private sector and investment in dual-use technologies have accelerated sharply in recent years, said Col. Tim Trimailo, director of the Space Force’s Commercial Space Office.
“We would be foolish if we didn’t take advantage of commercial space capabilities,” he told reporters at a recent conference in Los Angeles.
The U.S. government has promoted and regulated commercial space technology under multiple administrations since the era of President Ronald Reagan. Still, implementation of new policies for major space programs has been “mixed at best,” The Aerospace Corp. and the European Space Policy Institute wrote in a January report. NASA’s Commercial Orbital Transportation Services and Commercial Resupply Services programs in the 2000s and 2010s prompted “a significant shift in the relationship between U.S. government agencies and the private sector for civil space activities,” moving away from traditional, heavily regulated contracts, the report states.
The Space Force has accelerated its commercial push since its inception in 2019. The service released its first Commercial Space Strategy in 2024 and stood up new offices and initiatives to draw in nontraditional companies. The White House issued an executive order on space superiority in December in which the adoption of commercial space technology is urged nearly a dozen times.
Industry has responded to meet the Pentagon’s appetite for commercial products. Global investment in space technology reached a 12-month record of $12.4 billion in 2025, driven in part by rising defense spending in the U.S. and Europe, according to investment firm Seraphim Space. U.S. companies captured 60% of that total, or $7.3 billion.
The Space Force has awarded more than $700 million to small businesses under initiatives designed to bridge the “Valley of Death,” the critical phase between research and development and full-scale production where technologies can fail. Venture capital and private equity investors have backed that support with $1.9 billion, Maj. Gen. Stephen Purdy, the service’s senior military officer for space acquisition, said at the conference.
Congress has reinforced that momentum. The recently passed defense appropriations bill funded the commercial services budget line at nearly $169 million, compared with the Pentagon’s $36.6 million request. The amount marks a fourfold increase over 2025, says Robert S. Wilson, director for strategy and national security at The Aerospace Corp.’s Center for Space Policy and Strategy.
“Among all the Space Force research and development budget lines, this one grew the most from the request to the appropriations,” Wilson tells Aviation Week.
Lawmakers directed the Space Force to expand investment in commercially derived position, navigation and timing; space-based environmental monitoring; and domain awareness. Much of the funding supports the service’s two-year-old online marketplace for Tactical Surveillance, Reconnaissance and Tracking, or TacSRT. Through the portal, combatant commanders request unclassified satellite data and analytics—rather than raw imagery—to meet mission needs. Vendors deliver those products directly to operational units.
Space Force leaders have touted TacSRT’s support to warfighters in Africa and South America, where data refresh rates often are in the range of 1.5-3 hr. Congress now wants the service to formalize the effort as a program of record and included $80 million in the bill to sustain and expand the vendor base.
The service has increasingly targeted mission areas where it can buy capabilities “as a service” instead of funding bespoke systems. Recent solicitations seek to tap existing on-orbit capabilities for environmental monitoring, space domain awareness, logistics and satellite deorbiting.
The Space Force is also advancing the Commercial Augmentation Space Reserve, or CASR, to access on-orbit capabilities that can surge during crises. After a two-year pilot, the service plans to award “no-kidding” contracts to space domain awareness providers, “so that if we end up in a crisis or conflict, these are contracts we can turn on very quickly,” Trimailo said. The service could later extend similar arrangements to TacSRT, launch and satellite communications vendors.
Meanwhile, an indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contract for low-Earth-orbit, satellite-based services has generated more than $800 million across 31 task orders since its 2023 launch, with 20 providers participating, the Space Force says. The contract originated in the Commercial Satellite Communications Office under the Defense Information Systems Agency. That office now resides within Space Systems Command, further consolidating the Space Force’s commercial portfolio.
The National Reconnaissance Office also has expanded its use of commercial capabilities, even as it continues to operate largely in the classified domain, tapping more flexible acquisition processes to reach a broader marketplace and shorten delivery timelines. The agency in February awarded its first batch of new commercial remote-sensing contracts to Sydney-based provider HEO for non-Earth imagery, London-based SatVu for medium-wave infrared imagery and U.S. supplier Sierra Nevada Corp. for radio-frequency capabilities.
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