Gen. John “Jay” Raymond, chief of space operations at the U.S. Space Force and a 2021 Wash100 Award recipient, said the service plans to further develop deeper relationships with the commercial industry and wants the latter to play a bigger role in its missions, C4ISRNET reported Thursday.
“If you look at historically what has been commercially viable in space, it was commercial launch and large communications satellites,” Raymond said Thursday during the Air Force Association’s virtual Aerospace Warfare Symposium.
Currently, he said every mission in space “has a commercially viable path” driven by the industry’s efforts to improve capabilities of small satellites and reduce launch costs.
Raymond said the Space Force plans to employ commercial innovation in support of its missions.
“We want to build a very fused connection with commercial industry. We’re a small service and we think we can do that,” he said. “The explosion of commercial space … provides us a great opportunity.”
The Potomac Officers Club’s 2021 Industrial Space Defense Summit on March 23 will feature Raymond as a keynote speaker to discuss space technology, innovation and private-public partnerships that will expand federal space defense capabilities and help defeat adversaries. To register for the summit, visit Potomac Officers Club’s Event Page.
