Jane Edwards
The U.S. Space Force is soliciting information on potential vendors with a capability to develop live, virtual and on-orbit space cyber test and training events as part of efforts to prepare cyber professionals for future space challenges.
The service said Thursday the RFI intends to support the evaluation of the Department of the Air Force’s readiness to transition to a wartime posture against a peer competitor, which is one of the seven operational imperatives set by the secretary of the Air Force for the department in 2022.
The other six imperatives are defining resilient space order of battle and architecture; achieving operationally optimized Advanced Battle Management System and Air Force Joint All Domain Command and Control; defining the next generation air dominance system of systems; achieving moving target engagement at scale; defining optimized resilient basing, sustainment and communications in a contested environment; and defining the B-21 long range strike family of systems.
“Where possible, the Air Force would like to understand within your responses how your technology and operational concepts for this imperative could enable, connect, and contribute across all 7 imperatives,” the RFI reads.
Interested stakeholders should state in their responses their ability to incorporate independent cyber tools into the cyber environment for professionals to respond to various threat scenarios and capability to integrate cyber capabilities for terrestrial-based satellite control/ground stations and system-agnostic, space-based systems.
Other areas of interest cited in the RFI are artificial intelligence and/or machine learning to automate red and blue representations to respond to tactics, techniques and procedures throughout mission scenarios; integration of data from sensor data libraries into mission scenarios for planning or during execution; and incorporation of digital engineering models into the cyber environment.
According to the notice, the Department of the Air Force may want to carry out proof-of-concept assessments and prototype evaluations and buy small quantities of hardware for qualification and continued testing.
Responses to the RFI are due March 17.
