Foreign Military Sales: A Space Acquisition Win-Win for U.S. and Allies Published Oct. 16, 2025 By Zayd Al-Marayati, Deputy, Foreign Military Sales Division, SSC International Affairs LOS ANGELES, Calif. -- Here in the U.S., space underpins our way of life, our way of war, and a robust industrial base. Like-minded nations are taking notice, and they are looking to buy American-made products, technologies and services to strengthen their sovereign space capabilities. These transactions largely fall under the purview of the International Affairs Office of Space Systems Command and, more specifically, its division of Foreign Military Sales. From 2023 to 2024, requests for space-related Foreign Military Sales (FMS) grew six-fold across the Space Force and five-fold within Space Systems Command as partner nations increasingly prioritize space as a national security imperative, a growing economic engine, or both. For the U.S. and its Allies, it’s a win-win on several levels. Promotes national and international security: FMS helps strengthen key alliances and partnerships by providing Allied and like-minded nations with access to a broad range of space-based capabilities, including GPS, satellite communications (SATCOM), space domain awareness (SDA), and launch. Fosters allied interoperability: Integration between the U.S. and its Allies is a critical focal point for the U.S. Space Force. Selling U.S. defense equipment to Allied nations through FMS contributes to interoperability and cooperation in joint military operations and exercises, contributing to the success of joint efforts such as Resolute Space 2025. Supports U.S. foreign policy: Foreign Military Sales help to advance U.S. foreign policy objectives, such as promoting democracy, stability, and human rights. Building Partner Capacity is a related program for like-minded nations that are still in the space-building phase. As a colleague of mine once stated, “We want our non-traditional allies to speak U.S. Space Force -- not Chinese rocket force.” Delivers economic benefits: The FMS program generates revenue for the U.S. defense industry and supports American jobs. Administrative costs are funded by foreign country purchasers through an administrative surcharge applied to each FMS case, so there is no cost to the U.S. taxpayer. The dollar value of FMS is expected to reach into the billions as the U.S. aggressively implements its Partner-to-Win strategy. SSC’s FMS team is responding to the surge in demand with intensive training, agility, and speed. For example, this spring we fielded urgent requests for commercial SATCOM capability from partner nation warfighters in the European Command theater, condensing several months’ worth of administrative processes into just two weeks. In the U.S. SOUTHCOM arena, our BPC team worked with the Air Force Research Laboratory and U.S. Air Force-Africa to fully obligate the first-ever space BPC cases for four partner nations, expanding LEO, MEO, GEO and xGEO optical tracking capability. This initiative helped expand SOUTHCOM allied SDA capabilities as well as integrate critical SDA data from the Southern Hemisphere for use in the Unified Data Library and for additional SDA analyses conducted by U.S. allies and for national entities like the JCO (Joint Commercial Operations). From their impact on diplomacy and security to the economic and technological advantages they deliver, FMS cases are a huge strategic Space Force imperative. But they can only work with participation from the commercial space industry. Contact ssc.iaf.marketresearch@spaceforce.mil to learn more. # # # # A version of this article originally appeared in Space Power News