SSC’s Front Door Expanding Efforts to Connect Innovators with USSF, Other Agencies

Published June 11, 2024

In the two years since it was first introduced, Space Systems Command’s Front Door web portal has streamlined its processes, automated its entry portal, and increased the number of Reverse Industry Days it sponsors, said Victor, Vigliotti, the new director of SSC’s Front Door.

“The Front Door is becoming fully automated – it’s a submission process online through an awesome portal that helps inform the space enterprise of all the different things going on: the events that SSC people are participating in, the Reverse Industry days that are being executed and kicked off by the Front Door as well as information on all the various mission areas and what’s needed by the PEOs and program offices across SSC,” Vigliotti explained.

“Front Door has been critical in assisting new and emerging space technology companies with navigating the government procurement process,” said Col. Richard Kniseley, the senior materiel leader of SSC’s Commercial Space Office, which includes Front Door along with the Commercial Satellite Communications Office (CSCO), the Global Marketplace, the partnership with AFWERX for SpaceWERX, and the Commercial Augmentation Space Reserves program (CASR).

“Government equally benefits by having access to the best and most innovative technologies available, from the earliest prototyping stages to market-ready, dual-use models. Our system makes sure these ground-breaking concepts aren’t lost due to companies not knowing how to find the right end user or their inability to secure funding,” Kniseley said. “It may start with the Front Door, but once these companies have stepped across the portal, the possibilities are endless and we have many tools at our disposal to help pave the dreaded ‘Valley of Death.’”

When it was first launched, Front Door was described as being a one-stop-shop for commercial space companies who were interested in sharing new and emerging technologies but weren’t sure how to go about doing so. The goal was to reduce the barrier to entry – and, if a company had a technology that wasn’t of interest to SSC, Front Door staff could steer that company towards another government agency that might be interested.

We received high volume industry response right from the start. In those early days it was often more than Front Door’s small initial staff could handle, and the team struggled to keep up with a steady stream of companies flocking to the portal, Vigliotti said. Today, with a new and more advanced portal, Front Door is better positioned to ensure incoming information is directed appropriately and doesn’t languish in an inbox.

Vigliotti said companies now can submit their materials quickly and efficiently at https://sscfrontdoor.experience.crmforce.mil/SSCFrontDoor/s/ without having to fill out numerous PDF forms or send Outlook emails to multiple distribution lists. Submissions now tie into a backend system with a customer relationship management (CRM) tool, designed by Front Door’s Program Manager, Monica Alderette, to make sure companies don’t get lost in the shuffle.

“It’s a fully trackable CRM system that allows the Front Door to manage those relationships with our commercial space enterprise and ensure that we’re navigating and connecting them with the most appropriate stakeholders,” Vigliotti said.

It’s also much quicker: currently, if a company submits an idea to the Front Door, it takes 30 days or less for the SSC team to get them aligned with a stakeholder, program office or end user, or provide advice on a recommended way forward, Vigliotti said.

If a company submitted their information prior to September 2023, Vigliotti suggests they submit again through the new portal. Doing so will help ensure the information is tracked in the new CRM tool. More than 550 companies have done so, in the months since the system upgrade.

“What we’re trying to do now is to expand the Front Door out beyond just SSC,” Vigliotti said. “We’re working to expand it out all the way across the field commands within the U.S. Space Force, inevitably becoming the Space Force Front Door. And someday connect defense, civil, and intelligence space alike into one unified Space Front Door. This would ensure the U.S. government has full transparency into the interactions and offerings across the commercial sector.”

“There’s a wealth of incredible capabilities being submitted through the Front Door,” Vigliotti said. “I would love to expand it to an over-arching Space Front Door that if, say, NRO (National Reconnaissance Organization) or NGA (National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency), who we’ve been working to onboard into our process, had a company submit to them, it would come in through the same one-stop shop. This would do away with companies having to navigate hosts of org charts across all these different organizations, and asking ‘Who the heck do I talk to?’”

“We want to ensure that commercial companies have one place to go to, and then the U.S. government on the backend system navigates that to find the most appropriate end user,” Vigliotti said.

“Some of these companies don’t realize that beyond the Department of Defense application of their capability, there might be an intel community application, and there might even be a civil application,” Vigliotti said.

“Say we get NASA in the system, and they start looking into the CRM from a Science, Technology, Research perspective, and say, ‘That actually sounds like something we need from a NASA viewpoint,’” Vigliotti continued. “Without a connected Front Door, they may have never seen that capability, and the commercial company may have never thought to submit it for that focus.”

“So it’s not only benefitting the government to help us identify commercial capabilities, but it’s benefitting those companies because they might end up with a commercial or government partner that they never thought of,” Vigliotti said.

Vigliotti said current submissions are a mix of capabilities, spread out across several mission areas, and numerous submissions that align with SpaceWERX, the innovation arm of USSF, which focuses on emerging dual-use technologies.

One element that hasn’t changed: the Front Door is still a haven for companies who have never before done business with the federal government and need some help not only determining what agency is the best fit, but how to navigate the maze of paperwork and regulations, Vigliotti said.

“We’re here to partner with the commercial space industry in order to deliver effective, efficient, resilient capabilities to the warfighter quickly and affordably, and we’re here to support our commander and program executive officers on their priorities, to get them the most effective capabilities we can by exploiting the assets we have, buying what we can, and only building what we must,” Vigliotti said.

“We’re looking to enhance space operations and overall U.S. Government effectiveness in space by providing strategic market insight and by providing awareness on the wealth of incredible commercial capabilities that exist across the commercial space enterprise,” Vigliotti said.