Space Force expands top secret intel-sharing program with industry to support new mission areas

A Space Force effort dedicated to improving partnerships between the military and commercial space industry has added five new vendors to its cohort and will soon begin supporting two additional mission areas, the service announced Wednesday.

Companies that are part of the Space Force’s Commercial Integration Cell (CIC) will now be able to share and receive information at the top secret security clearance level for the service’s space domain awareness (SDA) and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) missions, according to officials. With the addition of five new CIC members, a total of 15 vendors are now part of the effort.

Started as a pilot in 2015, CIC allows companies that have existing contracts with the U.S. government to receive top secret security clearance and insight into the Space Force’s current operations and planning. Along with the new SDA and ISR mission areas, the effort has previously focused on satellite communications and imagery. 

A key benefit to the program is back-and-forth information sharing between the service and vendors already providing capabilities for CIC’s mission areas, Lt. Gen. Douglas Schiess, commander of Space Forces — Space, said Wednesday during a webinar hosted by the Mitchell Institute.

“What that means is, when they’re a member of the CIC, they literally could have a person from their company, as long as they were cleared, sit in the [Combined Space Operations Center] with us,” Schiess said. “Most of them don’t tend to do it. Some come for a little bit, they get their folks trained, and then they go back. But they have the connections there.”

At the same time, CIC serves as a venue for commercial industry to provide feedback to the Space Force about business perspectives, capability requirements and technology solutions, according to officials.

The CIC is one of several ongoing efforts at the Pentagon that are intended to help the department leverage a fast-growing commercial space industry for warfighting missions. One of the key issues for commercial firms has been the ability to receive updated and rapid information about current and ongoing threats in the space domain — which has historically been highly classified.

Schiess did not immediately provide the names of the five companies that have been added as CIC partners, but noted that the Space Force is in the process of approving two more vendors for the cohort by early 2025 — bringing the total number of firms to 17.

Vendors in the program are also encouraged to collaborate and share data with each other, he said. For example, after Russia’s 2022 cyberattack on satellites operated by Viasat, a CIC member, the Space Force and other companies in the program received information about the attack.

“If there were things that that company found out, then they could also harden their ability to do that,” Schiess said. “We could provide information to them on maybe different satellites that are close to them, that might be listening satellites and things. And so we can provide that information to them on a fast basis.”