Before the First Launch: Using an AI Game Master to Shape Rocket Cargo CONOPS.

Shaping the Future of Rocket Cargo Before the First Launch

The future of wargaming will not be won by the side that plays the most scenarios. It will be won by the side that can discover better options faster than the adversary can adapt.

Modern operations span the air, land, maritime, space, and cyber domains, all of which depend upon resilient logistics and sustainment. Every delay creates risk, and every assumption can become a failure point. The next generation of wargaming cannot rely solely on static playbooks or a handful of human-generated Courses of Action (COAs).

Logistics Enables Every Domain

This challenge becomes even more pronounced with emerging concepts that seek to explore the use of commercial space transportation to deliver critical personnel, equipment, and supplies anywhere in the world in hours rather than days.

Rocket Cargo could fundamentally change strategic mobility, crisis response, and theater sustainment. But it also introduces entirely new planning questions:

• What cargo should be prioritized?

• Which launch and landing sites are available and survivable?

• How should scarce launch assets be allocated?

• What happens when operations are disrupted?

• How does Rocket Cargo integrate with existing logistics networks?

These questions cannot be answered through static planning alone.

That was the idea behind SpaceBoss: using AI-enabled wargaming to explore Rocket Cargo concepts, identify constraints, and understand operational tradeoffs before the first operational capability is fielded.

Bringing Mixed-Media Wargaming to the Space Domain

SpaceBoss combines a physical game board with an AI-powered Game Master to create a mixed-media wargaming environment for the Space Domain.

Players collaborate around the game board while the AI Game Master continuously manages the simulation—introducing disruptions, simulating adversary actions, and evaluating the second- and third-order effects of logistics decisions.

The result is a living, adaptive environment that helps stakeholders visualize future Rocket Cargo CONOPS, experiment with concepts of employment, understand dependencies and operational risks, and pressure-test logistics COAs against uncertainty and intelligent opposition

The Strategic Advantage

Rocket Cargo represents more than a new transportation capability - it represents a new way of thinking about strategic mobility.

AI-enabled mixed-media wargaming gives leaders a way to explore concepts, challenge assumptions, and refine employment strategies before the first launch ever leaves the pad.

That is strategic decision dominance: discovering better options, understanding risk, and preparing for the future before the fight begins.

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This material is based upon work supported by the ____United States Air Force under Contract No. ____FA2385-25-P-B005

Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the United States Air Force.