Original Broadcast Date: 08/30/2026
Sponsored by CACI
During an interview with Fed Gov Today at DoDIIS 2026, Gen. Stephen Whiting, Commander of U.S. Space Command, and Rob Shaffer, the command’s Deputy Director of Intelligence, explain how partnerships, artificial intelligence and commercial data are helping the command pursue decision advantage in an increasingly congested and contested environment.
For Whiting, the need for integration starts with the sheer scale of space.
“No single country, no single service, no single agency, no single company can do all the things we have to do in space to be successful,” Whiting says.
That means U.S. Space Command needs to integrate with several groups of partners. The first is the rest of the joint force across the U.S. military. The second includes the interagency and intelligence community, along with organizations such as NASA and the Federal Aviation Administration.
Allies and international partners are another critical piece. Whiting says they bring capabilities and geographic advantages that can help the United States surveil and track satellites. Commercial companies also play an important role because the U.S. space industry provides innovation and cost advantages that the command can leverage.
Those relationships need to be established before a crisis begins.
Whiting says waiting until a conflict to bring stakeholders together would put the command behind. Instead, Space Command works on integration during peacetime through what he describes as campaigning.
That includes building awareness of the threat environment and rehearsing together through exercises and real-world operations. Whiting emphasizes that conflict is not inevitable, but if one occurs, the command wants its partners prepared to operate together as a team.
For Shaffer, integration also supports what the military calls decision advantage.
At Space Command, he says that means delivering intelligence-driven, decision-ready information at the time and speed it is needed. Doing that requires intelligence professionals to understand the commander's objectives and what operational and planning organizations are doing so they can inform decisions in real time.
Artificial intelligence is becoming part of that effort.
Shaffer says Space Command is working to use AI to more rapidly integrate and synthesize information from different sources. That can include data from government sensors and capabilities as well as information provided by allies, partners and the commercial sector. The goal is to bring those sources together into a package that is ready for decision-makers.
AI and machine learning can also help analysts manage structured and unstructured data.
Schaffer says the technologies create an opportunity to perform some of the preliminary coordination and consolidation of disparate information, saving analysts time. Space Command's Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office is integrated into that work.
The command is also piloting AI and machine learning capabilities related to information sharing with foreign partners. Shaffer says the technology can help consolidate the different policies governing foreign disclosure, potentially allowing the command to move through that process more rapidly and engage partners with a common understanding.
Whiting says commercial industry is also changing the command's approach to data.
In the past, the government might have required different data providers to conform to a single rigorous standard. Whiting says that process could take years depending on where organizations are in their technology refresh cycles.
Commercial technology instead demonstrates how structured data, unstructured data and different formats can be brought together and analyzed. AI tools then help turn that information into meaning and understanding.
Whiting says Space Command still wants to establish data standards upfront when designing new systems and contracts. But the command also needs to work with the data that exists today, regardless of its format.
Commercial space data provides another advantage when working internationally.
Some partners have close relationships with the United States that allow classified information sharing, while disclosure rules can make that more difficult with newer partners. Whiting says commercially available space data offers another path.
Commercial imagery, satellite communications and space-tracking information can provide significant insight at the unclassified level. Because that information is not classified, Space Command can share it with a wider range of traditional and nontraditional partners to build a better picture of activity in space.
All of this is happening as the space environment becomes increasingly congested and contested.
Shaffer says the challenge is determining what information decision-makers need and how quickly they need it. Rather than treating every piece of incoming data equally, the command can establish collection priorities and dynamically adjust them based on events.
During a crisis, for example, Space Command can prioritize the download and dissemination of information from a particular area instead of processing everything at once. Schaffer says machine-enabled processes can help the command make those adjustments faster.
For Whiting and Shaffer, integration ultimately connects the different pieces of the space mission. By combining government capabilities with those of the joint force, intelligence community, allies and commercial industry, Space Command is working to get relevant information to decision-makers faster and strengthen its ability to operate across a rapidly changing domain.