Greg Furlich, University of Colorado Boulder; Angie Crews, University of Colorado Boulder; Steve Rossland, University of Colorado Boulder; John Marino, University of Colorado Boulder; Anthony Mayo, Millennial Software; Douglas Kim, SpaceMap; Peter Ryu, SpaceMap; Chris Tschan, Data Fusion & Neural Networks; Max Brown, Data Fusion & Neural Networks; Ethan Crawford, Data Fusion & Neural Networks; Matthew Leonard, Aloha Autonomy; Rithwik Neelakantan, Digantara; Sheena L. Winder, Kall Morris Inc.; Jack McGuigan, Observable Space; Jesse Williams, GTC Analytics; Brian Goodwin, RAIC Labs; Jubilee Prasad Rao, R4C Tech; Jimson Huang, Purdue University; Sean Ruda, Purdue University; Jack Al-Kahwati, Stardrive Inc.; Yasir Latif, Space Protocol; Samya Bagchi, Space Protocol; Latha Madhuri Pratti, Space Protocol; Cindy Chin, Planetary Systems AI; Mack Reed, Planetary Systems AI; Samantha Louque, Virginia Tech Applied Research Center; Melissa Hills, Virginia Tech Applied Research Center; Dan Pribulick, ICR; Major Travis Pond, SDA Tools, Applications, Processing Lab, SSC, USSF; Scott Brodeur, SDA Tools, Applications, Processing Lab, SSC, USSF; David Kurtenbach, SDA Tools, Applications, Processing Lab, SSC, USSF; Roger Altobelli, SDA Tools, Applications, Processing Lab, SSC, USSF
Keywords: Mission Data Processing; Data Handling; State Estimation; Command and Control (C2); Camouflage, Concealment, Deception, and Maneuver (CCDM); Hostility Assessment; and Response Recommendation
Abstract:
The SDA Tools, Applications, and Processing (TAP) Lab continues its mission to deliver a protect and defend battle management system for the USSF through three-month sprints known as Project Apollo Tech Accelerator. As General Chance Saltzman, Chief of Space Operations, emphasized in his Theory of Success, “Success for the Space Force means fielding combat-ready forces, amplifying the Guardian Spirit, and partnering to win.” The SDA TAP Lab embodies this vision by engaging 100+ organizations, including international partners, through participation in the SDA TAP Lab to address a prioritized list of unique SDA challenges. The SDA TAP Lab stimulates partnerships between industry, academia, and across the government in these sprint cohorts to build an encompassing, automated, and federated protect and defend prototype SDA battle management system named Welder’s Arc.
Welder’s Arc is broken up into seven subsystems: Observational Data; Data Handling; State Estimation; Command and Control (C2); Camouflage, Concealment, Deception, and Maneuver (CCDM); Hostility Assessment; and Response Recommendation with the goal of predicting, observing, and detecting events critical to ensuring the USSF’s space superiority. The SDA TAP Lab has identified seven critical events: launch, reentry, proximity, maneuver, link change, attitude change, and separation. These events are decomposed into the 61 publicly published problem statements informed by SDA stakeholders. Each participating organization contributes capabilities that address these problem statements in the SDA TAP Lab sprint cohorts. These problem statements are then divided into the aforementioned seven subsystems to provide organization to common themes underlying the various problem statements. The information produced from these federated capabilities is exchanged through a publish-subscribe message bus. This message bus allows information in the event processing chain to be distributed, aggregated, and improved upon. The traceability of the information passed in these messages is being implemented to record the originating process in the flow and how that information was built upon. Welder’s Arc is a near-realtime autonomous event driven architecture with resilient and redundant microservices designed for multiple end users with operators on the loop.
To test the Welder’s Arc battle management system as it is being developed, live exercises using civil space launches and missions are used to benchmark the integrated capabilities across all seven subsystems. The current sprint cohort, or Cohort, has demonstrated many of these integrated capabilities by leveraging the suborbital Starship Integrated Flight Tests and other missions such as ISS resupply missions. The Cohort is looking at metrics from these exercises, such as how long before launch was the preparation tracked, how long after launch was there a detection, how long was the trace maintained through the event chain, how many assessments were performed on an object, and where did the system fail. These exercise results and reviews provide information to the Cohort to continue to mature and refine our capabilities and the system as it increases in scale and complexity.
Date of Conference: September 16-19, 2025
Track: Space Domain Awareness