By all appearances, those ambiguities are the largest impediments to truly integrating commercial space.

The CRAF model might work well for some space services (the aforementioned SATCOM and imagery, for example) but be entirely wrong for others (such as launch). But we still don’t have similar mechanisms for satellite communications (SATCOM), nor for launch - the two most heavily commercialized space services - never mind other commercial space services.Īnd the Space Force is still uncertain exactly which space services could or should be commercialized, or even what that really means. To be fair, the recent draft request for proposal from the NRO includes a clause that looks suspiciously like the ones you would find in an AMC CRAF contract (see the July 30th story in Breaking Defense). Why, then, do we still struggle with figuring out similar approaches for commercial space? CRAF was clearly seen then as a necessary component of US war planning and has remained part of that planning for over half a century in a program managed by the Air Force’s Air Mobility Command (AMC). Many Americans awoke this past Sunday morning to an unfamiliar headline, “Pentagon Orders Airlines to Help with Afghan Evacuees.” Despite the fact that the Civil Reserve Air Fleet (CRAF) has existed in some form since the 1950s, and been activated at least twice since its inception, most did not know that airlines could be “ordered” to work for the Department of Defense - nor how the origins of the CRAF are relevant to space today.īeginning just shortly after the end of World War II, the US military began to clearly understand they would never be able to simultaneously afford the number and types of aircraft or aviation personnel required during peace, plus be able to meet their most demanding needs during war - and so CRAF was born. Here, he presents an argument explaining how Air Force doctrine drove decisions on creating the Civil Reserve Air Fleet and how similar doctrinal understanding can help inform the Pentagon’s use of commercial space. As one of the key voices leading to the standup of the Space Force, Loverro has a deep understanding of the issues surrounding space doctrine and concepts of operation.

(File)ĭoug Loverro, president of Loverro Consulting, is the former deputy assistant secretary of defense for space policy and a former NASA associate administrator for human exploration. How the Space Force views commercial launch should be reconsidered, Doug Loverro says. ULA’s Delta IV GPS III Magellan mission launch.

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