Space Force’s Online Marketplace Provides Opportunities for Data Analytics Companies

Col. Richard Kniseley, senior materiel leader of the Space Systems Command’s Commercial Space Office and a past Potomac Officers Club event speaker, said the Space Force-run online marketplace has provided defense, intelligence and civilian federal agencies with easier access to data and analytic services for their missions.

In the past four months alone, the marketplace, which supports the Tactical Surveillance, Reconnaissance and Tracking program, enabled contract awards worth $8 million, SpaceNews reported.

According to Knisely, the TacSRT has partnered with 30 commercial data and analytics vendors through the marketplace to provide military personnel worldwide with unclassified intelligence and deliver significant data insights to military commands.

The newly awarded contracts cover information about the activities of violent extremist organizations, humanitarian assistance, disaster relief and potential threats.

Like the data analytics companies, the remote-sensing industry sees the TacSRT program as an opportunity to work with government customers.

Jason Mallare, vice president of global solutions at Umbra, said data analytics firms have a supply chain of companies that includes remote-sensing businesses.

Eric Jensen, CEO of Iceye U.S., has a similar view, saying that the program “provides a nexus between analytic services and data providers.”