Space Force Expands AI Project Management Software as Multi-Billion-Dollar Programs Mount
The Space Force has awarded Seattle-based firm Integrate a multi-million dollar contract to deploy its AI-enabled project management software across the service's Space Systems Integration Office. The deal expands the company's role as the Space Force takes on major new national security programs and works to keep them on cost and on schedule.
The Space Systems Integration Office, which sits within Space Systems Command and oversees its acquisition programs, has a growing list of national security projects, including building the Space Data Network and the Space-Based Airborne Moving Target Indicator. The office described itself to Defense One as "the central nervous system for the Space Force and the singular integrator across the majority of the national security space enterprise," saying it is pursuing technological advancements to ensure programs are executed within cost and schedule constraints and to give leaders real-time visibility into the entire portfolio.
The award builds on a $25 million contract the company won last year with the Space Force's Mission Manifest Office to manage the service's major multi-payload launch operation project. So far, seven of the nine newly established Space Force Portfolio Acquisition Executives are using the program, with the others to be onboarded in the near future. The service's $71.3 billion budget request this year, if passed, would mark the largest percentage increase for any military branch since 1952, according to Aerospace America.
Helen Ying, the Space Force's system of systems engineering lead, said the service is prioritizing technologies that give leaders more timely, data-driven decision-making as the speed of acquisition becomes more critical. "Integrate's project management platform strengthens our capacity to visualize the minute details and track broader objectives within the Space Force's programs," she said.
Integrate CEO John Conafay said the existing project management system is antiquated and can lead to mismanagement, miscommunication, and missed deadlines. "They might get a hand-drawn PowerPoint with triangles on it sent over in an email or a table in an email with Gantt bars colored in, literally to show this is happening in September and this is happening in August. They don't have any granularity," he said. Conafay noted that the most advanced tool currently in use is Microsoft Project Server, adding that "Microsoft Project was released the same year as Tetris." His platform, he said, replaces a workflow dominated by emails and file downloads with a single schedule modified in real time across multiple organizational and classification levels.
Service leaders say the new program is necessary to keep sprawling national security work on track. Conafay said Integrate's system helps in budget-controlled environments to ensure "things are done on time and within budget" and holds contractors accountable, and that the service's adoption of an upgraded system shows it is taking budget constraints seriously.
The contract comes as the Trump administration's Golden Dome missile defense shield faces budgetary headwinds. Gen. Michael Guetlein, the program's direct reporting program manager, warned attendees at the Space and Missile Defense Symposium in Huntsville, Alabama, this month that the program will be in dire straits if Congress does not sort out crucial supplementary funding. Golden Dome is not a Space Force program, but the service is helping develop key technology for the architecture. The remaining Portfolio Acquisition Executives are set to be onboarded to Integrate's platform in the near future, and Congress has yet to pass the service's budget request.