[Congressional Record Volume 172, Number 105 (Tuesday, June 23, 2026)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3120-S3121]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
SA 5986. Mr. CRUZ (for himself and Mr. Hickenlooper) submitted an
amendment intended to be proposed by him to the bill S. 4784, to
authorize appropriations for fiscal year 2027 for military activities
of the Department of Defense, for military construction, and for
defense activities of the Department of Energy, to prescribe military
personnel strengths for such fiscal year, and for other purposes; which
was ordered to lie on the table; as follows:
At the end of subtitle A of title XV, add the following:
SEC. 1510A. OPERATIONAL PILOT PROGRAM ON ORBITAL DATA CENTER
SERVICES.
(a) Findings.--Congress makes the following findings:
(1) Modern national security space missions generate
increasing volumes of data from space-based sensors,
platforms, and constellations, placing growing demands on
terrestrial data transport, processing, and analysis
infrastructure.
(2) Reliance on ground-based data processing can introduce
latency, bandwidth constraints, and vulnerabilities that may
degrade the timeliness, resilience, and effectiveness of
military and intelligence operations in contested
environments.
(3) Commercial industry is developing orbital data center
and space-based cloud computing capabilities that enable in-
space data processing, storage, and analytics, which may
reduce latency, enhance resilience, and improve mission
outcomes.
(4) The Department of Defense has identified the need for
hybrid architectures that integrate space, terrestrial, and
commercial capabilities to support joint and national
security missions.
(5) An operational pilot program is necessary to evaluate
the military utility, operational integration, and transition
potential of orbital data center services through real-world
mission use cases before any broader adoption or sustained
acquisition.
(6) Maintaining a competitive and resilient domestic
industrial base for orbital infrastructure, including
satellite platforms, communications systems, and in-space
computing capabilities, is important to accelerating
innovation and supporting operational resilience.
(b) Pilot Program.--
(1) In general.--Not later than 1 year after the date of
the enactment of this Act, the Secretary of Defense (referred
to in this Act as the ``Secretary''), acting through the
Director of the Defense Innovation Unit, shall carry out an
operational pilot program under the Hybrid Space Architecture
initiative to evaluate the use of commercially available
orbital data center services and space-based cloud computing
capabilities relevant to national security space and joint
mission requirements.
(2) Purposes.--The purposes of the pilot program shall be--
(A) to assess the military utility of orbital data center
and space-based cloud computing services;
(B) to evaluate the operational integration of such
services into existing and planned Department of Defense
space and joint architectures;
(C) to examine the resilience, latency, security, and
mission assurance benefits of in-space data processing;
(D) to inform the potential transition of such services
into sustained programs of record or operational use;
(E) to evaluate concepts of operations for the protection
and defense of orbital data center assets against kinetic,
nonkinetic, and cyber threats;
(F) to assess the asset protection strategies and
vulnerabilities of orbital data center infrastructure; and
(G) to evaluate the integration and operational performance
of interoperable, commercially provided orbital
infrastructure components sourced from multiple vendors
across the hybrid space architecture ecosystem.
(3) Scope.--In carrying out the pilot program, the
Secretary may--
(A) employ commercially available orbital data center
services in support of real-world mission scenarios,
including intelligence, space domain awareness, command and
control, data transport, and other national security
applications;
(B) conduct testing, demonstration, and limited operational
employment necessary to assess technical performance and
operational viability; and
(C) support integration activities required to evaluate
interoperability with the Department of Defense's space,
ground, and network systems.
(4) Acquisition authority.--The Secretary shall ensure
competitive participation from a diverse set of
nontraditional defense contractors and commercial space
providers .
(5) Security and resilience measures for sensitive and
classified information.--In carrying out the pilot program,
the Secretary shall ensure that any orbital data center
services used to process, store, or transmit sensitive or
classified information have in place--
(A) cybersecurity protections, including zero-trust
architecture, encryption, identity and access management,
continuous monitoring, and protections against insider
threats;
(B) risk-management measures--
(i) to address supply chain vulnerabilities and foreign
ownership, control, or influence; and
(ii) that achieve compliance with applicable Department of
Defense cybersecurity and authorization requirements;
(C) resilience and mission assurance capabilities,
including redundancy, failover, operation in degraded or
contested environments, and rapid reconstitution or
replacement capabilities;
(D) protections against cyber, electronic warfare,
counterspace, and other nonkinetic threats;
(E) secure telemetry, tracking, and command links and
associated command-and-control systems, including
authenticated command uplinks, encrypted telemetry and data
links, anti-spoofing and anti-jamming protections, resilient
cryptographic key management, protected timing and navigation
inputs, and secure software and firmware update mechanisms;
[[Page S3121]]
(F) protections for associated ground systems, mission
operations centers, terrestrial network connections, software
supply chains, and user access interfaces, including
segmentation, continuous monitoring, access controls,
encryption, and resilience against cyber intrusion,
disruption, and unauthorized access; and
(G) protections to ensure workload isolation, tenant
separation, and data sovereignty for sensitive or classified
information processed, stored, or transmitted through orbital
data center services, including safeguards against
unauthorized cross-tenant, cross-domain, or provider access.
(6) Integration and interoperability.--The Secretary shall
ensure that any orbital data center services evaluated under
the pilot program are interoperable with existing Department
of Defense command, control, communications, and intelligence
systems.
(7) Consultation.--In carrying out the pilot program, the
Secretary, acting through the Director of the Defense
Innovation Unit, shall consult with--
(A) the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Space Policy;
(B) service acquisition executives (as defined in section
101 of title 10, United States Code);
(C) the Space Force and other military departments with
potential operational interest or transition pathways;
(D) the National Reconnaissance Office;
(E) the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency; and
(F) such other individuals and organizations as the
Secretary considers appropriate.
(8) Briefing.--Not later than December 31, 2028, the
Secretary shall provide the congressional defense committees
(as defined in section 101 of title 10, United States Code)
with a briefing on--
(A) execution of the pilot program;
(B) operational use cases evaluated;
(C) lessons learned from operational employment;
(D) recommendations regarding future acquisition or
operational use of orbital data center services;
(E) cybersecurity risks, insider threat vulnerabilities,
and mitigation measures;
(F) resilience against counterspace threats and contested
space environments;
(G) commercial provider risks, including supply chain and
foreign ownership concerns; and
(H) recommendations for security, resilience, and
acquisition requirements for any future program of record.
(c) Termination.--The authority to carry out the pilot
program under this section shall terminate on the date that
is five years after the date of the enactment of this Act.
(d) Definitions.--In this section:
(1) Commercially available.--The term ``commercially
available'' means, with respect to a space good or service, a
space good or service that--
(A) is currently offered commercially; or
(B) could be supplied commercially in response to a
Government service procurement request.
(2) Orbital data center.--The term ``orbital data center''
means a space-based computing, data storage, or networking
capability, including 1 or more spacecraft, hosted payloads,
or distributed orbital architectures, designed primarily to
provide persistent, scalable, or shared in-orbit processing,
analysis, storage, fusion, routing, or dissemination of data
as a distinct operational capability, rather than as a
function ancillary to the primary mission of a spacecraft,
prior to transmission to terrestrial or other external
infrastructure, including to reduce latency, mitigate
bandwidth constraints, improve operational resilience, or
support time-sensitive missions.
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