Industry Collaboration in CASR Ensures DoD Receives Critical Satellite Services
Leaders from the U.S. Space Force (USSF) and commercial SATCOM companies are working more closely to leverage innovative commercial space technology. This includes progress to ensure satellite communication services are prioritized for U.S. government use during national security emergencies. The collaboration will support the Commercial Augmentation Space Reserve (CASR) and help prepare a space-based framework envisioned as a voluntary partnership under which the Space Force can access pre-negotiated commercial space capabilities on demand during a crisis. These services will support surge demands for satellite communications, space situational awareness, and tactical surveillance and response missions.
Hughes is working with other leading commercial SATCOM providers to address CASR and its critical communications needs, including network management that will enable the Space Force to access thousands of U.S. military terminals and commercial gateways. Using these ground-based assets, warfighters will have uninterrupted communications with each other no matter what technology or system they need to operate.
The CASR Requires a Different Model for Commercial Satellite Industry to Fulfill its Role in Sustaining DoD Operations During Critical Conflicts
The USSF has worked for two years on the CASR initiative to integrate commercial space-based services into its defense architecture in peacetime and during conflict. Recently, the organization issued its initial pilot contracts for space situational awareness services and now needs to ramp up the other framework elements so CASR can be tested. Commercial satellite communications, the next piece of the framework, will play a pivotal role in this emergency capability.
The DoD and the Space Force understand that developing SATCOM capabilities during a crisis or conflict will be challenging. Presently, users have an insatiable demand for satellite communications for various missions and will require surge capability in times of crisis. To address this, the Space Force proposes that CASR becomes the framework to enable these critical operations, and in some cases, it will include actual pre-negotiated contracts based on warfighters’ needs. This approach will ensure rapid contract execution and increased satellite communications capacity when a crisis occurs.
The work to create CASR has been based on the U.S. Air Force’s Civil Reserve Air Fleet, through which certain airlines agree to offer their aircraft for military use during surge operations. This model has helped the Space Force, but CASR must manage resources in the space domain, which operates over contested environments every day. Based on this factor, commercial SATCOM operators have spelled out key issues that include defining how to prioritize military service delivery during a conflict and receiving financial protection if satellite service is significantly degraded or even completely inaccessible for commercial users.
The sticking points for CASR and its critical need for commercial services and technologies reflect ongoing questions about the U.S. military’s adoption of commercial space services across the entire military enterprise. Commercial providers see more progress coming based on recent comments during the 2025 National Space Symposium. Space Force leaders spoke about the urgency to create “hybrid architectures” using commercial services and technology. This collaborative work is starting to happen through program vehicles like Proliferated LEO (pLEO) with the ceiling rising to over $13 billion. A fully developed CASR framework will exemplify this military-commercial architecture. Despite its keen focus on commercial, the Space Force needs to develop a process for putting commercial services into operation, noted a recent 2025 report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Without such a process, fully integrating commercial space into joint operations may not be possible, even for CASR.
Hughes sees promise and greater momentum coming from the US Space Force. Col. Rich Kniseley, head of the Commercial Space Office, explained the changes that will be needed to formalize the relationship with commercial providers, especially for CASR. “It takes a lot of top-down pressure in order to change culture, while also building up from the bottom,” according to reporting by the Air and Space Forces magazine when Col. Kniseley spoke at the National Space Symposium. Hughes looks forward to future discussions to confirm the critical elements of CASR so industry and the military will be prepared and ready for any time-sensitive crisis.