Fast Gap Analysis for Persistent Surveillance (FAST-GAPS)

Problem: Tactically Responsive Space (TacRS) requires operationally relevant timelines of less than 24 hours to bring new on-orbit capabilities in order to respond to threats and augment existing capabilities. Technologically advanced competitors will leverage a variety of capabilities to disrupt U.S. Space Force (USSF) assets. In order to respond to these evolving threats, TacRS Dynamic Mission Planning will need to rapidly account for existing government, allied, and commercial capabilities.áá Opportunity: The proposed Fast Gap Analysis for Persistent Surveillance (FAST-GAPS) analysis system enables rapidly deployable remote sensing systems to fill USSF Surveillance, Reconnaissance, and Tracking (SRT) requirements using software that enables tactically responsive space mission requirements planning, and coverage gap analysis across multiple SRT missions and sensor types with an efficient, consistent user interface that is rapidly extensible to new sensor and mission types. Tactical SRT Gaps: Each SRT mission has requirements that may need to be fulfilled by a variety of remote sensing assets. In a conflict, these space based assets may become unavailable and Tactically Responsive Space (TacRS) must replace the capability, ideally in less than 24 hours. As commercial and allied partnerĺs remote sensing capabilities proliferate, USSF could leverage these sensors to augment its collection capacity and reduce risk and requirements related to TacRS launching new sensors. There is no current capability to rapidly analyze the combination of tens of thousands of commercial, allied, and US national air and space assets to determine how a mission could be filled and to analyze the gaps and which new hardware could fill them in the timelines required. Solution Description - SRT Mission Planning, Feasibility and Gap Analysis: The proposed Fast Gap Analysis for Persistent Surveillance (FAST-GAPS) analysis system will enable rapidly deployable remote sensing systems to fill USSF Surveillance, Reconnaissance and Tracking (SRT) requirements using software that enables tactically responsive space mission requirements planning, and coverage gap analysis across multiple SRT missions and sensor types with an efficient consistent user interface that is rapidly extensible to new sensor and mission types.á In addition to its value for US DoD TacRS needs, this capability is valuable to commercial satellite operators, commercial satellite data users, and allied commercial security and foreign mission partners globally.