U.S. Space Force reorganizes, pauses commercial accelerator program
The Space Force has reorganized its commercial innovation-focused laboratory, moving it under another program office in a change meant to accelerate the acquisition of participants’ software.
However, the Space Domain Awareness Tools, Applications and Processing Lab — dubbed the SDA TAP Lab — said it is now in a “strategic pause” after its latest technology accelerator cohort wrapped up in March.
The SDA TAP Lab, established in 2023 under Space Systems Command and based in Colorado Springs, works with industry to address the service’s software challenges. To do so, the lab runs three-month programs in which companies and academics pitch products, ideas and research to address the lab’s “problem statements.”
Originally a stand-alone initiative within Space Systems Command, the SDA TAP Lab was moved “underneath the Kronos program to encourage and build more of an intentional pathway to a program of record,” Lt. Col. Collin Greiser, a program manager for advanced space battle management, said at a February SpaceNews event.
This transition began “at the end” of fiscal year 2025, which concluded Sept. 30, and “was not a single event or formal transfer, but a deliberate alignment over time,” according to a May 11 statement from System Delta 85, the unit responsible for Kronos.
In written answers, a spokesperson for the service’s acquisition office for battle management, command, control, communications and space intelligence said “Kronos is the Space Force’s effort to modernize operational command and control, battle management, and space intelligence through an integrated software architecture.”
“It is designed to fuse data from multiple sources to support the Space Tasking Cycle and enable timely, informed decision-making across the enterprise,” the spokesperson noted.
Moving the lab under the Kronos program “ensures that technologies assessed through the SDA TAP Lab are directly tied to mission systems,” the spokesperson said. “The SDA TAP Lab remains focused on identifying and evaluating emerging capabilities, but there is now a stronger emphasis on integration and transition.”
The spokesperson also said the shift will position the lab “to directly field capability rather than operate solely in a demonstration environment.”
According to an April 14 LinkedIn post from the lab, the strategic pause was ongoing as “our leadership team determines the best path forward to support our government programs –as well as our industry and academic partners.”
“Our leadership team is meeting regularly with stakeholders to create a new process,” the post reads.
The System Delta 85 spokesperson said “the lab remains active at a baseline level. Existing participants have access to their development efforts, and core data services remain in place.”
“The SDA TAP Lab is expected to resume operations no earlier than Summer 2026 with the launch of Cohort 10,” the spokesperson said. “The intent is to return with a more focused model that strengthens integration and transition into the Kronos Program of Record, so technologies developed in the lab can move more quickly into operational use.”
