Pentagon Eyes New Manufacturing Tech to Bolster Strained Space Supply Chain

Amid growing concern about supply chain issues, the Pentagon’s commercial innovation hub is seeking companies with advanced manufacturing expertise to help bolster the space industrial base.

In a new solicitation, the Defense Innovation Unit calls for proposals from commercial firms that use AI-enabled software tools, digital design, and adaptive manufacturing to produce key space system parts at scale.

“The [Department of War] seeks commercial solutions to prototype and demonstrate responsive and adaptive production methods with the goal of creating a resilient, adaptive, and agile domestic space supply chain capable of on-demand production at an unprecedented scale,” DIU said in a Nov. 14 notice.

The solicitation comes amid a major shift in the way the Space Force architects its satellite constellations. Whereas in the past it has pursued smaller fleets of large, complex satellites, the service is now planning larger constellations comprised of small, low-cost, commercially derived spacecraft for some missions, as a means to improve resiliency and augment its more bespoke systems.  

The Space Development Agency, which is fielding a constellation of hundreds of data transport and missile warning and tracking satellites, has been at the forefront of this transition and has struggled to deliver capability on time due to production and supply chain issues. Some of those setbacks originated during the COVID-19 pandemic, which crippled global supply chains. In other cases, smaller suppliers have struggled to deliver large quantities of key parts, like optical communication terminals and encryption devices. 

Speaking last December at the annual Reagan National Defense Forum in Simi Valley, Calif., former Vice Chief of Space Operations Gen. Michael Guetlein—who now leads the Pentagon’s Golden Dome project—said SDA’s supply chain challenges should serve as a warning to other military space agencies. 

“We are single-supplier deep across multiple fronts,” Guetlein said. “These challenges are significant, and we need to figure out how to get after them.” 

In its notice, DIU said its goal is to help reorient the domestic space industrial base toward on-demand, high-volume production, which it defines as the ability to deliver hundreds of units per month to thousands of units per year. 

“This legacy approach cannot meet current demand, which is driven by a dramatic increase in heavy lift launch capacity, cadence (trending towards a launch every day), and the need for proliferated satellite architectures,” the notice states. “The existing exquisite supply chain will not scale without significant government investment and is unlikely to achieve the production levels needed to support the warfighter in times of conflict.” 

Specifically, DIU is looking for firms that have an established production capability and can quickly produce high-need satellite components like star-trackers, propulsion tanks, batteries, radiation-hardened electronics, and thrusters. Companies must be able to produce flight-ready hardware within three months of award, and their supply chains need to either be U.S.-based or linked to allied countries.

The notice also seeks proposals from system integrators that could partner with suppliers and advanced manufacturing firms to design, test, and produce these components.  

“We will form teaming arrangements from the down-selected companies to collectively meet the needs of this [area of interest] through an iterative process of digital design, adaptive building, operational test, and independent qualification,” DIU states.