US Space Command officials and representatives 25 commercial space companies will participate in a classified war game next week in Colorado Springs. Problems and threats will be discussed during the event, faced by participants, as well as issues of domain protection and defense in partnership with commercial entities.
Training is scheduled for 23 March at The Aerospace Corporation. It will be the first in a series of quarterly war games in the 2026 year with the participation of commercial participants. Director of Joint Forces Development and Training of the US Space Command, Major General Samuel Keener noted, that the decision to classify the war game will allow the level of intelligence sharing to be reached, which was not previously provided to commercial partners. This step reflects the changing space environment, in which military and commercial systems are increasingly intertwined. High-tech capabilities of national security, such as missile warning and secure communications, historically owned and tightly controlled by the government. However, today architecture, on which the army relies, includes commercially operated communication groups, remote sensing networks, data transmission layers and elements of space awareness.
In a crisis, these systems will be used alongside government assets and can be attacked in the same way. From a planning point of view, exclusion of companies, who create and operate them, risks creating an incomplete picture of that, how the conflict in space will unfold. The military has traditionally restricted access to sensitive operational concepts, to avoid exposing vulnerabilities or tactics. Now officials admit, that such a limitation may interfere with realistic planning, when key capabilities are beyond government control.
The March exercises will focus on the threat of weapons of mass destruction in space — scenarios, which, according to planners, requires coordination between government and industry. A weapon of mass destruction in space usually means a nuclear device, detonated in orbit. Defense officials are concerned about a high-altitude nuclear explosion, which can create radiation and electromagnetic effects, able to disable or destroy a large number of satellites in wide areas of low Earth orbit. Unlike conventional anti-satellite weapons, which affects individual spacecraft, such an explosion would be indiscriminate. It can simultaneously affect civilians, commercial and military satellites of several countries, breaking the connection, Navigation, weather forecasting and military command and control systems.
Source: https://spacenews.com