Space Force’s Commercial Reserve Fleet Moves Out of Pilot Phase

The Space Force’s work to establish a pool of at-the-ready commercial satellite capacity during a crisis is moving out of the pilot phase as the service prepares to award its next batch of contracts in 2026. 

The Commercial Augmentation Space Reserve, or CASR, is modeled on the Air Force’s Civil Reserve Air Fleet, which leases aircraft capacity from commercial airliners for use by the military during a conflict. The CRAF was last activated in 2021 to help evacuate U.S. personnel and refugees from Afghanistan.  

Through CASR, the Space Force is tapping commercial space firms to provide capabilities during peacetime that can be surged on demand. The Space Force first introduced the concept in 2022 and has been working since to develop a contracting strategy and establish an initial vendor pool. Participating companies get access to threat intelligence and will be included in training events and wargames to help the service understand how to integrate commercial services into its operations and to determine how much capacity it needs in specific regions. The first of these events took place in February and focused on space domain awareness. 

The program office plans to eventually implement the program across a number of commercial-heavy mission areas, including space domain awareness, satellite communications, and launch. Each mission it adds will move through a three-phased process, starting as a pilot, then scaling, and then ending as a mature operation. 

In March, the Space Force entered the pilot phase for space domain awareness, onboarding four companies with 90-day contracts worth a combined $1.1 million. The service opted not to name the firms due to security concerns. 

The space domain awareness pilot concluded in July, following a wargame in Colorado Springs, Colo. A spokesman for the program office told Air & Space Forces Magazine the program is now moving into the “scaling operations” phase. 

“This includes broadening the contract scope to support additional CASR wargames, other government exercises, and to support operational surge requirements,” the spokesperson said.  

Space Systems Command plans to release a solicitation early next year for the first “cohort” of vendors to participate in the scaling operations phase and aims to award all Phase 2 contracts by the end of 2026. The service requested $7.5 million for CASR in 2026 to fund contracts with up to 10 companies.  

The Space Force says it will likely need further support from Congress and other federal agencies to move the space domain awareness contracts into the “mature operations” phase. That means resolving looming questions around how to handle issues like financial protection for CASR companies whose satellites are damaged during a conflict.  

Another active discussion is how to prioritize U.S. military demand during a prolonged conflict. In that scenario, the service has discussed implementing a “denial of service” order to CASR companies, which would require them to cease selling capacity to certain customers or in certain regions based on capacity or security concerns. That option has raised concerns from some companies, who say it could impact existing contracts.  

“CASR mature operations will require more complex aspects of the program that may require congressional, interagency, and/or intergovernmental support,” the spokesperson said. “These specifics are being actively worked separately from the CASR scaling phase and will be awarded in future subsequent contract actions.” 

As the CASR program moves its domain awareness vendors into the scaling phase, it will also set its sights on new mission areas. Col. Rich Kniseley, who led USSF’s Commercial Space Office until this summer, said in April his team was exploring options to use CASR to manage supply chain risk and create an on-call vendor pool for tactically responsive space missions.  

The service hasn’t determined what its next mission area will be, but once it does, the spokesperson said, “the program office will initiate those pilots following the blueprint we’re establishing for the SDA mission set.”