Pentagon Launches Secure Space Network to Expand Classified Facility Access

Contractors will soon gain additional opportunities to conduct classified work for the Pentagon via the newly launched Secure Space Network.

The initiative seeks to grant access to physical, classified environments—referred to as Sensitive Compartmented Information Facilities (SCIFs)—by designing and deploying roughly fifty such sites nationwide.

“We must make it easier for capable companies to contribute at every level of the mission. Industry has identified access to classified environments as a major barrier, and the Secure Space Network directly addresses that challenge by opening the door to classified work for more companies,” James R. Mismash, Deputy Assistant Secretary of War for Industrial Base Growth and Director of the Office of Small Business Programs, said in a release Thursday. “With strong partnership across the agency and support from Congress, this effort will strengthen our supplier base and help deliver the capabilities our warfighters need faster and at greater scale.”

Formally, a SCIF can be any “area, room, group of rooms, building, or installation certified and accredited as meeting Director of National Intelligence security standards for the processing, storage, and/or discussion of sensitive compartmented information (SCI),” according to the National Institute of Standards and Technology. The rooms are reportedly built to defeat physical forced entry, audio eavesdropping and electronic spying, among other threats.

For many small businesses trying to do work with the military, access to classified information and SCIFs can be hard to come by. They are costly to establish and some companies just don’t have easy access to them. The intent of the Secure Space Network is to lower the barrier for more companies to do business with the Pentagon.

The release noted that the initial production will create a repeatable capability that can expand secure facilities as requirements grow. In addition, the intent is to build scalable production capacity to “surge” capability for rapidly increasing these accredited security workspaces.

The effort will be led by the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment’s Office of Industrial Base Growth. The facilities can be placed at military installations, industry-focused locations such as APEX Accelerators, as well as other “mission-relevant” locations, the release said.

The department’s release was scant on meaningful details, however, eschewing the size of each SCIFs, how much the program has or the timeline.

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