WASHINGTON — The procurement arm of the U.S. Space Force is making a major push to work more closely with allies abroad and is pressing the Pentagon to adjust classification policies to allow for more open sharing of information with trusted international partners.
“We now have partnerships with 28 different countries, the majority of which just happened within the last 18 months,” Lt. Gen. Michael Guetlein, commander of the Space Systems Command, said Oct. 18 at the AFCEA Space Industry Days conference in Los Angeles.
The command’s office of international affairs is busier than ever, Guetlein said.
“We have SSC personnel now sitting in Australia, Belgium, Germany and Japan, and more to follow,” he said. “We have international allies sitting with us here in Los Angeles from the U.K., Germany, and soon from Australia.”
The Space Force is taking unprecedented steps to work with international partners because of the shared nature of the space domain and a surge in global investments in space technology. Challenges from space debris to cyberattacks and anti-satellite weapons are shared threats, and the Space Force argues they would be better met by linking arms with allies.
“We’ve been talking to our international allies about common interface standards,” Guetlein said, “so that whatever they build or whatever we build can easily be networked together in the future.”
He expects military sales of space hardware to allies — estimated at about $570.5 million for the past year — will skyrocket, said Guetlein. “My prediction is that in the next 12 to 24 months, it’s going to rise to more than $4 billion.”
For the first time, the U.S. will sell a satellite jammer known as Counter-Communications System to Australia, said Guetlein.
There are still obstacles, however, such as export controls that restrict sharing certain sensitive U.S. technologies, and classification policies that curtails access to…
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