Description
Objective: The objective of this Phase I effort is to identify, assess, and demonstrate the feasibility of novel, non-missile-warning space and/or ground enabled sensing and analytic capabilities that can deliver rapid, commercially derived insights with meaningful operational utility. The effort seeks concepts that enhance geospatial tactical awareness, reduce operational risk, and provide operators with timely, relevant, and resilient information in contested environments. Phase I will evaluate scientific and technical feasibility, characterize expected performance, and define the minimum viable capability that can be matured into a rapidly fieldable prototype in Phase II. Description: This topic seeks to rapidly field non-missile-warning, space and/or ground enabled sensing and analytic capabilities that enhance warfighter decision speed. Space Force Components and Combatant Commands increasingly depend on commercially derived, space and/or ground enabled insights, but existing systems lack the responsiveness, automation, and sensing diversity needed for real-time tactical awareness. Adversary advancements and dynamic operational environments have outpaced traditional acquisition approaches, creating critical gaps that Tactical Surveillance, Reconnaissance, and Tracking (TacSRT) is working to solve. Aligned with the Space Force Commercial Space Strategy, this topic solicits innovative, unclassified concepts across the sensing-to-analysis continuum including data collection, phenomenology exploitation, analytic fusion, and information delivery that can deliver meaningful operational utility within one year. Proposed solutions may introduce new sensing or analytic methods or significantly advance existing commercial approaches. An initial operational capability (IOC) is defined as a functional prototype that provides testable outputs directly to operators. Solutions may include hardware, software, analytic tools, sensing concepts, data-processing architectures, or integrated workflows. Stand-alone capabilities and service-based models are acceptable, and performers may leverage commercial space-as-a-service or existing commercial space infrastructure. Approaches must deliver timely, operationally relevant insights without requiring government development of new space hardware. Representative in-scope areas include novel phenomenology sensing, automated exploitation pipelines, multi-sensor fusion, change detection, activity characterization, material or environmental signature analysis, deep maritime or littoral monitoring, rapid-revisit analytics, unconventional sensing approaches, space-to-air or space-to-ground tipping and cueing, high-cadence environmental insight, incorporation of AI/ML, and fusion of structured or unstructured data. Out-of-scope areas include missile warning/tracking, kinetic interceptors, satellite buses, and launch vehicles. The overarching intent is to operationalize commercial capabilities rapidly and ensure warfighters receive meaningful, unique insights at the speed of need. The intent of this effort is not focused on Operational Planning Product (OPP) generation through the Global Data Marketplace but targets a new innovative solution (view Reference 1 for additional context). Keywords: TacSRT; space sensing; analytics; surveillance; reconnaissance; tracking; terrestrial; space-to-ground; fusion; change detection; downlink; automated exploitation; maritime awareness; environmental monitoring; decision making; situational awareness; AI-ML CMMC Level: Level 2 (Self)