The document follows the Space Force’s inaugural action plan, released in 2024, which sought to guide the service in adopting modernized data and analytic capabilities underpinned by AI. The revised version for 2025 looks to build upon last year’s foundational efforts across four lines of effort and provides details on how guardians will further integrate their fledgling cloud-based data repository.

“In this contested and congested domain, superiority will be defined by our ability to integrate with interagency, allies, and commercial partners to advance data capabilities, real-time analytics, and emerging AI technologies to outpace adversaries and maintain operational superiority,” wrote Col. Nathen Iven, acting deputy chief of space operations for cyber and data.

Several action items in the strategy focus on improving the Space Force’s Unified Data Library (UDL) — a cloud-based data repository that ingests and consolidates data from government and commercial sensors in support of the service’s space domain awareness missions. The platform was launched in 2018 by the Air Force Research Laboratory, but users have previously criticized the UDL’s inability to interface with operational systems.

Following a 2023 report from the Government Accountability Office which detailed a slew of challenges with the UDL — including commercial integration, timeliness of the data and a lack of a single data standard — the Space Force has worked to improve the technology so it can transition from a prototype to a program of record.

As such, the new strategic action plan tasked the Space Force to establish the UDL as an official program of record using the Pentagon’s software acquisition pathways before the end of calendar 2024.

“The Unified Data Library entered the Software Acquisition Planning Phase, as approved by the Service Acquisition Executive, on Nov 13, 2024. This milestone completes the transition of the Unified Data Library from a prototype to an established program of record,” a spokesperson told DefenseScoop.

A capability needs statement for the UDL that was due before the end of March, identifies additional enhancements to the system.

“The U.S. Space Force Capability Needs Statement for the USSF Data Integration Layer was signed and approved by the Space Force’s Chief Strategy and Resourcing Officer on Dec 18, 2024,” the spokesperson said.

Throughout the rest of fiscal 2025, the service will identify and expose data from various space domain awareness sensors to the UDL for analysis by the National Space Intelligence Center, according to the plan. The library will “integrate into Space Operations Squadrons (SOPS) orbital analysis suite and other high value assets” to facilitate data sharing across the Space Force enterprise, “spanning tactical, operational, and strategic levels-and with Combatant Commands, commercial entities and partner nations,” officials wrote.

Beyond the UDL, the strategy calls on the service to improve how it shares data with commercial and international partners by establishing relative policies, guidance and standards.

For example, officials are tasked to create guidance for digital infrastructure and data storage in order to support integration with commercial assets — likely part of a broader effort to increase collaboration with the commercial space industry. In addition, the service is expected to develop standards to enable partners to share data and models via its Operational Test, Training, and Infrastructure (OTTI) environment.

The strategic plan also looks to bolster data and AI literacy across the workforce, appoint data and AI officers to oversee related initiatives at field commands, and strengthen partnerships with other government organizations, academia, industry and international partners.

“Data and AI are critical for a warfighting service that is purpose-built for space superiority. This plan charts a course to foster data literacy, equip our Guardians with cutting-edge technologies, and drive innovation,” Iven said in a statement.

Updated on March 20, 2025, at 11:05 AM: This story has been updated to include comments from a Space Force spokesperson about the Unified Data Library entering the software acquisition planning phase and the capability needs statement.

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Speaking during a webinar hosted by the Mitchell Institute on Thursday, VanHerck said that homeland defense will look “vastly different” in the future. Instead of being segmented into geographical regions, solutions need to have global reach and foster collaboration between not just the United States’ combatant commands, but also its partners and allies.

A number of emerging threats across the spectrum are challenging the United States’ homeland defense mission, from undersea vessels to hypersonic missiles. The goal now is to look at the mission in a broader context and stay “left of launch,” VanHerck said, meaning U.S. leaders need to have enough information about potential threats before they’re deployed to make well-informed decisions on how to respond.

“The future of air-and-missile defense doesn’t start here in the homeland. It doesn’t start with kinetic end-game defeat. It starts forward with domain awareness, with allies and partners, sharing of data and information with my fellow combatant commanders [and] being able to generate those effects further away from our homeland so that we’re not having to generate them here in the homeland,” VanHerck said.

In order to do that, the department must have more capabilities that enable better domain awareness and data collection — including unmanned systems, space-based sensors and long-range radars, he suggested.

Better domain awareness involves “getting away from competition with my fellow combatant commanders for fighters or AWACS or tankers, and getting unmanned autonomous platforms with domain awareness capabilities [and] with effectors that are both kinetic and non-kinetic that we can think of as airborne, but also maritime, that we can utilize in the Arctic or we could utilize off the eastern seaboard, the western seaboard, or around the globe wherever we need to be,” he said. 

Missile warning and tracking satellites under development by the Space Development Agency will also be crucial, VanHerck noted, especially as adversaries continue to develop high-speed missiles like hypersonics that are more maneuverable and harder to defend against than traditional airborne threats. The SDA spacecraft are slated to be part of a constellation of hundreds of systems in low-Earth orbit set to begin launching in 2024.

VanHerck also pointed to commercial satellite capabilities that could potentially be tapped into to boost the U.S. military’s situational awareness.

“We’re not launching those satellite capabilities, but we can have access to those and develop our own encryption and capabilities to not only communicate, but have data and information sharing,” he said. “Unmanned platforms then become more likely to be able to operate and pass data and information in that environment.”

In addition, the Air Force is funding over-the-horizon radars for NORAD and Northcom that can detect threats at a range of around 4,000 nautical miles. Scheduled to be fielded later this decade, the systems will augment current radar capabilities and give the U.S. military better eyes around the world, VanHerck said.

“That domain awareness needs to feed a globally integrated air-and-missile defense capability where you can do real-time collaboration —  think of JADC2 — and you can do that with allies and partners so they can generate effects for me,” he said.

But while domain awareness and data collection capabilities are crucial, the ability to quickly share that data with key stakeholders and analyze it is paramount, VanHerck said, noting that capabilities like artificial intelligence and machine learning can help process data.

“The bottom line is: I’m not worried about where the data and information comes from. It’s just sharing it so that we can have processing and dissemination for decisions quicker — which equals deterrence in the long run or integrated deterrence,” he said.

Ultimately, the shift in homeland defense will need to be addressed by policy and cultural changes, according to VanHerck. Data and other information is currently siloed, he noted, and convincing organizations to be comfortable with sharing it with other Defense Department components and allies and partners, will be “a bigger overall challenge.”

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