The new US war game began with nuclear simulations on the way

In many ways, the Space Force has led the way for the Pentagon to develop deeper partnerships with commercial companies. The Space Force has made contracts with emerging space companies, which are not traditional, in military terms, to buy jobs, build satellites and payloads, and launch rockets. Commercial companies now or soon will provide the US military not only to communicate and launch missions, as they have done for many years, but high-resolution images, navigation, refueling, weather data, and monitoring other satellites in space, among others.

“I’ve said many times that I think the US trade business is a huge opportunity for us in the United States,” Whiting said. “Just look at the amount of money, the technology, the speed that they’re providing, and we need to expand that capability.”

Whiting said the Space Command and the Space Force could also use satellites as targets to test the military’s ability to continuously track an object through a “high delta-V” trajectory—a force that significantly changes its trajectory. Such communications could be used by enemy satellites to evade detection or launch attacks on US satellites.

“Ever since the Russian occupation of Ukraine, there’s been constant satellite communications, GPS communications, and often these companies are the first to notice this, so they let us know,” Whiting said. “Now, the question of whether these companies need to be reimbursed, or some other form of contracting that supports them at the level of risk they are considering, is something that the Office of the Secretary of War for Space Policy has recognized as a global issue that needs to be addressed.”