Space & Satellite Exchange 2026: Space Systems Command’s F Schnell, Capt. MD “Doc” Rana on creating trust, confidence in AI

The Space Force’s Space Systems Command already is seeing an increase in trust and confidence when it comes to applying artificial intelligence tools to mission areas.

While hard metrics still may be difficult to point to, F Schnell, deputy portfolio acquisition executive for the Space Force Infrastructure Office, said for areas like source selection or market research, the Guardians already are feeling the impact of these new and emerging capabilities.

“When we first started going down the path of using AI for a request for proposals or source selection, there were a lot of functionals that had concerns. We sat down with those functionals, both the experts in the AI tools and the team that was going to be using them. And in an easy conversation, we addressed things like how we’re protecting proprietary data. The data goes in, but it’s in an isolated enclave. It’s not open to the World Wide Web,” Schnell said during Federal News Network’s Space & Satellite Exchange 2026.

During those sessions, he said they ran through draft examples to make sure that the questions they were asking, the prompts they were using, were returning consistent messages.

“Regardless of the proposal added in, we are not taking the human out of the loop. We are keeping them in the loop and that increased confidence of all of the functionals that are in the acquisition trade space to understand that we weren’t doing it willy nilly,” Schnell said. “We were considering all of those processes, all of the concerns and legalities.”

Schnell said he already is seeing a difference in how Space Systems Command is using AI from a time perspective. The number of days required to review an RFP is going from months to weeks.

Integrating AI into mission areas

The use of AI in back-office areas like acquisition is a key first step toward getting Guardians and others to be more trusting and confident in these tools.

“Not only are we seeing decreased time, we’re seeing increased quality of the product. Would we have gotten there in the end? Absolutely. But the AI tools that we’re using are absolutely making it happen more quickly,” Schnell said.

He continued, “What we have seen over the last three months is an exponential decrease in time as people get more used to the tool. As they make inquiries of it and read the results, it continues to take off time. It also increases the quality of the product. It increases confidence in the AI tool itself.”

The long-term goal for the Space Force and Space Systems Command is to integrate AI into mission areas.

To do that, the command stood up a laboratory environment that includes sandboxes and other simulation and testing opportunities.

Testing AI mission opportunities in a lab setting

Capt. MD “Doc” Rana, director of the command’s Human-AI Teaming Lab, said one major focus area is examining whether operators trust the AI tools too much or too little, and under what circumstances should they trust the AI?

“What happens when it is a stressful situation? How do they deal with things like task overload and situations like that? We evaluate or analyze whether AI reduces that cognitive burden or load, or whether it adds confusion,” Rana said. “Based on that, we wanted to provide those recommendations to the decision-makers to consider as a form of requirement in the writing when thinking about architecture, design and similar needs.”

Rana said the lab is trying to answer several core questions about different AI capabilities:

• Do we believe in AI?
• Can Guardians use AI at the right level of trust?
• Do they know when to use it at the right time?
• Do they understand the right mission decisions to use AI?

The lab answers these questions by evaluating AI-enabled tools in operationally relevant scenarios, he said.

“Guardians interact with AI recommendation decision support tools and simulated mission vignettes. For example, the lab studies how this tool can affect their trust, their workloads, their situational awareness and their decision confidence. AI usually provides a confidence score, like I’m 95% sure, so that helps us know more about their confidence and mission effectiveness. Those are the key areas we’re looking at as well as trust calibration, human accountability, operators, workloads, the decision quality of the AI, explainability and usability, and if possible, we would like to support governance and policy eventually.”

Portfolio acquisition executives playing a bigger role

The Space Force, like the rest of the military services and Defense Department agencies, earlier this year reorganized their acquisition and mission support functions into portfolio acquisition executives (PAEs). Among the changes the Space Force initiated was the creation of a new service range for testing, for training and for other purposes to bring AI capabilities into the mission areas.

Rana said PAEs bring ideas, especially with the recent AI boom, to the lab as the first step to deciding what is possible. He said one of the first things the lab analyzes is whether the Space Force can integrate the new technology into an existing product.

“Our lab will work with that partner to understand the requirements, to do that research in a simulation and modeling environment. What may happen if we bring it into operational scenarios? We examine how this tool or AI technology will be able to support the mission,” he said. “We can do enough market research to see what the latest AI technology shows to everybody. We can do that examination in a sandbox environment. We can see how it impacts human decision-making. We can do a risk analysis.”

Rana said risk analysis is quickly becoming one of the most important parts of their mission. He said the lab analyzes the cyber risk, the supply chain risks and even the maturity of the AI tools.

Schnell added if it’s an existing capability that they are making better, then adding a new AI tool, or really any new capability, is just one step along a journey. He said most products really are never finished, but the Space Force is constantly looking for the next iteration to help meet mission needs.

He said the combined approach of back-office areas like contracting or financial management and the operational areas are key to making AI successful for data management, data collection and overall data analysis.

It’s a chief reason that he likes to highlight early wins and demonstrate how “easy it is” to use AI tools, Schnell said.

“I have a monthly brain day where we take half a day and we work through issues that are of interest to the workforce. We broadcast the discussions around how Office A or B or C is using it,” he said. “If they find that useful to their task, then you can go talk to that office and collaborate on challenges. From my perspective, it is a push along many different lines to get adoption, and it’s not all a hard sell and it’s not all soft sell. It’s across the board saying. ‘We’re going to use it, so let’s figure out how to jump in.’ ”

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Read/edited 7/15 — jse

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