{"id":346215,"date":"2025-12-13T10:41:10","date_gmt":"2025-12-13T10:41:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/346215\/"},"modified":"2025-12-13T10:41:10","modified_gmt":"2025-12-13T10:41:10","slug":"space-force-officials-fear-program-delays-from-small-business-fund-fight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/346215\/","title":{"rendered":"Space Force officials fear program delays from small business fund fight"},"content":{"rendered":"

SPACEPOWER 2025 \u2014 Senior Space Force acquisition officials are worried about the impact of losing the ability to award Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grants as Congress wrestles<\/a> with reauthorization of Pentagon rights to use the program. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m actually very concerned,\u201d Maj. Gen. Stephen Purdy, acting space acquisition head for the Department of the Air Force, said today.<\/p>\n

SBIR grants are widely used by the Space Force to provide seed funds to commercial firms and startups, of which there are many in the space marketplace, he told reporters on the margins of the Space Force Association\u2019s Spacepower 2025 conference here in Orlando.<\/p>\n

Purdy explained that he agrees there are parts of the program that \u201cneed to be fixed,\u201d but that SBIR grants, along with the Strategic Funding Increase (STRATFI) and Tactical Funding Increase (TACFI) programs, \u201chave been very beneficial to the Space Force\u201d because of the \u201chuge industrial base\u201d of innovative commercial companies.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy only emphasis is, let\u2019s not throw the baby out with the bath water,\u201d Purdy said.<\/p>\n

STRATFI and TACFI were designed by the Air Force to \u201cbridge the valley of death\u201d for small firms between a Phase II SBIR grant and what is called Phase III, which is a contract that follows on from earlier SBIRs grants funded by other sources to transition a program into actual production, according to AFRL\u2019s website.<\/a><\/p>\n

Pudry stressed that SBIRs not only help the service get new blood and new thinking into the technology development mix, but also benefit companies, especially startups funded by venture capital, by helping them obtain and maintain a stable funding base.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think what\u2019s lost sometimes in that whole discussion of the benefit of that whole process is there\u2019s a venture capital or private equity backing that happens to those companies that\u2019s part of that,\u201d he said. \u201c[B]ut venture capital and private equity only go so far. They want to see government interest. \u2026 And it turns out the SBIRs in Phase IIs\/Phase IIIs and STRATFIs and TACFIs are seen by private equity and venture capital as government interest.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd so that\u2019s where I\u2019m like, \u2018Oh man, I can\u2019t lose that vital feeder,’\u201d Purdy added.<\/p>\n

Kelly Hammett, director of the Space Rapid Capabilities Office (RCO), told reporters here Thursday that while he understands the reason for the SBIR debate during the discussions on Capitol Hill about the fiscal 2026 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), he also is concerned about the potential negative affects on his program plans.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis has been one of the contentious issues, and I actually see both sides of that coin. There are those who say you need the SBIR program to seed money into non-traditionals and bring new entrants into the portfolio. And then the critics say, \u2018Well, but what are we getting out of that?\u2019 Because the dollar thresholds are so low, you don\u2019t typically get a product out of them. You get a study,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

Space RCO has been \u201cattacking\u201d that problem by trying to raise the funding caps for SBIR awards and focusing its small grants on products and capabilities that are very close to being ready for prime time, Hammett explained.<\/p>\n

At least one of the office\u2019s efforts is in a holding pattern due to the congressional impasse, he said: a planned request for proposals (RFP) new program aimed at the development of \u201cagile\u201d satellite busses that enable greater maneuverability on orbit for surveillance and orbital warfare purposes.<\/p>\n

\u201c[W]e\u2019ve been trying to stimulate both industry interest in self-investment in IRAD [independent research and development], as well as tech maturation interest from AFRL [Air Force Research Laboratory] and SpaceWERX to start building out and developing and actually getting flight pedigree on systems that can move around in orbit,\u201d Hammett said.<\/p>\n

He explained that such highly maneuverable satellites \u201ccan do reconnaissance in space\u201d and provide more timely intelligence than the current constellation of Geosynchronous Space Situational Awareness Program (GSSAP) birds, which are \u201cnot very agile\u201d and take \u201ca long time to creep around the belt and take a look at things.\u201d<\/p>\n

Further, Hammett said, maneuverability is going to be key to fighting in space.<\/p>\n

\u201c[W]e need to be able to run away if bad guys are coming at us, and we need to chase them down if we\u2019re trying to conduct offensive space operations,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Hammett said that Space RCO held an industry day back in August that served as a \u201ckind of curation of vendors who were working on bus technology that\u2019s like this. And there are largely a bunch of new entrants; it\u2019s not your traditional defense primes. A number of them are here today: K2; Turion.\u201d<\/p>\n

K2 Space, headquartered in California, was founded in 2022 to build very large satellites that can be used in any orbit, and intends to launch its first \u201cmega-class\u201d satellite next March, according to a Dec. 11 <\/a>company press release. <\/p>\n

Turion Space, founded in 2020, also is based in California. It is focused on building a series of different sized spacecraft called DROIDs designed for (relatively) rapid and\/or long-duration maneuvering, as well as rendezvous and proximity operations, according to the firm\u2019s website. <\/a><\/p>\n

Hammett said the reason his office has not yet released the RFP is because they are not sure what the status of SBIR and TACFI funding for FY26 and beyond is going to be.<\/p>\n

That said, he noted that he believes there is a \u201ccommitment\u201d from AFRL and SpaceWERX to publish requests for information and fund \u201ca couple of STRATFI efforts\u201d if and when the SBIR authority is reauthorized.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SPACEPOWER 2025 \u2014 Senior Space Force acquisition officials are worried about the impact of losing the ability to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":346216,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[1340,172946,27349,79,153462,193,11716,172947,172177],"class_list":{"0":"post-346215","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-congress","9":"tag-kelly-hammett","10":"tag-maj-gen-stephen-purdy","11":"tag-science","12":"tag-small-business-innovation-research","13":"tag-space","14":"tag-space-force","15":"tag-space-rapid-capabilities-office","16":"tag-spacepower-2025"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346215","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=346215"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346215\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/346216"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=346215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=346215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=346215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}