METRO · COLORADO SPRINGS / EL PASO COUNTY

Colorado Springs.
Where Space Force, NORAD, and USNORTHCOM keep the watch.

Where the mountain never stands down

Peterson Space Force Base, Schriever Space Force Base, and Cheyenne Mountain Space Force Station sit inside a single metro, running the nation's space-domain and homeland missile-warning missions. The cleared primes and subcontractors that support them need accredited footprint on a schedule that keeps pace with orbital tasking, not a two-year build cycle. Salian Defense delivers turnkey ICD-705 facilities and air-gapped mission software across Colorado Springs and the Front Range.

Scope a Colorado Springs program › What we deliver here
I.WHAT WE DELIVER

One contract, built for the Space Force procurement cadence.

Space-domain programs reorganize faster than a building permit clears. Salian's answer is a single contract that carries the facility, the accreditation, the industrial-security support, and the air-gapped software built to run inside the boundary, so a program office is not coordinating four vendors against one launch-driven date. The applicable Accrediting Official or Cognizant Security Authority accredits the facility; Salian prepares, builds, tests, documents and coordinates with the AO/CSA through that determination.

A · FACILITY
ICD-705 build for the Front Range's building stock

Permanent and modular SCIFs sited for the Peterson – Schriever – Cheyenne Mountain corridor. Site selection accounts for the altitude, freeze-thaw cycling, and snow-load rules that wear down a build specified for sea level.

  • Colorado Springs and El Paso County
  • Aurora and the Denver tech corridor
  • Modular and CONEX SCIFs for surge tasking
  • TEMPEST and RF shielding to specification
B · ACCREDITATION
FCL readiness through AO sign-off

Facility clearance readiness and sponsorship-path support, SSP and POA&M generation through Project Hawk, and AO coordination from staff with national-security space experience.

  • DCSA facility clearance readiness support
  • NIST SP 800-171 control mapping
  • CMMC Level 2 readiness
  • RMF / ATO support
C · PEOPLE
Outsourced industrial security

Co-employed FSO, CSSO, and ITPSO through a cleared captive partner. ITAR / EAR advisory, FOCI mitigation, and an insider-threat program built for a metro with a dense mix of primes and small space startups.

  • Co-employed FSO + CSSO + ITPSO
  • FOCI mitigation
  • ITAR and EAR advisory
  • SDVOSB joint-venture options
D · SYSTEMS
Air-gapped mission software

The Praesidium Suite runs hosted, on your own CUI-safe infrastructure, or fully air-gapped inside accredited space for space-domain and missile-warning analyst workflows. See what each product does and who it is for on the capabilities page.

II.LOCAL MISSION CONTEXT
/ WHO DRIVES CLEARED DEMAND HERE

Three named missions, one metro, and the industrial base built to support them.

Peterson Space Force Base hosts NORAD and USNORTHCOM headquarters along with Space Base Delta 1 and Space Operations Command's Mission Delta 3. Schriever Space Force Base commands and controls more than 170 Department of Defense warning, navigation, and communications satellites through Space Delta 8 and Space Delta 9. Cheyenne Mountain Space Force Station serves as NORAD and USNORTHCOM's hardened alternate command center and a hub for the missile-warning mission. Around those three installations, the Colorado Springs Chamber & EDC counts more than 200 space, aerospace, cybersecurity, and defense companies employing over 111,000 people, a sector that grew 16 percent from 2017 through 2022. That is the demand base Salian builds for.

III.CLEARED WORKFORCE & FACILITY SUPPLY

Deep cleared labor, shallow secure-space supply.

The Pikes Peak region's cleared and veteran labor pool is unusually deep for a metro this size. Turnkey secure-facility supply has not kept pace, and the shortfall shows up in public procurement itself.

111,000+
Space, cyber & defense jobs
45,000
Active-duty, Guard & Reserve
90,000
Veterans & military retirees
5
Military installations, Pikes Peak region

On the supply side, GSA has directly solicited leased SCIF office space in Colorado Springs, meaning the government competes with private tenants for the same scarce inventory. A private operator opened a roughly 60,000-square-foot shared SCIF specifically because local cyber and space startups had no other way to bid classified work, and a second purpose-built SCIF has been separately reported under development. Existing SCIF square footage in the general office market still usually requires recertification for a new occupant's specific program, so posted vacancy figures overstate what is actually usable without a build-out.

IV.SITE SELECTION & DELIVERY

What actually moves a Colorado Springs site decision.

Proximity to the Peterson – Schriever corridor on the city's east side is the first filter for most cleared tenants, with the Denver tech corridor and Aurora absorbing overflow demand for companies that also work national-security space contracts up I-25. Because secure space is scarce and often contested by the government's own leases, controlling a site early, whether leased or ground-up, tends to matter more here than in metros with a deeper commercial SCIF market.

On delivery: the region sits above 6,000 feet, with wide diurnal temperature swings and a genuine snow-load season that affect envelope, gasket, and RF-shielding material selection and push exterior work into a narrower construction window than a sea-level build. None of that changes the ICD-705 standard; it changes how the schedule and materials list get sequenced.

›COMMON QUESTIONS

Colorado Springs, answered.

Why does Colorado Springs carry so much cleared demand for a metro its size?
Three Space Force and homeland-defense missions sit inside a fifteen-mile radius: Peterson Space Force Base, headquarters for NORAD and USNORTHCOM; Schriever Space Force Base, which commands and controls more than 170 Department of Defense satellites; and Cheyenne Mountain Space Force Station, the hardened alternate command center for NORAD and USNORTHCOM's missile-warning mission. The Colorado Springs Chamber & EDC counts more than 200 space, aerospace, cyber, and defense companies in the region employing over 111,000 people. That concentration of cleared prime and subcontractor work is why local, turnkey facility delivery matters here more than in most metros its size.
Is secure office space actually scarce in Colorado Springs?
Publicly reported signs point that way. GSA has issued its own solicitations to lease specialized SCIF office space directly in Colorado Springs, competing with private tenants for the same limited inventory. Nooks, a private operator, opened a roughly 60,000-square-foot shared SCIF specifically because cyber and space startups here could not otherwise bid on classified work, and separate reporting has described a large purpose-built SCIF under development by Boecore. Existing SCIF space usually still requires recertification for a new tenant's specific classification and program needs, so available square footage does not always equal usable square footage.
Does the Front Range's altitude and climate change how a SCIF gets built here?
Yes, at the margins that matter for a twenty-year build. Colorado Springs sits above 6,000 feet, with a wide daily temperature swing and a real snow-load season. Those conditions push envelope and RF-shielding material choices and affect exterior construction scheduling more than they would at sea level. None of that changes the ICD-705 standard itself, but it does change how a contractor sequences the work and specifies materials that hold up through the winters ahead.
Can a first-time contractor without an existing FCL enter Colorado Springs' cleared market?
Yes. Colorado Springs' cleared economy includes a steady flow of newer space and cyber companies with no prior facility clearance. Salian helps you identify and prepare for the sponsorship path, from the SF-328 through the DCSA review, so a first-time entrant can plan a credible timeline before committing. The free five-gate readiness check at saliandefense.com/fcl-readiness.html tells you where you stand before you commit.
›LOCAL SOURCES

Where the local facts on this page came from.

Retrieved 2026-09-02.

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