Space Force Wants to Embrace Digital Culture

The Space Force said in a recently published vision document that it wants to promote digital capabilities among its military and civilian workforce. 

According to the “Vision for a Digital Service” document, the nascent service branch seeks to establish a digital culture and employ digitally minded and technology savvy personnel. The Space Force’s aspirational vision is anchored on the goal of becoming an interconnected, innovative, digitally dominant force.

Chief of Space Operations Gen. John Raymond, a 2021 Wash100 winner, told reporters that embracing a digital culture will strengthen the service’s capabilities to protect satellites from high-tech weapons such as electronic jammers and lasers, SpaceNews reported.  

He added that being a digital service will help the Space Force counter emerging threats and innovate weapons systems and business processes.

Raymond believes that it is necessary for Space Force personnel to be digitally fluent, efficient and agile given the service’s relatively small size. The goal, he said, is to maintain a highly skilled workforce despite having limited numbers. Some of the areas that the service wants its members to focus on are programming languages, machine learning and data analysis.

Service members train at the Department of the Air Force’s Digital University, where they take up courses such as digital product development, introduction to information technology infrastructure, data science and artificial intelligence and cybersecurity. 

Operators are also enrolled in coding boot camps to figure out how to write software for applications in space traffic control, satellite operations and space data analysis.