AskPolaris Project Highlights USSF/Academia Partnerships, GenAI Mission-Focused Solutions

Published Sept. 4, 2025
By Lisa Sodders, SSC Public Affairs

EL SEGUNDO, Calif. -- Imagine you’re a U.S. Space Force Guardian working at Space Systems Command (SSC)and you’re on a deadline to complete an important project. But you’re having problems connecting your laptop to the VPN (virtual private network).

You could call SSC’s Atlas IT Support Center, but you might have to wait for a bit to have a technician help you. Wouldn’t it be great if you could solve your problem NOW?

In a few months, SSC users may be able to do just that, thanks to “AskPolaris,” one of the winning projects from the USSF’s inaugural 2024 GenAI Challenge.

AskPolaris is an innovative, mission-aligned AI solution currently under development, said Wuan Perkins, program manager for Order66, a software factory within SSC’s S6 organization.

“AskPolaris is not just another AI tool,” Perkins said. “It’s a mission enabler that reduces downtime, empowers users to fix issues immediately, and frees IT technicians to focus on more complex problems critical to mission success.”

“If an issue has already been solved before, AskPolaris can immediately suggest the same solution, saving time for both users and technicians.” Perkins added. “If a problem has already been solved, AI immediately points the user to the same fix — no waiting required.”

“We found during user research that the majority of IT support requests are common and reoccurring,” added Paul Miranda, lead user experience designer for the team. “For example, trouble logging into a laptop or troubleshooting VPN issues, and other minor issues. A lot of that makes up the bulk of IT tickets, and that takes time away from IT help desk technicians tending to more complex problems and high-impact projects.”

“We’re not just developing AI capabilities for the sake of developing AI capabilities,” Miranda added. “We start with ‘What technological capabilities can we leverage to help solve problems for Guardians, Airmen, civilians – basically, everyone in the command and beyond Space Force as well. It’s really about how do we make an impact for people so we can develop and design a tool that helps them do their jobs.”

“Through human-centered design, or what the team internally refers to as ‘Guardian-Centered Design’ they developed a solution that focuses on the needs of people, balanced with the needs of the mission and technology implementation,” Miranda said.

Polaris directly supports SSC’s digital modernization efforts and demonstrates how AI tools can accelerate knowledge access and decision-making across the enterprise, which ultimately empowers warfighters and mission success.

The AskPolaris story began last year, when the USSF invited Guardians and U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) personnel to create solutions to Space Force problem statements leveraging GenAI.

GenAI, or generative AI, refers to AI systems that can create new content based on the data they are trained on. It uses large language models, complex algorithms and is frequently used for customer service portals, computer code generation and content creation, including illustrations and text.

This hackathon-style challenge launched Sept. 12, 2024 in three Space Force “ecosystems” across the country: Los Angeles, Colorado Springs, and Washington, D.C.

“The Space Force GenAI Challenge is a way to crowdsource new ideas, with the baseline concept that there’s a lot of smart people in our organization and in order to really be the best, we need to leverage everyone,” said USSF SMSgt Mike Sullivan, senior enlisted leader of the Delta 12 staff.

“When it comes to talent management, you may have an Airman working as a security forces defender, checking IDs at the gate, but he’s the best Python developer we don’t know about, because we’re leveraging him as a security forces defender,” Sullivan said. “When that Airman goes home after checking IDs all day, they’re a tinkerer, they’re an innovator and they’re doing it because that’s what they enjoy. We need to find those innovators and leverage their knowledge and experience to benefit the Space Force.”

During a six-week bootcamp sponsored by the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU), participants used seven AI-powered innovation tools (custom GPTs) to learn how to think differently, do human-centered design, and solve problems. There were approximately 50 Guardians and ten teams at the boot camp, Perkins said, and the SSC team, Team OrbIT (Order 66) emerged as the winner.

From there, the teams joined the DIU Capstone Program and continued building their project with six students from the University of Central Florida over two semesters, from building early architecture to integrating with Azure SQL environments and working within the Atlas Design System, Perkins said.

Beverly Seay, senior strategic advisor with DIU, said, “The AskPolaris project is a powerful example of how DIU’s innovation programs can bring together Guardians and university talent to rapidly deliver solutions that matter. By engaging UCF students through the Capstone program under the mentorship of our bootcamp winners, we’re not only accelerating development of a mission-critical capability but also inspiring and preparing the next generation of innovators to contribute to our national security."

Richard Leinecker, associate lecturer of computer science at UCF, served as the mentor for the project, working with a team of five students over two semesters as they developed a “proof-of-concept” for AskPolaris.

UCF has done similar projects with organizations ranging from the U.S. Army to Lockheed Martin, Leinecker said. The students get real-world experience and an opportunity to work on projects that go beyond a typical classroom assignment, and the organizations get to work with students trained on cutting-edge technology with a fresh take on the problem sets presented.

Anthony Fetyko, 22, UCF student developer on the project, called it the “highlight of my four years at UCF.”

“I don’t think I gained any other experience as valuable as this one,” said Fetyko, who is now pursuing a master’s degree in machine learning at Georgia Tech. “The work environment, working with professional partners… it made me feel like I was working on a real job.”

Many companies are looking to incorporate AI and Machine Learning to streamline tasks, similar to the goals of AskPolaris, and the ability to work on a project that has the potential to be widely used and help the Space Force was invaluable, he said.

“I thought the process all the way through was really smooth and communication was great from both ends,” Fetyko, said. “Because of all the people they provided us, we were able to get any questions or feedback that we needed at any time, which I thought was really great.”

Perkins said it was exciting to work on a project that brought together SSC personnel and UCF students – some of whom might become Guardians in the future.

“This work connects with everyone differently,” Perkins said. “For me, it’s about advancing the mission and building a solution that can scale across the enterprise.”

“Because the Space Force is still new, there’s great opportunity to make a real impact,” Perkins continued. “Seeing young professionals eager to contribute — and energized by working with the Space Force — shows how this effort can inspire the next generation.”

Next, the team will continue with agile development sprints focused on core user experience, knowledge graph integration and UI (user interface) refinement. In October, AskPolaris will be deployed into a secure production environment to support staging and test environments.

By November, the team hopes to conduct UAT (user acceptance testing) and integrate pilot testers from across SSC, with the goal of delivering MVP to a broader user group for real-world application and feedback. In January, the team will evaluate pilot feedback, plan a full rollout of the product and identify sustainability needs for long-term support.

AskPolaris is designed to work with users, whether they’re familiar with AI or not, through a feature called “Prompt Assistance” which intuitively guides users through the process of getting their issues resolved, Miranda explained. When a Guardian signs up to use AskPolaris, he or she will fill out a quick on-boarding survey that will assess the user’s IT experience level.

Over time, the AskPolaris will learn more about each user and adapt its solutions to fit them, Miranda said. For example, someone who’s not very tech savvy may get a solution that spells out a fix step-by-step in simple terms, compared to a more complex solution for someone who contributes to the Linux kernel as a hobby and treats stack traces like light bedtime reading.

This enables Polaris to deliver a more personalized experience, much like in an in-person customer service experience, Miranda said. The team also conducted contextual research where they spent time observing and learning from the close interaction between customers and IT technicians. This enabled them to translate some of the familiar in-person experience customers have into the design of the product.

“Instead of just building an application, the team spent months conducting user research to truly understand IT customers,” Perkins said. “That way, we could design a tool that delivers the right solutions while also providing a seamless user experience.”

Perkins added that the team plans to continue its partnership with UCF, not only on AskPolaris but also on future emerging technology projects within SSC Software Development.