One of the most exciting developments in military space this past year was creation of the Commercial Integration Cell (CIC), allowing satellite operators from commercial companies to sit alongside military personnel at the Joint Space Operations Center (JSpOC) The goal was to enhance the JSpOC commander’s situational awareness of the space domain and develop tactics and procedures for combined operations, helping achieve a better integration of commercial satellite operators and the warfighter.
The CIC is a pilot program to see how information sharing and collaboration between DoD and commercial satellite operators can be improved. This program is being operated under Cooperative Research and Development Agreements (CRADAs) which are approved by the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) and address technology transfer challenges between Air Force activities and commercial collaborators. I had the honor of being assigned to the CIC project, and witnessed its success firsthand.
The CIC collaboration seeks to improve conjunction assessment and space object catalog maintenance; enhance rapid identification, diagnosis and resolution of RFI events; identify on-orbit anomalies; and increase overall resilience of government and commercial satellite operations. One particular focus was on exploring the possibility of machine-to-machine interfaces for the exchange of “ephemeris data,” numbers that indicate exact spacecraft locations.
There were six commercial companies that participated in the CIC:
- Intelsat General Corp
- SES-GS
- Eutelsat-America
- Iridium
- Inmarsat
- Digital Globe