a $126 million deal with the Canadian Armed Forces<\/a>\u00a0that will give the country access to the U.S. Space Force\u2019s Mobile User Objective System, a satellite fleet capable of providing ultra-high frequency satellite communications to troops operating during bad weather and in challenging terrain.<\/p>\nAccording to Deanna Ryals, director of international affairs for SSC,\u00a0that increased interest spans a range of satellites\u00a0and sensors. And it comes as the U.S. is taking a more forward-leaning posture toward exporting space capabilities to other countries.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs nations have started to prioritize space as a national need or a national capability that they want to invest in, many nations do not have their own industrial base for space yet,\u201d Ryals told reporters in a briefing at SSC\u2019s Space Industry Days conference in Los Angeles. \u201cPeople are starting to see the advantage of military space and commercial space, and that drives the need for having a way to buy it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The U.S. has traditionally kept a tight hold on its sovereign space systems, sharing technology and hardware only with a select few partners due to security concerns. But as space-enabled technologies like GPS and\u00a0satellite communications\u00a0play an increasingly prominent role in everyday life, Ryals said, it\u2019s harder to make a case against\u00a0allowing friendly nations to access American-made systems.<\/p>\n
With that demand in mind, the service is working closely with the Air Force\u2019s international affairs office to improve the FMS process. Earlier this year, the Department of the Air Force unveiled a Space Technology and Resources baseline, which establishes a position from the department on potential export products. The list includes everything from satellites and ground radars to sensors to component technologies like cameras or mirrors.<\/p>\n
Having that document \u2014 which was created with input from her office and is being updated with input from industry partners \u2014 helps streamline the sales process, Ryals said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we\u2019ve got some capabilities that we know we\u2019re ready to put out there for sale or for export, having that assessment done ahead of time that these are assets that we\u2019re going to sell makes it a lot easier,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The U.S. Space Force saw a sixfold increase in demand for foreign military sales over the last year \u2013 growth that the service attributes to the increasingly important role space […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1507,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[69],"class_list":["post-881","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-us-space-force"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/US-SPACE-FORCE-SPACE-DEMANDS.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/881","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=881"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/881\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1508,"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/881\/revisions\/1508"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1507"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}