Space Force builds 'Front Door' to industry. Now it has to use it.
The U.S. Space Force has spent the last two years urging startups and new entrants to raise their hands through its "Front Door" portal, a centralized system meant to make it easier for commercial companies to market their technologies to the national security space enterprise. Companies have been encouraged to upload capability descriptions, technical data and contact information with the promise that doing so would increase visibility across the force.
By the Space Force's own accounting, that part has worked. Officials at Space Systems Command, which runs the portal, say hundreds of companies have registered since the program was established in 2023, creating a catalog of commercial space capabilities that did not previously exist. It includes more than 1,700 submissions from over 1,400 companies.
The harder phase
What comes next is more complicated. Accumulating data is only useful if it changes how the government actually buys technology.
A goal this year is "to make sure that our program offices are actually using this and they tap into it," said Lt. Col. Timothy Trimailo, head of Space Systems Command's Commercial Space Office (COMSO).
Speaking last week at the Miami Space Summit, Trimailo said that vetted company data can help program managers conduct market research, but he also acknowledged persistent industry concerns. "I get a lot of feedback on the Front Door," he said, noting that while companies have done what the Space Force asked of them, acquisition offices do not yet consistently pull from the database when shaping requirements or sourcing solutions.
"I need to make it easier for you all to actually get into this system and get something out of it," Trimailo told the audience. "We're gonna be working on that."
Many doors, not one
One reason the Front Door has not fully delivered on its promise is structural. The portal is designed as a single point of entry, but it sits atop a national security space market where funding authority, requirements generation and contract execution are widely dispersed.
Within the Space Force alone, acquisition decisions are split among multiple commands and program offices. Beyond that, companies often find themselves navigating buyers across the intelligence community, the Missile Defense Agency, the Space Development Agency, the military services, combatant commands and innovation organizations such as Defense Innovation Unit and SpaceWERX. Each operates on different timelines, contracting vehicles and budget cycles.
Trimailo said COMSO is now exploring automation tools to help "connect some of the various front doors that are out there with the Space Force front door that we operate ... so bear with us as we do some of that," he said.
Former Pentagon space policy official John Plumb, now head of strategy at satellite manufacturer K2 Space, said companies trying to navigate the Front Door process have to be prepared to spread resources across a large number of potential customers.
The Pentagon is a "massive waterfront," Plumb said at the Miami summit. "There is no one front door, even if people work in offices that think they're the front door, there are just a whole bunch of front doors." Some, he added, "don't go anywhere."
"I felt like it was a house of mirrors," Plumb said.
Leveraging capital
Trimailo said COMSO is taking a broader look at how the Space Force engages commercial industry and how existing tools can be better aligned. One focus area is SpaceWERX, the Space Force's innovation arm and primary interface with venture-backed startups.
SpaceWERX relies heavily on the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) pipeline, but Trimailo emphasized that the program has deliberately moved away from treating those awards as stand-alone research grants. Instead, the Space Force uses SpaceWERX to align solicitations with operational needs and to pair companies with government customers. The program is on hold pending congressional reauthorization of SBIR, but once restored, Trimailo said the intent is to make SBIR "more of an on-ramp to follow-on procurement."
SpaceWERX is also explicitly designed to draw in private capital. Through "Strategic Funding Increases," companies that secure outside investment can qualify for larger awards. The Space Force treats private investment as a signal of commercial viability, while investors view government backing as validation of national security relevance.
Trimailo said he wants to expand the pool of investor firms working with the Space Force and improve transparency around demand signals. "Private investment firms do great due diligence," he said. "We do a different type, but they can coexist very nicely."
The requirements problem
Even with better portals and capital alignment, requirements remain a sticking point. COMSO is now participating in Pentagon working groups examining requirements reform, with an eye toward opening the aperture to nontraditional solutions.
Plumb argued that legacy requirements can undermine the very commercial innovation the Pentagon says it wants. He pointed to ESPA rings — a decades-old standard that constrains satellite size and form factor — as an example of how entrenched assumptions can exclude newer platforms.
"K2 is a large satellite. We fit inside the fairing of a Falcon 9, but we definitely don't fit on an ESPA ring," Plumb said. While those requirements may have once made sense, he argued they now disadvantage commercial options that could otherwise meet mission needs.
"It may be that K2 or other companies are not the right answer," Plumb said. "But these requirements are just anti-competitive."
In short, the Space Force has succeeded in convincing industry to show up at the Front Door. The next test is whether the institution behind that door is able to change how it interacts with companies.
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