Key Takeaways:

• With space rapidly emerging as the most critical warfighting domain, U.S. it is essential that our Space Force Guardians levrage a common operational space picture to operate in coordination with our armed services and coalition partners.
• A common data layer is the best solution for the Space Force to enable a data-centric operational environment that will accelerate decision making from the enterprise level to the edge in real time to stay ahead of our adversaries.
• Enriching the common data layer with AI and external data will multiply situational awareness and agile dynamic targeting capability to achieve decision advantage in space.

Future conflicts are likely to be fought by a coalition of the willing. Waging war in coordination with coalition partners demands a shared operational picture across the armed services, with foreign allies, and across air, land, sea, cyber, and space domains. Integrating forces through a common data layer is essential to increase situational awareness and orchestrate fires for multi-domain operations.

SPACE IS THE ULTIMATE HIGH GROUND

With space now a warfighting domain, integration of space data through digital warfare dominance is key for U.S. Space Force Guardians who must seamlessly share data to operators. Guardians require a common operational space picture to contribute to space control and counterspace operations, as well as multi-domain employment across joint and combined forces. Faced with stovepipe challenges, which exist across all the services and at the joint level, the U.S. Space Force is nonetheless charged with holding the ultimate high ground: the space domain.

A data-centric approach to integrating systems, services, partners, and missions is essential for achieving decision advantage in space. Interconnected operations demand not only a change in technology, but also a shift away from service-specific mindsets toward shared, mission-driven collaboration. Moving from a network-centric to a data-centric model enables faster, more informed decisions. With the right technology investments, partners can operate within an adaptive ecosystem that supports secure, real-time data sharing and coordinated actions across domains.

A data-centric, networked approach to integrating systems, services, partners, domains, and missions is essential to achieve decision advantage in space. While interconnected warfighting requires a shift from service-specific mindsets and operational norms, it also requires a shift from a network-centric to data-centric paradigm. The right investments in modern technologies can enable this shift. What results is an adaptive ecosystem where partners can share data in real time to support coordinated battle decisions.

CREATE A COMMON DATA LAYER:
CONNECT DISPARATE DATA WITH ACCESS CONTROLS

Enhancing the enterprise data layer is the best solution for the Space Force to enable this data-centric paradigm and accelerate decision making from the enterprise level to the edge. In simple terms, a common data layer allows the right data to get to the right decision maker at the right time. All domain warfighting needs real-time connectivity across all domains to support warfighters down through all echelons to the tactical edge.

There are “zero-trust for data” platforms that create a common data layer and are well suited for the DoD environment. With fine-grain attribute-based access control, these platforms support the integration and analysis of data from federated data sources of varying classification levels. Combined with best-in-class data management services for rapid data transport, ingestion, and indexing, these platforms support end-to-end, multi-level security. Data tagging capability safeguards clearance levels, unlocking data that was previously fully restricted due to classification for sharing among authorized personnel. And very importantly, zero-trust solutions enable a leap ahead in cyber security over current/legacy network centric architectures.

Using a high-volume, low-latency data layer built on zero trust principles, Guardians can rapidly integrate millions of records per second from structured, unstructured, and real-time streaming data sources. This enables timely preparation of data for low-latency ingestion into decision-support applications and analytics platforms. These platforms synchronize and prioritize data flows to deliver precise information where it’s needed most. Even in disconnected, degraded, intermittent, or limited (DDIL) environments, they ensure resilient access to targetable data across operational domains.

A common data layer can evolve and adapt. Sustained effectiveness requires ongoing monitoring and optimization, security enhancements, and continuous development to ensure the common data layer is optimized for reliability, responsiveness, and scalability, all of which are necessary to adapt to shifting operational requirements.

With a common data layer, Guardians can enable data processing at the edge. For example, the Space Development Agency’s on-orbit assets are being built by multiple vendors. As part of SAIC’s work to build and deliver the BMC3 Application Factory, we are developing the secure interoperable layer (SIL). The SIL will be composed of middleware that ensures mission applications from many developers can operate on the various satellite providers’ hardware.

ACCELERATE THE TIME TO DECISION:
BRING DATA TO WARFIGHTERS – QUICKLY AND SECURELY

Securely bringing data together to empower Guardians to make more informed decisions faster is paramount. With a common data layer, the Space Force can automate processes that are currently manual and support higher order analytics and artificial intelligence (AI). In essence, AI makes the common data layer an even more powerful enabler of data interoperability. The DoD and IC can connect and implement new technologies at an accelerated pace.

For many command and control and intelligence challenges, AI cannot be fully effective when the data is trapped in legacy stovepipes. This is because a single AI application only has access to part of the data needed. Meshing of Title 10 (operational) and Title 50 (intelligence) data offers improved options to detect and counter threats earlier in the engagement cycle—such as targeting threats before launch. A common data layer eliminates these stovepipes, allowing AI tools to access all relevant inputs and provide better decision support across the joint force. Commands can increase or connect multiple data layers, deepen analytics capabilities, and scale data analysis and interoperability quickly—with both speed and precision.

AI orchestration tools can be added onto the common data layer to support such capability. Using cutting-edge algorithms and a scalable architecture, these tools sift through vast amounts of data, prioritize information, and present actionable intelligence. This is key in C5ISR environments where the velocity, volume, and variety of data exceed human cognitive limits. By effectively managing sensor inputs, intelligence feeds, and various communication streams, AI orchestrators direct targeted and timely information to commanders, operators, and warfighters.

The best of these orchestration tools are highly adaptable and have robust integration capabilities. In the complex landscape of C5ISR, where systems and platforms are often a mix of legacy and modern technologies, AI orchestrators can be a unifying force. They seamlessly integrate with various data sources and platforms, using AI to harmonize the information collected. This data harmonization improves interoperability and provides the common operational space picture for coordinated action.

By leveraging these tools’ machine learning and predictive analytics capabilities, operators can forecast potential threats and suggest courses of action to mitigate countermeasures. AI algorithms analyze historical and real-time data to identify patterns, anomalies, and correlations that might signify emerging threats or opportunities. With this predictive threat analysis, C5ISR operators can share forward looking intelligence grounded in pre-emptive actions with joint and coalition forces. This anticipatory intelligence is essential for maintaining a tactical edge in complex and dynamic operational theaters.

The most useful orchestration tools support both “high-code, high-customization” and “low-code, no-code” capabilities that allow non-technical users to do meaningful work in secure environments. This ability to meet users where they are in terms of capability is very valuable in operational environments where resources and specialized expertise may be limited.

MULTIPLY IMPACT WITH NETWORK INTEGRATION:
CONNECT THE COMMON DATA LAYER WITH EXTERNAL DATA

Enriching the common data layer with external data can significantly expand situational awareness and enrich the value of information shared in coordinated operations. Strategically valuable external data sources include national intelligence data, DoD sensor data, coalition partner data, and open-source data.

To facilitate this integration, the underlying architecture must allow for the seamless integration of multiple and adapting battlespace networks to “feed” the common data layer. Once integrated, the networks must be resilient and have the speed, functionality, and interoperability to continually push data to the common data layer. When data is government owned, and the government has all of the data rights, the Space Force can access and use any data via the common data layer. Further, this data can be distributed to any authorized user and vendor through customizable applications that are enabled via APIs.

With this foundation, the Space Force can use AI to develop applications that address specific role and task queries while protecting classified information. The AI homes in on relevant data, finding the proverbial needle in the haystack amid vast data inputs to support commanders’, operators’, and warfighters’ situational needs.

SPECIFIC. SECURE. SHARED. DATA INTEROPERABILTY FOR MODERN WARFARE

Moving the Space Force from traditionally benign operations to employment within highly contested environments relies on high data capacity, processing, and bandwidth to push information among elements to compress critical kill chains. As such, stovepiped communication networks and mission command systems are liabilities for the Space Force in the modern era. By developing a common data layer, accelerating decision timelines, and integrating external data, the Space Force can improve data interoperability across all operational levels. This creates a more agile, extensible, and dynamic targeting environment—one essential for confident battlefield decisions and achieving decision advantage in space.

LEARN MORE

SAIC has extensive experience helping the DoD achieve data interoperability to accelerate battlespace effectiveness and support operations in global and digitally integrated warfighting environments. To learn more about how to facilitate secure and efficient data-sharing among combatant partners, please contact:

Joshua W. Conine
Director, Business Development – Space and Intelligence Business Group

Mathew Hungerford
Chief Technology Officer – Space and Intelligence Business Group

Learn more about All-Domain Warfighting