The SPACECOM list includes almost $704 million for three unnamed classified programs, as well as $90 million to fund a trio of classified Navy electronic warfare-based "counterspace" capabilities.
"It's not going to be like a 'boom' milestone delivery where one day there's nothing and the next day, there's a finished system," Richard DalBello, director of the Office of Space Commerce, said of the swap from DoD to Commerce.
"I would imagine that as Department of Commerce continues to mature this concept, we will definitely want to take advantage of what they're doing," said Vice Chief of Space Operations Gen. Michael Guetlein.
Technologies being explored include "lunar power; mining and commercial in-situ resource utilization; communications, navigation, and timing; transit, mobility, and logistics; and construction and robotics," according to DARPA.
The Space Force, in essence, wants to move the 2018-conceived Unified Data Library from a card catalog system to a machine-to-machine search engine using artificial intelligence tools.
The COMSPOC study included a look at risks from unannounced rendezvous and proximity operations — such as those being routinely performed by the Russian "inspector" satellite Luch/Olymp that have raised hackles at the Defense Department — and the risks to US military satellites cause by mis-plotting the trajectories of adversary birds.
"Providing space operators with relevant, timely data can help to prevent operational surprise and support efforts to protect and defend space assets," a recent report to Congress on Pentagon space policy and strategy says.
The Ohio Air National Guard's 178th Wing on Aug. 10-11 hosted the annual Vulcan Guard space exercise, that this year included personnel from US Space Command, the Brazilian military and all seven National Guard states conducting space operations.
IARPA hopes to transition the results of its debris detection and tracking research to the Space Force, NASA and other Defense Department and intelligence agencies.
The changes included, among other things, the removal some restrictions on non-Earth imaging and rapid revsits of ground targets, NOAA explained, "and most notably," a removal of all of the restrictions imposed in 2020 on X-band synthetic aperture radar (SAR).
Russian and Chinese anti-satellite tests are responsible for "pretty much 20 percent" of "conjunction" warnings, that is predictions that two space objects are likely to collide, in 2022, said the State Department's Eric Desautels.
"As the world gets more complicated, and there are more and more [space situational awareness] providers, the issue of who pays will be one which continually gets battered around," said Richard DalBello, the Office of Space Commerce.
The draft National Space Authorization Act would also push Space Force on integrating commercial data and on over-classification of space programs.
The NRO is planning to award new contracts for commercial satellite imagery, perhaps including that of other satellites, the spy-sat agency's head of commercial operations, Pete Muend, said today.
DoD is working with Commerce to provide expertise on how to crunch space observational data, said Travis Langster, DoD principal director for space policy.