“We have a role to play, but we are not the leadership,” said Gen. Chance Saltzman, who was the Space Force’s top general until his retirement in August. “I just don’t want to be caught flat-footed when we start protecting U.S. interests out there, so we’re there.”
Now the Pentagon has taken the first step toward a “Cislunar Space System,” a constellation of military satellites that the military says it is considering deploying around the moon. The new RFI was published by the Department of the Air Force and is dated November 2nd. It calls on companies to inform the military of their ability to provide “rapid” and “low-risk” solutions to support the government’s “technical and programmatic objectives.”
The document provided few details about what the Pentagon plans to do with the Cislunar space system around the moon, other than to say it will consist of up to five spacecraft, each with a government-provided payload, in late 2029 to meet military “mission needs.”
The RFI suggests a vision for a much larger satellite fleet in cislunar space. The first five satellites “could serve as seed vehicles that will influence the acquisition strategy for a potentially future proliferating cislunar constellation,” the RFI said.
“The government intends to award up to five firm, fixed-price contracts for preliminary design studies after the government considers market information collected with this RFI and any other sources of information relevant to the effort,” military officials wrote on the government procurement website.
Responses must be submitted by November 24th. It is unclear when the Pentagon will move forward with firm contracts, and the language in the RFI does not require the military to do so. The standard commercial satellite development cycle can take two or three years, so it’s certain that military officials want contracts signed sometime in 2027 to meet their 2029 schedule goal.
