In May of 2021, The U.S. Space Force published “Vision for a Digital Service”. It stressed the importance of the U.S. to leverage data and information if we are to stay ahead in highly contested and congested operating environments. However, data is often only available through a variety of stove-piped solutions, which may not be readily accessible to the operator who needs it the most. It is difficult to make decisions without all the relevant data and that is where the U.S. Space Force has stepped in with the Unified Data Library or UDL. The library has been built to handle multiple types of data and data sources with the end goal to have data available to all applicable users across domains.

Constellations recently sat down with Geoffrey Carrigan, a Program Manager at Bluestaq, to discuss the Unified Data Library.

Constellations: Historically, data has been stored, by the military and industry, in proprietary stove-piped systems. These systems are cut off from each other and are not tied to a larger, enterprise-level architecture. They are usually designed to only perform specific functions or support single mission areas. The DoD has been looking to change this. What are the challenges the military faces in designing an open system that is not proprietary or mission specific?

Carrigan: There are many competing factors here, but the one I want to focus on is the accreditation process. For network connected applications, an “Authority To Operate (ATO)” is needed before a system can be used operationally. This accreditation looks at the end-to-end process to assess security readiness and any vulnerabilities, and as we try to move towards an enterprise solution, we are finding that changes to the boundary or data layer is forcing new accreditation work. This is costly, time consuming, and impactful to systems that already work as-is. But, without the change, we miss many of the synergistic effects of being able to share data, especially across different systems that are all looking for the same type of data. The UDL, as designed, allows the accreditation to happen once at the UDL level, with no new work for each new application that pulls from the data. And, as new data comes in, existing applications can pull from it without adjustments or new ATO submissions, which also improves collaboration. It’s a culture shift, but one that is needed in order to capture the full benefits of the information we already have that just isn’t able to be shared.

Constellations: The Unified Data Library or UDL is considered key towards the support needed for the DoD’s Joint All-Domain Operations. What exactly is the UDL? How will it work?

Carrigan: The UDL is the data layer for Joint All Domain Command and Control (JADC2) as it relates to the Advanced Battle Management System (ABMS). It is a hub and spoke model of connecting producers and consumers of data and works by securely persisting data in a way that feeds applications and end users at multiple classification levels. It’s a way to decrease unique interfaces, decrease latency, and increase efficiency in how we capture, store, and disseminate information.

Constellations: Part of the mission for Air Force Space Command is to develop a data strategy to support multi-domain command and control operations. Do you have an idea of how will the UDL support these operations?

Carrigan: As of January of 2021, Gen Raymond has directed that the Unified Data Library will be the data layer for US Space Force Operational Data, so we think we have a fairly big part in this! The work to capture legacy data and connect it to current and new applications is what we are working on now.

Constellations: How does the UDL tie in with the Advanced Command and Control Enterprise Systems and Software or ACCESS project?

Carrigan: The UDL is the main technology that the ACCESS contract supports. ACCESS, as the parent contract, allows customers (Space Force, Air Force, SOCOM, AFCENT, and others) to leverage UDL experts in connecting data to consumers.

Constellations: What kind of data can be captured and utilized by the UDL? Can you give us any examples? Would it include sensors on the ground? What about data out of the commercial sector? Remarks made in social media?

Carrigan: Yes! Although we are adding new data all the time, there are over 4000 different “types” of data already in the UDL, from structured to unstructured, and everything in between. Some of the most common from the SDA realm are Observations (EO, Radar, RF), Element Sets, State Vectors, and Ephemeris data, but we also have air tracks from the FAA, and we’ve even played around with some twitter feeds! We’ve also built in the ability to do imagery and even streaming video, but we don’t have any sources providing that data at scale yet.

Constellations: Will you have ability to share data with the Office of Space Commerce (OSC)? If so, will this help with Space Situational Awareness (SSA) or Space Traffic Management?

Carrigan: We have been in communication with the OSC, and they have seen the Sprint Advanced Concept Training (SACT) events that use the UDL as the data backbone. They are very interested, and we have the ability to share any and all data with them, provided the data owners allow access. We hope to continue discussions with OSC as they look to take over the Space Traffic Management role.

Constellations: How difficult will it be to use the UDL? It will hold vast amount of data. Will it require some amount of machine learning or AI to allow the warfighter to access data at the speed of relevance?

Carrigan: There are many users (4000+) that are already using the UDL today. As one of the major tenets in our design, we build in low-latency into everything we do, from how the data is stored to how it is retrieved. The goal is to never lose the ability to provide timely information even as we increase the amount of information within the UDL. The different API’s that users have through the UDL help to point them to the right services based on their need, and even with the vast amount of data we have today, we are seeing less than 1 second latency from ingest to availability, and less than 20 second latency in replication across different classification levels. This, in comparison to most tools today that pull information every 20 MINUTES, is a significant improvement, and we hope to only get better.

Constellations: There have been other attempts and enterprise data solutions, and there are others even today in this same space. What makes the UDL different and more likely to succeed?

Carrigan: At the end of the day, there is only one player who gets to answer that question, and it’s the operator. Program offices, companies, developers and engineers can do and say whatever they want, but if the solution doesn’t support the operator at the end of the day, it fails. The UDL keeps that in mind with every change, every update, and every improvement, whether by limiting latency or by using legacy standards to meet the needs of legacy tools. We also stay in our lane, and away from trying to fix all of the problems or meet all of the needs. The UDL handles data, but we don’t perform the analysis, visualization, and command and control functions. By leaving that space open to the experts and allowing technology to move without limits from the UDL, we think this type of solution is the best answer for the ever-changing needs of the warfighter.

Constellations: Can you give me a little information about Bluestaq? How did you start? What is your company’s specialty?

Carrigan: Bluestaq was founded in April of 2018, when four partners came together to tackle the recurring problem they had seen throughout their career: a persistent inability to get the right data to the right person at the right time. Shortly after the company began, they were awarded their first Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I to tackle this problem for Commercial Space Situational Awareness data (now called Space Domain Awareness data). Bluestaq has grown significantly in the last 3 years, but we continue to focus on secure data management solutions that connect producers and consumers with a common platform to share information to the right people with as little latency as possible.

Constellations: Bluestaq was also awarded a SBIR contract to develop a concept that included the ability to simplify data rights management. Today, Data Rights Management or DRM is playing a growing role in data security. Can you talk about what that means? It is used extensively in the music industry – but in today’s world, it goes well beyond copyrighting doesn’t it?

Carrigan: Although I haven’t seen any Kratos Data on TikTok recently, you’re point is one of the motivating factors and one of the most common hurdles we face! Data ownership is so important, especially for a service like the Unified Data Library (UDL), where we are asking producers to trust us with their data. Rather than just increase security, we actually bring the data provider into the process, and ONLY the data owner can provide access to their data. The system (UDL) does not “see” any of the data it contains, and end users can only have access once it is provided through direct approval from the owner. This is further expanded with our SDA Marketplace, which helps expedite commercial purchasing of data, and further locks down data based on what type of rights were paid for with the purchase. We even allow for different sizes of groups for the purchases, so that the provider knows just how many people are benefiting from a single purchase and can price appropriately.