Military leaders make case for in-space logistics as questions persist
U.S. military space leaders are making a more urgent case for in-space refueling and servicing, arguing that satellites can no longer be treated as expendable once they reach orbit. But inside the Pentagon, the push is running up against skepticism over cost, survivability and whether orbital logistics delivers more military advantage than simply buying more satellites.
In a speech last week, the head of U.S. Space Command, Gen. Stephen Whiting, argued that on-orbit logistics is no longer a futuristic concept, particularly for high-value national security satellites in geosynchronous orbit.
"While getting to space is crucial, we also need capabilities to sustain our assets once they are in orbit," Whiting said.
Satellites today operate until they run out of fuel or failed. As space becomes a contested military domain, he added, the Pentagon needs a sustainment and mobility infrastructure to support satellites
The countercase inside the building
Not everyone is persuaded. Skeptics inside the Pentagon argue that resilience might be achieved more cheaply by recapitalizing satellites or designing systems that are intentionally more disposable, rather than building what amounts to an orbital logistics tail.
These doubts show up most clearly in the requirements and programming process. Speaking last week at the Space Mobility conference in Orlando, Maj. Gen. Stephen Purdy, military deputy in the office of the assistant secretary of the Air Force for space acquisition and integration, said the service still has not answered the hard questions in a way that survives internal budget reviews.
Vice Chief of Space Operations Gen. Shawn Bratton has framed the issue in terms of proving the value proposition and the cost-versus military- advantage trade. Purdy, an early advocate of military adoption of space logistics, put it more bluntly: Unless refueling and servicing can be shown to help the U.S. beat China in a conflict, the Pentagon's budgeteers view this as a "science project."
Money, analysis and a timing problem
There are signs of momentum. Purdy said. Congress has added funding for space mobility and logistics, including $20 million in fiscal year 2025. For 2026, the Pentagon requested $48.5 million under the APFIT program — Accelerate the Procurement and Fielding of Innovative Technologies — for an "augmented maneuver vehicle for satellites."
The Space Force is preparing to kick off a Small Business Innovation Research challenge focused on space mobility and logistics, Purdy said. But that effort is now on hold pending congressional reauthorization of SBIR, which expired Sept. 30.
Even with funding, the analytical bottleneck remains. The Space Force relies on the Space Warfighting Analysis Center to generate the data needed to justify requirements and programs of record. Given that SWAC has limited resources, Purdy said, the kind of deep wargaming needed to prove the utility of orbital logistics could take years.
Industry asked to help make the case
Given those constraints, Purdy told industry it cannot wait passively for government analysis. "Industry likely needs to lead with ideas … and help us with deep analysis and wargaming level analysis," he said, suggesting firms tap venture capital and private equity backing to fund that work.
He also warned companies to think hard about reliability and availability. Military operators, he said, have a "very real and valid concern" about whether a commercial service would actually be there when needed.
"There's a difference between vision and analysis," Purdy said. "In the Department of War, in the budget process, vision doesn't count. You need analysis."
He described the broader dynamic as a chicken-and-egg problem: investors want a government anchor customer, while government acquisition leaders want evidence of commercial maturity and investment before committing.
Industry: we're already investing
Ron Lopez, president of Astroscale U.S., said commercial firms are putting their own money into capabilities they believe the Space Force will ultimately need.
Astroscale has signed an agreement with the Space Force to co-invest in a refueling vehicle scheduled to fly a demonstration later this year. He emphasized that government demand is "absolutely critical to establishing what I call the virtuous cycle where we can show investors that the market is real."
And having the government as an anchor tenant now, he said, allows companies to prove utility to risk-averse commercial operators and unlock additional private investment.
Tom Martin, senior director of national security programs at Blue Origin, echoed that view, linking Space Force needs in GEO to broader commercial ambitions.
Companies like Blue Origin, he said, are investing in logistics chains to support a permanent lunar presence and eventually Mars. "If we're bringing up thousands of tons of cryogenic propellant in the future, how is the government going to think about leveraging that?" he asked.
Blue Origin is developing a multi-purpose vehicle called Blue Ring for mobility and logistics in GEO. "Clearly, industry is stepping up and developing these capabilities," Martin said. Whether there are commercial markets that can sustain them on their own "is a bigger question."
He argued the U.S. is at a familiar inflection point where government demand funds infrastructure that later supports commercial models. "Right now, we're really looking at the government as an anchor tenant, and really having that first use case," he said.
Keeping the market informed
Col. Scott Carstetter, director of servicing, mobility and logistics at Space Systems Command, said his office is trying to keep industry aligned with military needs and potential market opportunities.
"We want industry to go out and find ways to be profitable in this arena," Carstetter said. Where interests align, he added, the Space Force wants to be transparent about what it is looking for and where opportunities are likely to emerge.
For now, the gap between vision and analysis remains the central hurdle. Until orbital logistics can be translated into wargame results, cost curves and requirements language that budget officials accept, refueling and servicing might continue to live somewhere between operational necessity and science project.
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