By Stephanie Dwilson | 2025-04-01

In its fiscal year 2025 continuing resolution spending bill, the US Congress has demonstrated its commitment to the Defense Department's work in space domain national security.

The bill, passed last month, includes $40 million for commercial surveillance, reconnaissance and tracking services via the Space Systems Command's Commercial Space Office (COMSO).

In total, the US Space Force (USSF) will operate with $28.7 billion in funding for fiscal year 2025.

The Senate's Committee on Appropriations report on the bill from last August explains the reasoning behind the $40 million boost.

"With the increasing focus on peer competition in contested environments, the Department of Defense intends to rely on new space capabilities that can fulfill traditional Title 10 intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance and target tracking missions as a replacement for existing airborne assets," it said in the report.

"For tactical mission sets, receiving data in a relevant timeline is essential to the success of a mission," it continued. "The Committee is concerned that the current tasking prioritization … may not be adequately responsive to Combatant Commander needs at the operational level."

"Therefore, the Committee recommends an additional $40,000,000 for Space Systems Command's Commercial Space Office to continue its pilot of a Combatant Command-direct tasking initiative for these commercial space services."

'Game-changer'

COMSO's director, Col. Richard Kniseley, said the $40 million boost will help the Defense Department continue to tap into the growing commercial space industry.

"It's great to see support on both sides for commercial space," Kniseley told SpaceNews.

"Having a dedicated budget line for commercial space services is important to give Congress insight and oversight into where we're going with commercial but also as a beacon for industry and investors to also see where the Space Force is going as well," he said.

COMSO focuses on accelerating military partnerships with commercial space companies, cutting through red tape to help deliver better warfighter capabilities faster.

The Office consists of SpaceWERX, Front Door, Commercial Marketplace, Commercial Satellite Communications Office, Commercial Collaboration Center and the Commercial Augmented Space Reserve.

One of COMSO's central tenets is to "exploit capabilities that are already out there," Kniseley said at the Air & Space Forces Association's Air, Space & Cyber Conference last September.

One of its recent ventures, he said, involves seeking commercial vendors who are developing satellites that move in geosynchronous orbit. This could help defense satellites avoid attacks, inspect threats and more.

"That's going to be a game-changer for us in the military, where you're not at a stagnant orbit, and you’re able to drift from point to point, especially supporting us in the event of a regional or national war so that we can maneuver more of our capabilities and be more agile to the warfighter," Kniseley said, according to Air & Space Forces Magazine.

The $40 million boost is not the only commercial space domain expenditure in the spending bill.

It also includes $134 million to the USSF for hybrid architectures helping commercial satellites work with military satellite networks.

Other parts of the spending bill allocate even more funding to commercial space technology, though the total amount is hard to quantify, Kniseley told SpaceNews.

How the funds will be allocated is still being worked out between the Defense Department and congressional committees, he said.