U.S. Space Force’s Space Systems Command (SSC) may issue a solicitation for a “Hemisphere” contract under which SSC could pursue five task orders for industry to help SSC in weapons’ development and sustainment.
“The scope of this Performance Work Statement (PWS) is to offer Advisory and Assistance Services (A&AS) to develop, advance, and sustain weapon systems for Space Systems Command (SSC) Space Domain Awareness and Combat Power (SDACP) (SSC/SZ), Battle Management, Command, Control, and Communications (BMC3) (SSC/BC), and their mission partners,” SSC said in an Aug. 31 business notice.
“SSC/SZ-BC provides highly classified Space Domain Awareness systems, defensive and offensive space control capabilities, and space test range assets to satisfy current and
projected Department of Defense operational requirements,” the notice said. “SSC/SZ-BC develops, integrates, tests, deploys, sustains, and supports operations for systems that meet strategic and tactical operational needs. SSC provides unrivaled space systems to make sure survival for each the US Space Force and our nation. These systems span the whole acquisition life cycle. This contract will support multiple SSC/SZ-BC programs, in addition to various other Space Force, Air Force, and mission partner programs.”
While Space Force has not disclosed the event of any offensive, kinetic programs, the service has revealed several non-kinetic counterspace efforts, including COLSA Corp.’s Bounty Hunter system, a ground-based system providing satellite communications interference detection, which achieved initial operational capability on Aug. 7, 2020, and the Counter Communications System (CCS) Block 10.3 Meadowlands system by L3Harris Technologies [LHX].
SSC said that 300 full-time employees from multiple contractors are working on efforts much like Hemisphere, but declined to call the incumbents.
The Hemisphere pricing matrix includes 112 positions, lots of them engineers and acquisition/finance specialists in Colorado Springs and El Segundo, Calif., where SSC is on the lookout for a contractor to offer two Sensitive Compartmented Information Facilities (SCIFs) or Special Access Program Facilities (SAPFs).
Greater than 30 firms, including Science Applications International Corp. [SAIC], Booz Allen Hamilton [BAH], BlueHalo, Parsons Corp. [PSN] and KBR, Inc.‘s [KBR] KBR Wyle Services, LLC., participated in a Hemisphere industry day on Feb. 28.
DoD leaders have been pushing to extend the resilience of space systems, partly by moving toward using numerous low Earth orbit and medium Earth orbit satellites and away from the acquisition of a limited number of huge, costly satellites–“big, fat, juicy targets” within the words of retired Vice Chief of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Air Force Gen. John Hyten (, May 18, 2022).
“The very fabric that we operate our space capabilities inside is vulnerable to attack and ill-suited for a warfighting domain,” said Charles Galbreath, a senior resident fellow for space studies on the Mitchell Institute for Space Studies and the creator of a recent institute paper, . “The Space Surveillance Network [and] the Satellite Control Network—each have significant gaps and don’t provide one hundred pc connectivity or awareness of threats in space on a regular basis. Neither considered one of these is definitely suited to the warfighting domain of space.”