Episode 43: NASA Reorganizes to “Ignite the Orbital Economy”

The Elara Edge

Host: Scott King 

SME: Renee Wynn, former Chief Information Officer at NASA and Partner at Elara Nova 

00:02 – 01:05 

Earlier this year, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (or NASA) announced a reorganization effort that restores its “mission directorates” in a way that agency leaders hope will position itself for an ambitious future. The moves, whose influence can be traced back to a December 2025 executive order, will streamline workforce priorities toward five new objectives recently unveiled by NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman.  

Taken in tandem, the reorganization steps and the new agency objectives aim to ignite a commercial orbital economy that advances scientific exploration, but NASA can only get there by scaling the safety and cybersecurity discipline that the agency has forged over the years. 

Welcome to “The Elara Edge.” Here to discuss these changes, and why NASA’s commercial space partners should be paying attention to them, is Renee Wynn, partner at Elara Nova and the former Chief Information Officer at NASA. 

Ma’am, welcome to the show.  

01:06 – 01:16 

Thank you. Scott. It is fabulous to be here and represent what I think – the most iconic federal agency in the United States federal government. But I’m biased. 

01:17 – 01:24 

NASA certainly is an iconic agency with a storied history, so before we get into the changes underway today – can you first take us back to NASA’s founding? 

01:25 – 03:19 

I think a great place to start is our origin. And that is those Soviets up there in space, not before us, but parts of what they were doing were before us. And a bit of how dare they? I mean, we’re the United States. And so the National Aeronautics Space Act of 1958 charged NASA with some very important and I think a very sustainable mission that really holds true today. 

I’m going to point out, I think, some key elements from this Act of 1958: expanding human knowledge of phenomena in the atmosphere and space. It included performance, speed, safety, efficiency of aeronautical and space vehicles. And today we benefit with our airplanes on greater safety and greater sustainability. Developing and operating vehicles capable of carrying instruments, equipment, supplies and living organisms, not just astronauts, but living organisms through space. Establishing long-range studies for the benefits, opportunities and the challenges for aeronautical space activities for peaceful and scientific purposes. 

And I stress peaceful because space is highly contested. Intentional and unintentional. The unintentional is we’ve also got a lot of space debris. Some of it is man-made, some of it’s not man-made. And of course, this Space Act says preserve the role of the United States as a leader. And then finally, I want to point out, is cooperating with other nations in the peaceful application of space research and its results.

03:20 – 03:27 

Thank you, Ma’am. Now, can you speak about the influence of NASA’s role in what’s become a projected $1.8 trillion space economy?  

03:28 – 07:35 

The shuttle program was retired in 2011 and there wasn’t a replacement. And imagine what that might have felt like that retirement day, that decision, how that would have weighed on the agency and the nation to say our route to the International Space Station, which was done in cooperation with the Russians, is no more.

And I think from a business perspective, that you do have some stopgap measures in place. And so the United States sort of turned to Russia and said, “Hey, can we buy some seats?” to the tune of roughly $80 million for U.S. astronauts to ride on Soyuz, and our astronauts needed to be trained in Russia. So we’re going to Russia.  

This was a costly lesson, and I share this because it had some benefit from a geopolitical relationship perspective. But it also meant we lost some things from a United States capability. And so it really set us up for a lot of learning and a lot of opportunity.   

And so NASA got to work long before the retirement to begin what was called the Commercial Crew Program. There’s a big culture shift. NASA went from being a buyer and a maker of all of these things, to being a partner and having, in this instance, SpaceX and Boeing developing something. 

Then we were going to be buying these rides to the International Space Station. You also had the culture of: does the commercial sector truly get what it’s like to look in the eyes of the family to say, “I am sorry that we lost an astronaut.” Over 40 astronauts have been lost in the pursuit of space exploration. They were NASA employees, they were NASA people that went to those families to break the horrific news, just like it happens in the military. 

Would those cultures truly understand the depth of the heartache and heartbreaking that that would bring? We understood it because there were engineers from the shuttle program that knew Columbia and Challenger, and knew what it felt like. Did they understand safety? That was a very, very hard thing for NASA to convey.  

And so you begin on the lower risk version, but it’s still high risk and that’s cargo. So first we’ll do the cargo and then we’ll get around to crew. It’s a tiered-risk you know milestone-based. And we just worked and we worked and we worked. NASA helped SpaceX and Boeing achieved success. And that was hard sometimes because we were there to coach and mentor and So you have all of this learning going on and the next launch from American soil wasn’t until May of 2020.  

So what is the difference make? The difference makes from a bottom line. And I like to use this with people is in 2020 when I left NASA, in general, it was $17,500 to launch a kilogram of something into space. And that just gives you kind of an average price. Today, that average price is $1,500 to $2,500 per kilogram. That is the difference six years makes and that is the economic difference. How more and more businesses and countries are now reaching space. And I think that puts a really fine point on how accessible, although still expensive, space is today, more so than it was just a few years ago. 

07:36 – 07:45 

And this past May, NASA announced some reorganizational changes to position itself toward the future. Can you describe what these changes are and why they matter? 

07:46 – 10:10 

I want to begin with the objectives stated by the administrator, Jared Isaacman. And that is one: Artemis is key objective on this one which is a continuation of what was going on when I was there. The Moon Base. The moon base is a sustainable presence on the moon, and that has been back and forth between being a lab off the moon called Gateway versus a lab on the moon. The decision now is a moon-based lab, the Moon Base. 

This next one, I think really matters. It is the creation of a Space Reactor Office. And in short, is a nuclear power in space. Then the fourth thing is “ignite the orbital economy.” Not only astronaut missions, but high potential commercial science. And finally is build more X-planes, launch more missions of science and discovery and finding some efficiencies in commercial Earth observation, space weather, and other missions beyond their original design life. 

So the reorganization puts NASA back somewhat like it was when I was there. What NASA announced was the Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate and Space Operation Mission Directorate was pushed together to make Human Spaceflight Mission Directorate, which is what it was when I was there. And then the other change was the Space Technology Mission Directorate and the Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate was pushed together to create the Research and Technology Mission Directorate.The Science Mission Directorate remains where it is.  

So when I say bottom line, NASA looks more structurally like it did when I was there. The big change is this former STMD, as we call it, and Aero, have been pushed together. It has the opportunity to succeed. I think from a perspective of an organizational size. It puts it as a size that’s probably about right for a directorate at NASA than it would have been given budget size and people size losses that we have seen at NASA over the years.

10:11 – 10:19 

So what do these changes enable NASA to do now that maybe wasn’t possible or more difficult to do before? And why make these changes now?  

10:20 – 12:03 

I think the changes are largely resource-driven. So NASA offered a number of deferred retirement opportunities, and a number of individuals took this opportunity, and it was multiple waves of it. As an example, in my organization, in the end, about 25% of the people took it. And that happened across the board. NASA was certainly one of the agencies at the higher end of people staying for their career. 

Most people, when they hit their 30-year mark, that is not even close to when people are thinking about retiring from NASA. So the opportunities offered for the deferred retirement, a lot of people took that. And this particular administration went over the five objectives: Artemis, Moon Base, Space Reactor Office – nuclear power in space – ignite the orbital economy and build more X-planes, launch more missions of science and discovery. 

And they felt that the reorganization would allow them to focus because they also created a place for a space reactor office. So that was a new creation. And pulling people into that, all the rest of the stuff is tightening up the organization, which is what we’ve seen in this administration. So I don’t see it as trying to fill a gap or anything else other than: how do we tighten up our organization in order to meet these five objectives?  

12:04 – 12:07 

Can you explain some of the challenges that will need to be overcome as these changes unfold? 

12:08 – 14:16 

It’s all about people. Any reorganization needs to have a clear purpose. The current administrator, Jared Isaacman, laid out why he did what he did. So clarity of purpose was written, and he’s been going around to provide that clarity to more people than just the people that get to see him on a regular basis. But the challenge remains: does everybody understand what needs to be done and how their job matches with the objectives of the reorganization? 

And so not only does the administrator and his direct reports, but all the way down the line, everybody just needs to understand their role in that reorganization.  

And the second difficult piece with reorganizations is: how do I get my job done? So if the people I worked with moved organizations, the good news is they didn’t move their email and their phone number – most likely. 

I still can reach them, but some people may have left their job. So now how do I find my procurement specialists that would help me get something done? How do I find my HR person? How do I find my software engineer? Making sure I know how to get my job done in the middle of a reorganization – that’s the other hard part that happens during a reorganization. 

It’s a little bit of the chaos with it, and so doing that piece is also very hard. I say this from experience. Every reorg that I did, I did better and better on it. I feel like now if I ever led a major reorganization, first of all, I would set the bar really high, but I would spend so much time getting to that clarity and making sure that everybody knew how to do their job, so that when we moved the chairs and shifted the figurative organizational boxes, that when we hit the go button, everybody would be able to do their job 60-80% on day one.

14:17 – 14:23 

And what does this reorganization effort reflect about how NASA, as an agency, has evolved from its founding?  

14:24 – 15:05 

I think it just represents the evolution of science and space exploration? And that is when NASA was founded. Yes, space exploration was envisioned. We have humans living in space, and we have for 25 years.  

That’s not what was envisioned. I mean, yes, we plan to put boots on the moon. Well, now we’re envisioning not only have humans lived in space for over 25 years, but now we’re envisioning this Moon Base and so I think the evolution of an organization is with these dreams and these goals that we have of space for our country. 

15:06 – 15:20 

As we mentioned at the top, this reorganization effort can be traced back to an executive order that was signed in December of 2025: Ensuring American Space Superiority. 

Can you summarize that executive order for us and what some of your key takeaways are from it? 

15:21 – 18:05 

I see this building off of the previous administration’s efforts for the United States, and this is especially under Trump’s first administration. And as I read through it again, the emphasis that I see in it was the deadline for commercializing the ISS, the International Space Station replacement and explicit preference for commercial solutions, and a preference for Other Transaction Authority or Space Act agreements at NASA to focus on troubled programs. 

That’s always been a focus of NASA, but it’s calling it out in particular in this executive order. And then the firm fixed price and “as-a-service” models were extended for weather and ground infrastructure. This is really continuing to nudge on the commercialization of several elements of what NASA does – ground infrastructure being one of those. And we’re seeing the private sector really develop some of that as well. 

So those were, I think, sort of some of the highlights. There’s a lot of information in there, but those are the things that really struck me.  

I see there’s a couple of benefits and I see there’s some challenges. I see economic growth in what they’re pushing on this one, and that’s always good. Advancing space traffic management, that’s a definite need from a safety perspective, as well as for economic growth, vehicle safety as well as astronaut safety. 

Debris management – we’ve got to continue the conversation on debris management and the harm, as well as the opportunity that managing this debris better can come of this. and just start to get going on this. It’s just going to take us some time to get there. 

The challenges are the timelines. I love a good challenge, get this done by then, but I also like to be realistic because of safety and just want it done well. And funding. And I reflect on the 27 president’s budget across the United States government and the funding that would be required for some of these items in here. I don’t see it matching up, but perhaps these Other Transaction Authorities and Space Act Agreements can offer some innovation towards the funding that I’m just not privy to. 

The International Space Station replacement. It’s a funding thing. And can we get this going? Because it is a wonderful asset for this country and for humanity and I don’t want to see it lost without us having a replacement. You know, I go back to the example about losing the shuttle and not yet having commercial crew. I really, I don’t want to see that. That’s where I would see those challenges.  

18:06 – 18:10 

Can you elaborate on what Other Transaction Authority (OTAs) and Space Act Agreements are? 

18:11 – 19:42 

So for an OTA, as they are most commonly called, you can write a white paper to the government and get an early stage technical solution to a problem. And the government can say yes and fund it. You can’t scale it and say, wow, this really does solve our problem. You got to pop over to the more typical understood acquisition process. 

But if you want to do your experimentation and all of that, the OTAs are a great way to say, “Yeah, let’s try a few of these items and see what they can do to solve some of these problems.”  

So I’m not that familiar with Space Act Agreements. It wasn’t an instrument that I used in my organization, and I wasn’t exposed to how it was being used in other parts of NASA as well.But quite quickly: Space Act Agreements enable NASA to enter into flexible mission-supporting agreements outside the typical procurement rules, which means they can engage contractually with private and commercial industry, universities and nonprofit organizations, government agencies and international entities. So it allows them to pretty much work with a lot of different entities to support getting the mission done. 

19:43 – 20:00 

Now, earlier you shared NASA’s historical emphasis on safety. In the modern day, particularly in space, cybersecurity is a key component to safety.  

So given your prior role as CIO at NASA, how do you think NASA views the relationship between cybersecurity and mission safety? 

20:01 – 23:24 

Oh, I have direct experience about how NASA thinks about cybersecurity. When I first got there NASA didn’t want to think about it at all. Why do I say that? Because I had only been the CIO for a few weeks when a now dear friend of mine called from the White House, the Chief Information Security Officer, former General from the Air Force, calls and says, “Renee, we are coming over to talk to your administrator about a problem here at NASA.” 

“Well, what’s the problem, Sir?” He says, “Your cybersecurity posture is a problem for national security.” “Well, tell me about that problem.” “You are a problem for everyone.” “Everyone?” “Like, everyone.” “Yes, for almost every federal agency and the military that you work for.” “Okay, well, that would be a big problem,” He says, “Yep. I think you’ve got the picture.” 

So he proceeds to describe to me what the conversation is going to be about – greatly appreciate it. You know, a phone call before bad news to your boss is always appreciated. I call my boss, Charlie Bolden, former NASA administrator, former Marine Corps general, former astronaut, former shuttle pilot. So it’s going to be former general to former general Air Force to Marine Corps. 

And I’m like, all right, I got to get everybody ready. So we get Charlie ready for the whole thing. We have a great meeting. Explain everything from the White House’s perspective. So Charlie’s listening, he’s like, “Great. Thanks so much for telling us that.” And he just looks over to me and he says, “You just go make that happen.” 

What they were talking about was not only our global posture. Remember, we operate in Russia, but also our posture in space. So at this point, this is 2015. We are seeing satellites hacked from a cyber angle, NASA’s included. So you can take it as a crisis or you could take it as an opportunity. I frankly took it as both. 

And what the approach was is mission had to operate – don’t break mission. But I also had to say we let nothing happen to our astronauts and we can’t have an international incident on the International Space Station because of the cyber incident. So we did all of the basics first because that didn’t exist. And I made it a point that we were going to be doing a culture change, that NASA would be a safety and cybersecurity culture by the time I left the agency. 

And we just did it by hook or by crook, we made friends. We got yelled at like you wouldn’t believe. I got called up on the Hill a lot to brief them on one incident after another, we found things that’s embarrassing for the United States government. It was embarrassing for NASA to have this. 

We got F on our report card for how we managed IT, and NASA was embarrassed by that report card. And Charlie and then Jim Bridenstine were huge supporters of these initiatives that we went about to make that change.

23:25 – 23:34 

The relationship between space and cyberspace is a thread we frequently pull on in this show. But to get your perspective on it: how do you personally view the relationship between the two? 

23:34 – 25:06 

They go hand-in-hand. I mean, first of all, you can go on YouTube and see how to hack a satellite and it’s not wrong. Secondly, you’ve got insider threat, which can be a cyber hack, and then you’ve got the ability to hack a satellite through typical cyber means. And it’s a real threat. And from a science perspective, if you’re going to build your entire career on the integrity of the data and what you find in space – cybersecurity is confidentiality, integrity, and access of data – that is the heart of scientific discovery in space. 

They’re just hand-in-glove. Go together for scientific integrity. So to me it’s a must do. It’s table stakes. If you’re going to put your career on the line for discovering planets and dark holes and dark energy and all of that, you’ve got to have cybersecurity in place if that’s what you’re going to do. When you’ve got human space exploration, you have lives on the line. 

Everything that those astronauts rely on in space, on station, we are giving it to them. It’s not like the air they breathe is out there in space. It’s not like the water they drink is coming from a stream. It is coming from services provided to the International Space Station through complicated – and that’s chips and software and hardware. And the Mission Control Center for Human Spaceflight is very, very well run from a cyber perspective and I was so excited to learn that. 

25:07 – 25:28 

This also brings to mind the challenge that comes with having so many stakeholders operating in the space domain, whether that be national security, civil, or commercial entities.  

Can you elaborate on why a military service like the Space Force or the Air Force should care about the cybersecurity measures in place at a civil agency like NASA or similarly at a commercial partner? 

25:29 – 27:32 

So NASA is not military, it is civilian, and it will remain that way. However, NASA does a lot of research projects. They do a lot of research projects for FAA. They do research projects for NOAA, they do research projects for the military, and they do research projects for space just in operational space awareness and things like that. That means we’re grabbing data, we’re looking at things, we’re interconnected. When we’re taking on these research projects, that interconnectedness means that I’m exposing myself to you and you to me. 

I like to use the example, and this does hold true for space. If I do a project with glitter, I get glitter on my hands. And let’s think of glitter as cybersecurity. Then I go to hug you or shake your hands. Now, I’ve tried to get rid of that glitter, but guess what? You now have glitter on you, Scott. 

And you go home and now you’ve got glitter on your carpet. That is cyber security. For a moment in time, we became interconnected and tried as I might for personal hygiene for glitter. It didn’t go so well. And if I hadn’t had personal hygiene or cybersecurity hygiene, you just got covered in glitter. I give that as a visual. 

And that’s what cybersecurity is, is when I shake your hand, you’re getting my glitter. When I connect up with you to exchange data, you get my glitter. And that’s what was happening with NASA is: we were giving you way too much glitter, whether it was in space when we would have to connect or when we were coming down here, or sending you data with our research projects or however we were working with you. 

You weren’t just getting a packet of data, you were getting a very sparkly packet of data. And that’s what was putting other agencies at risk because of the way NASA was and wasn’t taking on cybersecurity.

27:33 – 27:49 

Earlier we also spoke of the lessons NASA learned as it transitioned from the shuttle program to commercial launch providers. 

So how have conversations evolved between NASA and its commercial partners to ensure that their hands are, as you suggest, remaining glitter-free? 

27:50 – 28:59 

Number one, NASA FAR has been modified that if you’re getting a NASA contract, you’re supposed to be doing your part for cybersecurity, amongst many other things. So the first thing is, it better start being in the contract. And then the second piece is it’s got to be enforced. The point of rules is that at some point when things go wrong that you can enforce against the rules and you hold everybody up. The third piece is risk, which to me is really important. When we work together digitally, which we all do, we’re passing along our risk to each other, which we’ve got to have a line-of-sight on that risk and keep an eye on it to manage and mitigate it. 

We don’t get to zero. First of all, space exploration is highly risky and it will remain that risky. Just because we can see it all the time doesn’t change the risk of space exploration. It just means we can see it all the time. And that third party risk is now changing. And you’re just going to have to take a look at it. And NASA has looked at third party risk for quite a while. And some of it will watch but most of it. We’ve got to mitigate. 

29:00 – 29:23 

This next question goes back to the December 2025 executive order, which pushes commercial first acquisition and leaning on tools like OTAs and Space Act Agreements that we talked about earlier.  

That same executive order also calls for identifying supply chain and industrial capacity gaps. What are these gaps NASA sees as needing to be filled? And how prepared are their commercial space partners in being able to fill them? 

29:24 – 31:38 

It depends on the gap. So from a launch capability, I think we’ve got that filled. One of the things is that there’s been a bottleneck just in terms of number of launch pads and so that’s getting fixed here. That’s not a capability thing. That’s just a – we need more launch pads. It also depends on what orbit you want to get to. Private sector is pretty good at building satellites to look at the earth and things like that. So we’ve got good capabilities there. You know, data back from space. That has been a choke point. 

It’s been a choke point for NASA for a very long time. We got a lot of data that we can collect in space, but we can’t always bring it down. That is being worked on quite a bit, and we’ve seen some great strides by the major providers really coming up with amazing ways to do compute in space and bring down a completed product that doesn’t take as much of the pipe, which is just so amazing for the science that we can get. 

So those are sort of some three big things that we’ve solved for, and that’s awesome. And working there, there are some advantages to computing in space for space use. That’s going to continue to get better. We have use cases, both civilian and military, national security. That’s going to continue to get better. And I think the commercial business will get improved.  

On the human space side. There’s a few companies that understand what it’s like to keep humans alive in space. So that’s an area of growth and opportunity. And so you can start to fill that gap with former NASA people and we can do that. I think all in all there are some gaps because there’s some seams. But we’re well-positioned for that growth to happen and in that growth we’re going to learn about more seams and more gaps. And then we will begin to fill them. 

The big however, and I worked in supply chain risk from a cybersecurity perspective: chips, compute power. Space is facing that. Because all that stuff that’s floating up there needs chips. And we need to make sure that those chips are of a good pedigree. 

31:39 – 31:49 

And to tie it back to the reorganization of NASA and its mission directorates, how will those changes tie back that to those gaps? Will this reorganization effort help facilitate the closure of those gaps and in any way? 

31:50 – 32:44 

Thanks for asking that. I think to the nuclear power. That is a gap that needs to be filled. My opinion. There are a lot of people that are not going to be into this nuclear power piece. I am because deeper space needs nuclear power. So that is in fact an industrial capacity gap that is being filled. NASA’s reorganization has set an organization out to help with that particular gap. 

And so that is a gap that is being filled. We talked about other acquisition vehicles besides the typical procurement. NASA knows how to do that really well. So I think they’re just well situated with the number of people that they have. They are on a hiring spree. The new folks will have to blend in and understand NASA’s history of safety culture, and then bring their way of thinking and innovation and curiosity to help NASA advance as well.  

32:45 – 32:51 

And so why should industry be paying attention to these reorganization steps, particularly given NASA’s recent commercial-first approach? 

32:52 – 33:55 

First, I would ask them a question: do you want to be part of the Artemis generation? If you want to be part of the Artemis generation, then let’s get going. And this is one of the things I like to mention because I’m part of the Apollo generation. 

But what we are seeing in front of us is the blossoming of the Artemis generation. So if a business wants to be part of that, then let’s take a look at NASA and where they are going, their five major objectives and what can you do to advance Artemis or nuclear power in space, or X-wings or science in space? 

What can you do to advance it and be respectful of the fact that you are getting taxpayer money, and honor that money and honor a culture of safety, and then become part of history in the making? It’s really that simple. 

33:56 – 34:12 

Now, as a partner with Elara Nova and a member of its Cyber, Data and Communications sector, what role can and does Elara Nova have in this moment in time? Both for NASA as it reorganizes and its commercial space partners looking to be a part of its future? 

34:13 – 35:25 

Elara Nova has deep experience in space and a cadre of individuals vested in the mission of the United States government. 

And I give that as an umbrella because they are bringing on more and more individuals, shifting away just the national security piece and more of my colleagues from the civil space side, but also civil space on the aeronautics side as well, where they can now offer a wealth of knowledge and a greater breadth of knowledge across aeronautics and space, which would allow our clients, commercial and government clients to have the opportunity to use our deep experience in space and in aeronautics to really advance their objectives. 

And if I tie it back to Artemis, if their objective is to be part of the Artemis generation, then that means by hiring Elara Nova that they get the opportunity to be part of putting boots back on the moon. 

35:26 – 36:06 

This has been an episode of The Elara Edge. Elara Nova is the trusted global security partner delivering decisive advantage.  

As a strategic advisory firm, Elara Nova builds expert teams uniquely tailored for client needs to deliver actionable results. With the trusted insight to deliver your decisive edge, Elara Nova is your source for expertise and guidance in global security. 

If you liked what you heard today, please subscribe to our channel and leave us a rating. Music for this podcast was created by Patrick Watkins of PW Audio. I’m your host, Scott King, and join us next time at the Elara Edge. 

NASA Reorganizes to “Ignite the Orbital Economy”

Scaling Safety and Cybersecurity Discipline Will Determine NASA’s Future Success

Earlier this year, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) announced a reorganization effort that restores its “mission directorates” in a way that agency leaders hope will position itself for an ambitious future. The moves, whose influence can be traced back to a December 2025 executive order “Ensuring American Space Superiority,” will streamline efforts toward five new objectives recently unveiled by NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman. Taken in tandem, these steps aim to ignite a commercial orbital economy that advances scientific exploration, but NASA can only get there by scaling the safety and cybersecurity discipline that the agency has forged over the years. 

“The National Aeronautics Space Act of 1958 charged NASA with an important and sustainable mission that really holds true today: expanding human knowledge of phenomena in the atmosphere and in space,” said Renee Wynn, former Chief Information Officer at NASA and Partner at Elara Nova. “This Space Act aimed to preserve the role of the United States as a leader, while cooperating with other nations in the peaceful application of space research. It also included performance, speed, safety, efficiency of aeronautical and space vehicles, and today we benefit from NASA’s accomplishments with greater safety and sustainability on our airplanes.” 

The reorganization returns the Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate and the Space Operation Mission Directorate to a single Human Spaceflight Mission Directorate, a single structure previously held before the directorates were split apart in 2021. The other consolidation is the Space Technology Mission Directorate and the Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate, which is becoming a single Research and Technology Mission Directorate.  

The Science Mission Directorate, however, remains the same.  

“The bottom line is NASA will return to a mission directorate structure that aligns with its current budget and workforce levels,” Wynn said. “The current administration laid out five ambitious objectives: the Artemis and Moon Base programs, a Space Reactor Office for nuclear power in space, an aim to ignite the orbital economy and launch more missions of science and discovery, among others. This reorganization enables NASA to focus its current workforce on meeting these five objectives.” 

Lessons Learned from a Commercial Transition 

The five objectives seek to revitalize an agency that has accomplished remarkable feats since its founding: ranging from enabling the first American to orbit the Earth in 1962 and putting boots on the moon in 1969, to building and operating the International Space Station and launching the Mars Rover Program. 

But those achievements have not come without setbacks. The Challenger and Columbia disasters, in 1986 and 2003 respectively, resulted in the loss of 14 total astronauts and contributed to the decision to end the shuttle program. 

“There wasn’t a replacement for the shuttle program when it was retired in 2011,” Wynn said. “The United States had to turn to Russia to buy seats on their Soyuz rocket to get to the ISS to the tune of roughly $80 million a seat. This meant U.S. astronauts needed to be trained in Russia, and so from a business perspective NASA needed a new alternative to get space. They got to work on the Commercial Crew Program, which led to the next launch from American soil in May of 2020.” 

NASA had long facilitated commercial opportunities through its scientific experiments and exploration activities in space. But turning to commercial launch providers to even get to space was a significant culture shift for the agency. 

“NASA went from being a maker to being a partner in helping and mentoring commercial partners develop something they can buy, in this case rockets to get to the ISS,” Wynn said. “But NASA had a real concern over whether the culture of the commercial sector truly understood what it’s like to lose an astronaut in the pursuit of space exploration. So, they took a tiered risk and milestone-based approach, where commercial launch providers first brought cargo to the ISS and then crew. In this way, NASA helped SpaceX and Boeing achieve success.”  

Now that a projected $1.8 trillion commercial space economy is taking hold, NASA is seeking to replicate the success of transitioning to commercial solutions through other programs like Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) to deliver scientific payloads to the lunar surface and the Commercial Low Earth Orbit Development program that seeks to design and deploy private commercial space stations to replace the International Space Station once it retires in 2030.  

Cybersecurity and Space Exploration Safety 

As NASA hands off more of its operational footprint to industry, the agency is also expanding the number of partners with access to its data, networks and mission-critical systems. But this increased reliance on commercial partners also carries potential ramifications for NASA and other government agencies that depend on its science and research, including the Air Force and Space Force.  

It’s a risk that became front of mind for NASA and its government partners during Wynn’s tenure as CIO. 

“Cybersecurity in space is a lot like glitter,” Wynn said. “If I have glitter on my hands and I go to shake someone else’s hands, they now have glitter on their hands. When NASA was exchanging data with a commercial partner or another federal agency, they were getting a very glittery packet of data because of the way NASA was treating cybersecurity at the time. This was a problem because cybersecurity is inherently tied to the confidentiality, integrity and access to data that is the heart of scientific discovery in space.” 

While necessary, the culture shift toward a stronger cybersecurity posture was not easy.  

“NASA recognized we cannot afford to put astronauts on the ISS at risk due to a cybersecurity incident, because lives are very much on the line in human space exploration as everything astronauts depend on for survival in space is provided to them through technology,” Wynn said. “So, I made it a point that we were going to be doing a culture change, and NASA would be a cybersecurity culture by the time I left the agency. There were times NASA got an ‘F’ on its report card for cybersecurity but now, NASA has strong cybersecurity measures in place that align with the agency’s historical focus on safety.”  

Cybersecurity requirements are now written into NASA’s Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR), which means its commercial partners are contractually obligated to maintain a high-level cybersecurity posture, as well.  

“NASA approached the cybersecurity problem as both a crisis and an opportunity to bring another culture shift that prioritized safety,” Wynn said. “Space exploration will always be highly risky, and this is part of NASA recognizing the third-party risk of working with commercial partners and working to mitigate that risk. Now, if you’re getting a NASA contract, you have to do your part for cybersecurity and those measures need to be enforced.” 

Reorganizing to Close Industrial Gaps 

NASA has identified supply chain and industrial capacity gaps that the agency says needs to be filled as it redirects its focus on the five objectives laid out by Administrator Isaacman, all of which will require support from commercial partners. Some progress has already been made, but other challenges remain as the agency looks to scale data-intensive science missions deeper into space. 

“We’ve had a bottleneck in launchpad availability, but that is something the private sector has been working on,” Wynn said. “The private sector is also good at building satellites for earth observation, data computing, and transfer capabilities, which has been another historical choke point. One remaining supply chain risk that will need to be addressed, however, is ensuring we have enough chips that are of a good pedigree.” 

Now, these reorganizational steps will help facilitate public-private partnerships to fill capability gaps and achieve mission objectives laid out by Administrator Isaacman.  

“The Space Reactor Office for nuclear power in space is a good example of how this reorganization supports the agency’s future ambitions,” Wynn said. “Deep space exploration will require nuclear power, and that is an industrial capacity gap that will need to be filled. Now NASA will need to continue working with its partners to leverage commercial innovation while embracing NASA’s history of safety and cybersecurity culture.” 

Now, Elara Nova exists as a strategic advisory firm to help facilitate both reorganizational efforts and cross-collaboration between public-private partnerships. 

“Elara Nova has deep experience in space and a cadre of individuals vested in the mission of the United States government,” Wynn said. “Elara Nova offers a wealth of knowledge that enables both our commercial and government clients to really advance their objectives and be part of the Artemis generation. That opportunity comes with a responsibility to honor the taxpayer dollars behind NASA’s mission and the culture of safety the agency has built over decades, which requires the same discipline from its commercial partners.” 

Elara Nova is the trusted global security partner delivering decisive advantage. Learn more at elaranova.com   

Chinese AI Closing Gap in Cybersecurity Vulnerability Detection

Export Control Disruption Sharpens the Case for Faster Government-Industry AI Partnership

The race to artificial intelligence supremacy appears to be getting tighter. Earlier this summer, a Chinese AI model known as Z.ai was found to match Anthropic’s Mythos at discovering cybersecurity vulnerabilities despite trailing U.S. models on other tasks. The development carries real national security implications as the cyber domain increasingly operates at machine speed, while heightening the imperative for the U.S. government and commercial industry to partner together to streamline development and adoption of secure and reliable AI tools.  

“It’s no surprise that the Chinese are advancing their AI technology through whatever means necessary, whether it’s through the chips that they are developing or procuring or their models exfiltrating and learning from our most advanced models,” said Mike Robbins, a retired U.S. Air Force colonel and the former Director of the USSPACECOM Joint Cyber Center and Joint Ops Center, who is now a Partner at Elara Nova. “What’s more concerning is the cost of entry into the cyber domain is lowering, because as the Chinese advance their AI models they make those models available to whoever will work with them in whatever way they want. That creates a greater national security problem because more people will be trying to hack into our systems.” 

Cyber operators are prepared to address cybersecurity attacks in real time, but an AI-enabled cybersecurity environment accelerates the need to leverage new tools as they become available to achieve the mission.  

“Your job at an ops center is to get information in, identify the things you can exploit and make a decision that keeps you one step ahead of your adversary,” Robbins said. “In cybersecurity, the biggest risk is finding a zero-day exploit on zero day or before zero day, which means you’re already at a disadvantage. While the tools operators use might change and increasingly move at machine speeds, it’s still about the OODA loop. If we’re not using AI to help synthesize data and help commanders in their OODA loop decision-making, then we’re already behind the power curve.” 

Non-Deterministic AI Demands Continuous Validation  

However, adopting innovative tools carries its own set of risks, particularly when the technology’s development outpaces an institution’s capacity to thoroughly vet and authorize its use. 

“At the end of the day, the commander is responsible for understanding and managing the risk,” said Lt. Gen. (Ret) Bob Skinner, an Executive Partner at Elara Nova and the former Director of the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) and Commander of the Department of Defense Information Network (DODIN). “AI is going to give you a non-deterministic answer, which means you can have the same input and put it in twice but get two different answers. So leveraging AI isn’t necessarily going to give you the right answer that you need for the problem that you’re trying to solve. That can be devastating for national security when lives are on the line.” 

At the same time, as China’s AI-enabled cybersecurity advancements demonstrate, there’s an opportunity cost that comes with failing to adopt cutting-edge technologies like artificial intelligence fast enough.  

“Commanders have to decide what their objectives are and understand how AI technology can help them achieve those objectives,” said Maj. Gen. (Ret) Kim Crider, Founding Partner at Elara Nova and the former Chief Technology and Innovation Officer at the United States Space Force. “But we also have to leverage AI at scale, with the whole operational enterprise and the infrastructure that supports the operator: the acquirers, the policy makers and the defense industrial base are all required to drive this technology into our operations to maximum effect.” 

The first step toward this end starts with the U.S. government and industry jointly validating and auditing these models.  

“Every model has a different success rate when it comes to answering prompts, so you need a testing mechanism to validate the answers you’re receiving in a way that builds confidence that the system is providing the right information,” Skinner said. “There is always a risk for periodic inaccuracies, but managing that risk is the responsibility of the commander. So we must establish continuous monitoring, continuous validation and continuous auditing to ensure that the models are operating nominally, and our allies and industry partners can help the Department with that.” 

Continuous validation becomes even more critical if an adversary manages to compromise or influence a model’s outputs. 

“You can’t afford to have your model exposed to where an adversary can inject [false information or inaccurate data] to change what the model is looking at,” Robbins said. “The U.S. commercial industry is the only one that can develop a model at the speed and the scale necessary to work in a fully secure environment. An operator working on a classified system cannot have their model access the ‘dirty’ internet [where misinformation and disinformation is prevalent], it has to be able to work within its controlled data environment.” 

The same imperative applies to space systems, as well, which are equally dependent on cyber capabilities to function.  

“Space systems have an extensive attack surface, because they’re an interconnected system that includes the spacecraft, the ground segment, the links between them, the user terminals and any extended cloud infrastructure and supply chain that may be connected to that,” Crider said. “When a traditional IT enterprise is hacked, there’s a recovery process that involves isolating the attack, rebuilding a server and restoring data from a backup. But a compromised space system might also gradually deteriorate and degrade over time in a manner that may not be noticed right away, which heightens the stakes due to the Joint Force’s dependency on space capabilities.” 

Export Control Order Reveals Need for AI Resilience Planning 

But while commercially available AI tools developed by U.S. industry partners significantly enhance the opportunity to discover and proactively patch cybersecurity bugs, the ability to adopt those tools and integrate them into the network in an effective and timely manner comes with its own set of challenges.  

In June, the Department of Commerce placed an export control order on Anthropic’s Mythos 5 model after citing a national security concern, a ruling which the company publicly disputed. Nevertheless, Anthropic revoked access to its Mythos 5 model to comply with the order, which meant key government agencies like the National Security Agency also lost access to a leading AI-enabled cybersecurity tool.  

“Senior leaders understand the risk calculus for adopting innovative technologies, whether it’s an internal authorization from DISA or an external export control order from the Department of Commerce, so they’re continually working through that as part of their risk management,” Skinner said. “From an operational standpoint, this example drives home the need to always have a Primary, Alternate, Contingency and Emergency (PACE) plan. You have to have resilience in your cyber operations and be able to adapt as necessary to accomplish the mission.” 

However, the need for resilience is a discipline already familiar to operators across the Joint Force. 

“If you’re in the Navy and lose reliable access to GPS, this might mean you go back to using a sextant,” Robbins said. “It’s no different with AI models. You have to be prepared to do your own analysis if you lose access to an AI model. But an authorizing official can unknowingly take that choice away from an operational commander entirely, so the government has to ensure authorizing officials recognize that the best commercial model is the model the Department needs to win.” 

Government-Industry Partnership Critical to Faster AI Adoption 

To overcome this challenge and manage that risk, increased communication and collaboration between the U.S. government and its industry partners will help streamline the authorization and adoption of cutting-edge AI tools as they’re developed.  

“AI needs to be built and adopted in a partnership, where there’s an active dialogue on policy so that authorizing officials can understand the model’s importance to the mission and the risk of certain controls to the mission, so they can work through those challenges together,” Crider said. “Industry can be a part of those conversations and the joint exercises to think through how the AI capability can be applied. But it’s also important for industry to recognize that their AI capability may not always be something the Department would employ for any number of reasons.” 

That partnership also needs to extend to international allies and partners as well, who will also be part of the broader warfighting coalition.  

“Every international partner has a different set of legal authorities, privacy rules and security processes, but we can establish a common set of mission assurance standards that they will abide by,” Crider said. “So it comes down to working toward that outcome through a degree of federated trust. This enables our international partners to maintain sovereignty in their approaches, while ensuring interoperability as we employ these emerging technologies effectively in our coalition operations.” 

That’s the gap Elara Nova is built to close. 

“Elara Nova is really about bringing a variety of perspectives, our partner portfolio consists of experts in mission operations, technology development, systems acquisition and policy writing,” Crider said. “With experts from all of these disciplines and careers, we can help bring these entities together so that government can more fully leverage these technologies and that industry is adept at conveying their message on how their innovative technologies can be used to meet mission needs.” 

Elara Nova is the trusted global security partner delivering decisive advantage. Learn more at elaranova.com   

Episode 36: Digital Infrastructure Modernization to Lay Foundation for Zero Trust, AI

The Elara Edge Podcast

Host: Scott King 

SME: General (Ret) Tim Haugh, Senior Principal Advisor at Elara Nova, former Commander at U.S. Cyber Command and Director of the National Security Agency 

00:02 – 01:34 

When we think of the word “infrastructure,” things like roads, bridges, and the power grid often come to mind. But there’s also “digital infrastructure,” which the National Institute of Standards and Technology defines as ​​”the ability to store and exchange data through a centralized communication system.” 

The Department of War kick-started the year with a series of steps to enhance the resiliency and reliability of its digital infrastructure that underpins military operations. In early January, the United States Space Force announced it will be overhauling computer networks at each one of its bases, according to a $12.5 billion task order through the Base Infrastructure Modernization program.  

Also in January, the National Security Agency released the first two products of its Zero Trust Implementation Guideline, while the DOW launched its Artificial Intelligence Acceleration Strategy. Altogether, these actions demonstrate the growing imperative to prepare the military’s digital infrastructure to take advantage of emerging technologies and counter evolving threats. 

Welcome to “The Elara Edge” here to discuss the modernization of the Department’s digital infrastructure is retired General Tim Haugh, Senior Principal Advisor at Elara Nova. With over three decades of military service with the United States Air Force, General Haugh previously served as the Commander of United States Cyber Command, Director of the National Security Agency, and Chief of the Central Security Service.  

Sir, welcome to the show!  

01:35 – 01:36 

I’m excited to be here. Scott. Thanks for having me.  

01:37 – 02:03 

We’re excited to have you and looking forward to the conversation today. Let’s begin with a look at the role of digital infrastructure in modern day military operations. Perhaps one of the best ways to understand this is by taking a look at the relationship between the space and cyber domains.  

From your perspective: how do the space and cyberspace domains interact when it comes to military operations? And how did this relationship factor into the early days of standing up the United States Space Force? 

02:04 – 03:48 

Yeah absolutely, Scott. They are inextricably linked. When we think about what it looks like to warfight space, the foundation of that is also what’s happening terrestrially on the ground: how we control satellites, how we leverage technologies in space to sense, to communicate, and to fight. All of those are tied to how we operate within cyberspace, both to leverage those capabilities on space, to be able to control them, but also to ensure that they’re secure. And foundationally, when we think about what space does as part of our warfighting doctrine across all domains, having security in cyberspace is absolutely essential. 

At the time, I was the 16th Air Force Commander and in support of Space Force leadership, as they stood up the service. And one of those decisions was how will the Air Force provide support to the Space Force in terms of the Air Force network and then being able to support space operations? 

And as the choices were being made, one of the most critical were what were the sets of expertise that the Space Force would need? And one of those choices in terms of the career fields that were identified as essential to the future of the Space Force is cyber and clearly building out expertise was critical and that will only become increasingly important.  

As we’ve seen in the recent conflicts that have occurred, particularly within Ukraine, the contest for the ability to have assured command and control, through both terrestrial and through space – absolutely essential – and that really drives towards what infrastructure that then needs to be built, sustained, operated and defended to have assured operations in both space and cyberspace. 

03:49 – 04:01 

The Space Force task order to modernize its digital infrastructure follows a similar task order to do the same for Air Force bases across the Pacific.  

Can you describe what the Space Force and Air Force are looking to do here? 

04:02 – 07:02 

In this case, and what the Space Force wants to modernize in their digital backbone is all of the infrastructure that allows every Guardian to be able to interconnect, whether that’s to the Internet, whether it’s the services that are available inside of the Department of War networks or the ability to connect and operate through the domain, through both unclassified and classified networks, and then making sure that infrastructure is well positioned to be able to provide the right capabilities to the Space Force and every Guardian – in terms of routers and switches that interconnect networks and interconnect bases to the broader network – is an investment that’s clearly being made through the Base Infrastructure Modernization program.  

It is also the computing infrastructure that every Guardian and Airman leverage every day when they come to work. It’s also the infrastructure that runs our hospitals and runs space operations and runs air operations on a flight line. 

So all of those require the ability to have relevant technology to be able to drive not only the capabilities that are required to fight and win, but also provide a user an experience that allows them to come to work, log on, get to work and be successful and that requires investment. 

And the investment and the priority to be able to ensure that infrastructure is in place is also going to be the foundation for how capabilities like artificial intelligence will be integrated and the compute power that is required at the network edge to be able to operate and do that, particularly as we think about contested environments. 

At first, it needs to provide the foundation to be able to meet the mission needs of the Space Force and the Air Force for the contract in the Pacific. So it has to be sized, it’s got to be capable enough and then the support to be able to operate and ensure the maintenance of all of those systems – uptime and resilience to be able to make sure those missions run – has to be one of the first priorities.  

The second component is ensure the architecture is defendable and is in compliance with the direction that the Department of War is taking in terms of the policies of how we modernize networks, how we secure them, and ultimately how we build them using a zero trust-based approach, because the adversaries are relentless in cyberspace. 

What that looks like today, whether that’s China, Russia, North Korea, Iran all bring different subsets of capability. But particularly China is focused on being able to take away strategic capability from the United States and having resilient infrastructure is the foundation to ensure that can’t happen.  

And I think the approach, as we talk through today of that mixture of improving the underlying base infrastructure, building out in zero trust principles and setting a foundation for the integration of AI, it really does start with the foundational infrastructure that is secure and defended.

07:03 – 07:20  

We’ve heard General Stephen Whiting, the Commander of US Space Command, previously refer to cybersecurity as the “soft underbelly” of military operations. 

What do you think makes cybersecurity and digital infrastructure particularly vulnerable to either state-backed or adversarial attacks?  

07:21 – 08:40 

There are a number of factors, that particularly within military services that have brought vulnerability. One of those is lack of investment. So at key times, if we don’t upgrade these capabilities, you can fall into a situation where the vendor no longer supports them and that technology debt brings risk. It also brings less functionality. So these investments are critical.  

The other is how do we integrate weapon systems into these architectures and ensuring that there is coherence in how the services think about the interaction with the defense industrial base and set a clear set of standards on what is expected as we build and field new capabilities and ensure that they can immediately integrate into an architecture that doesn’t create seams. 

And then finally, we’ve got to be able to build this in a way that can adapt to the threat environment and in how we secure things like the identity of every individual and every agenetic AI capability that we intend to deploy. We’ve got to be prepared for a changing architecture in demand signal based off of the emergence of these technologies and ensure that they can be integrated in a coherent way that maximizes the opportunity and doesn’t bring additional risk. 

08:41 – 08:46 

I’d like to emphasize that idea of risk. What would an attack on the digital infrastructure of military bases look like? 

08:47 – 11:50 

Yeah, I think at that point, first and foremost is we have to be able to have situational awareness in both our space and our cyber domain in a way that’s commensurate with what we’ve learned in air, ground and the maritime. That is the first thing a commander needs. They have to have situational awareness so they can make good decisions about risk. 

The second component in this discussion is around resilience because we’re certainly going to be targeted in an area of tension and in crisis. We’ve got to be resilient and expect that there are going to be very aggressive attempts to compromise our networks and compromise our partners, both in industry and our foreign partners and Allies.  

The approach that China has taken to targeting the critical infrastructure of the United States is a really good example of the types of things we would see targeted on military bases: things like water treatment, energy generation, critical functions inside of telecommunications or networks. 

They have shown that if there are vulnerabilities that they will continue to attempt to enumerate those vulnerabilities and take advantage of them if they exist. And then once in a network, they will look to compromise the identity of key system administrators that have privileged accounts that allow them to move laterally and ensure that they would be able to have deep access if we ever are in a crisis. 

We’ve seen that in our critical infrastructure. It’s been well articulated in various reports done by the intelligence community and by Homeland Security and those are things that we understand that methodology and how to defend it.  

One of the key things that they would attempt to exploit are vulnerable aging systems and so upgrading those is critically important. And then the ability to implement zero trust would be the area that would defeat or make more difficult the ability to take on different identities within organizations and networks. So we will see adversaries looking at every one of these networks. They’re going to be looking for vulnerabilities now enabled increasingly by artificial intelligence and they will take advantage of them if they see them. And that is the environment we live in every day would only be accelerated in a crisis.  

We’ve learned a lot of lessons in our support to Ukraine about what does resilience look in a modern warfare environment. And we have to know that we can scale, because certainly all of the domains rely on space to be able to deliver situational awareness, communications, particularly in extended range environments and so we need to ensure that the ground segment, the terrestrial component, the cyber elements of spacecraft are secure and resilient because they will certainly be aggressively targeted. 

And I think these types of initiatives that we’re seeing, in terms of foundational investment and direction on AI and zero trust are going to be things that are going to be really important to implement aggressively to buy down that risk.  

11:51 – 12:06 

Now, the task order was designed as a quote “Enterprise IT as a Service” solution to be delivered through an Indefinite Delivery-Indefinite Quantity or IDIQ contract. 

What exactly does this mean and why is that important? 

12:07 – 13:47 

The idea behind enterprise IT as a service is being able to leverage the strengths of the industry to bring current technology and resources to be able to build and maintain networks. In essence, be able to say, take an area that previously would have been maintained by an Airman or Guardian, bring in expertise from industry, and allow them to both operate and sustain that base infrastructure to allow Guardians and Airmen to be focused on other types of operations that are critical to our warfighting missions. 

And this is a further expansion of what the Air Force has done at a number of bases. Now building it out at each of the Space Force bases, and also bases across the Pacific for the Air Force. This is an extension of that approach. It’s giving them flexibility in terms of the number of potential vendors they could leverage that they’ve already identified as qualified to do the work against a pretty high ceiling of $12.5 billion. 

So it’s a commitment to building out the infrastructure, putting the resources behind it, and then having a bench of vendors that are qualified to do the work to ensure that as the Air Force and the Space Force expand this approach, that they’ve got the right expertise. The opportunity within the contracts is to also clearly state what the cybersecurity standards are and what’s expected of the day-to-day of how the network should be configured, how it should be defended, and then also what happens when an incident occurs. 

And I think the build out of this model based off of the previous work, should allow for a deep understanding of how to do that. Now it’s going to be about scaling, underneath this particular contracting approach. 

13:48 – 14:06 

At the same time this modernization effort is underway, the National Security Agency, released the first two products of its Zero Trust Implementation Guideline.  

At a basic level, can you define for our audience what zero trust means and then walk us through these two initial implementation products: Primer and Discovery phase? 

14:07 – 16:51 

Zero Trust is an approach to security that does take time to implement and is complex.  Previously, when we thought about defense of a network, we thought about the perimeter, the network edge. What zero trust brings is an assumption that that perimeter is going to be breached. 

And how do you defend your network, your data and your users in an environment where you give least privileged access – only giving access to data, applications, tools, infrastructure for the things that an individual is authorized to do and only for the period of time when it’s authorized. This approach, when implemented, gives an opportunity to make sure that not only are you secure at the network edge, but you can be secure internally against very aggressive threats. And if one member of your team is compromised, you don’t lose the security of the entire network.  

And what NSA has done in terms of implementation guidance is to break that down into five parts for services and commands to implement zero trust. 

In the first release is a Primer – helping organizations understand what all goes into organizing as a zero trust architecture, and which modules make most sense for those organizations to begin with and lay out how to implement and mature those areas to be able to meet what the expectation is from the Department of War. 

The second component, which is part of the first phase of implementation, is what NSA has identified as discovery – create visibility and understand the data, applications and the assets that are within your architecture, and then begin to set policies that implement authority guidance for every function in the network. It really does set a baseline for how zero trust can be implemented, and then sets the conditions for the phases that follow to meet the Department of War expectations. 

As the implementation guidance is put out as the DOW CIO continues to clarify exactly what expectations are, there are opportunities for individual programs and vendors to be lead turning these and thinking about ensuring that they put the baselines in place that will allow for implementation and integration of capabilities, platforms, technologies, applications into these networks using a zero trust approach. 

And that’s going to require continued discussion between industry and government. But clearly setting the roadmap for where zero trust goes. There’s an opportunity for industry to follow. 

16:52 – 16:55 

And what will zero trust ultimately look like in a military operation? 

16:56 – 17:51 

Well, what we’d see in an effective zero trust operation? As an example, if a vendor is going to provide an update to a capability that’s on a base – today, that in different programs and different bases, they might have different authorities.  

Under zero trust their authorities would be very narrow and would only be authorized during the window of time that they are upgrading that system or doing some form of maintenance function. Very similar to how in if you’re maintaining a system on the flight line, you’re going to tag in and tag out. You’re only going to be operating on that aircraft in certain windows when you’re authorized.  Zero trust provides the same type of approach that you only have authority to manipulate that system in windows of time and within your span of authority. That reduces risk to the overall architecture, but still allows that system to be updated and maintained. 

17:52 – 18:08 

This brings us to the third element of our conversation, and that is the Department of War’s recently released Artificial Intelligence Acceleration Strategy. 

Certainly AI become a major talking point in national security circles in recent years,  but generally speaking, how does AI factor into this conversation about digital infrastructure? 

18:09 – 21:39 

I think it’s really at the forefront. The Department’s strategy to accelerate implementation of artificial intelligence requires capable infrastructure that is secure and needs to continue to grow the compute capacity that fuels the implementation of artificial intelligence.  

The idea behind what artificial intelligence can do, the running of algorithms, the use of agents, the autonomous use of capabilities, all of that needs computer power to operate. 

And depending on the scope and scale, the amount of data and the expanse of simultaneous things that you’re going to ask those agents and capabilities and algorithms to do requires an increasing number of computing power. And you can get that computing power through a couple of different ways. One can be on-premise, computational power that are investments in servers and data centers that allow for control of that. 

The other can come through any of the number of cloud providers that are a part of the architecture and how you choose to organize that really becomes important in terms of what’s available to every Guardian and Airman in terms of computational power to run models and algorithms and agents and it also is an incredible bearing on cost.  

If portions of the infrastructure are going to be inside of the military services, then you have to have all of the infrastructure from data centers, the ability to cool those data centers and ensure their operations have power, water, cooling, to be able to operate. So that’s an additional infrastructure that has to be sustained. 

If it’s chosen to leverage our large, managed service providers and cloud providers for that computing capacity, you’re going to fund them. But they have to build out that architecture and sustain it. So those are choices that don’t have to be made completely. It’s likely a balance of the two that will ultimately be relied upon.  

But if we’re going to build out more infrastructure, there will be more requirements for things like water, cooling, power that will be critically important and have to be sustained and defended inside of the Department’s architecture. 

And increasingly, that’s going to have to be at the network edge, not just at the center of a network. And this will be an evolution of how we’re able to make that compute available to every Guardian and every Airman, regardless of the type of contested environment they’re in. This is really foundational and these are areas that are going to be really important as the Department determines what those investments look like.  

The document really sets out aggressive intent from the Secretary of War to first move out on pace-setting projects that are really about setting conditions to in terms of ensuring that the infrastructure is in place, thinking about the data that is required, the models and the policies to accelerate the use of artificial intelligence across warfighting, intelligence, and the broader enterprise within the Department. 

This will certainly drive investment. It’ll drive planning, and then it will drive the services to think about where artificial intelligence will be most effectively integrated to enhance capabilities within their respective service.

21:40 – 21:52 

Thank you, Sir. And I’d like to go through the three pace-setting projects laid out in the strategy: warfighting, intelligence, and enterprise.  

Let’s start with the first one: warfighting? What is this one about?  

21:53 – 22:44 

I think the big picture of this – this is really about where does artificial intelligence fit in the ability to execute the warfighting missions across the Department? And this will be very foundational when we think about how we gain situational awareness, how commanders make decisions, how we communicate those decisions, and the autonomy that we give to platforms and weapons. 

And this pace-setting project will really bear out in terms of what are those areas that also now need to be invented in terms of how we test these capabilities and that partnership between industry and government as the acceleration of artificial intelligence isn’t just done inside the services, but inside vendors and inside of capabilities that will be delivered.

22:45 – 22:51 

And how about the second pace-setting project: intelligence. Can you elaborate on what the Department of War is aiming to do here? 

22:52 – 23:44 

The Department is setting some clear benchmarks to think about how intelligence will be integrated closer to the edge as a warfighting capability. This is an area of a tremendous advantage for the United States: our ability to sense and make information available to commanders around the globe. The challenge set forth by the Secretary is not only to do that in real-time operations, but also to accelerate the work that brings together that intelligence and capability development. 

So two major, I think, directions will be how to make different sets of intelligence fuzed for commanders at all echelons. And the second being, how does that intelligence really get integrated more quickly in capability development earlier for individual capabilities to be able to be enhanced and infused with artificial intelligence as a core capability.

23:45 – 23:47 

And how about the third one: enterprise?

23:48 – 24:25 

This is thinking about how does the entire department come together and leverage these sets of capabilities and building out the not only just the ability to have the infrastructure available, but it’s how do artificial intelligence bring more capacity and capability to the broader enterprise of warfighting that occurs across all of our military domains, and to be able to capitalize on that and do it faster than an adversary in a very contested environment. 

So I think these three areas of warfighting, intelligence and enterprise, are a clear set of a foundation and intents laid out by the Secretary of War.

24:26 – 24:34 

So now that this strategy is out there – what happens next? What steps are being taken to implement the strategy and then, ultimately, what does success look like? 

24:35 – 26:43 

Well, I think first is each service and command has been given some clear direction to build plans to establish AI integration leads within their organizations and then evaluate their mission for where artificial intelligence makes sense and can be rapidly infused in the areas the Secretary has outlined.  

The next phase of that is in those areas – where will dollars go? What will the investment look like? And that investment will have to span across the ability to generate the requisite compute, the ability to ensure that the right data is available and is accessible at the right level for models and algorithms, and then ensuring that the Department and each service has the talent to execute it. And I think those areas are going to definitely require investment and they’re going to require significant collaboration with industry. 

Given the fact that many of these technologies are still being invented and the rapid evolution of models and what agents are going to look like, there’s a tremendous opportunity for investment in key areas. The Secretary laying out the set of priorities will now begin to get into individual projects, as services and commands start to identify their key requirements and the areas that would most benefit by infusing artificial intelligence. 

Inside those opportunities are places for investment. There’s places for experimentation and then aggressive implementation to ensure continued advantage. So I think you’re going to see those emerge and then success looks like the ability for us as a warfighting organization to be able to deliver capabilities at speed, to be able to integrate data for decision, and also to have weapons that have new capabilities across all domains that we can ensure operate consistent with the overarching intent and policy and guidance that exists across the Department in terms of warfighting, consistent with our laws and our values.

26:44 – 26:57 

Our interview today covered three elements pretty comprehensively: digital infrastructure, zero trust, and AI.  

The Department of War is actively taking steps toward these ends. So what do these actions signal to industry? 

26:58 – 27:54 

I think each of these provides an intent, and I think that’s the best thing that the government can do is clearly articulate intent and share that with industry. So in this case, whether it’s here’s the intent for the future of the architecture. Here is the intent for what it will look like in terms of how the government wants to secure that architecture using zero trust principles and with an expectation that all capabilities are going to be infused by artificial intelligence. 

They’re setting the roadmap and that is probably the most important thing that, in terms of the public private partnership, is a clear understanding of intent. And that intent should only become more clear, as the Department articulates priorities inside of Golden Dome, inside of other major programs that are going to be driving and implementing those things that are consistent with the National Security Strategy and the National Defense Strategy.

27:55 – 27:57 

Can you elaborate on how Golden Dome ties to this conversation? 

27:58 – 30:12 

Where the Golden Dome program needs to start in terms of the types of priorities that the President has given them, and then building in the resilience and speed necessary to be able to make those decisions within really incredible timelines. 

The challenge of being able to identify, any and all threats, to the homeland and then to be able to act on those threats. 

 It’s all about speed and the ability to identify the threat, understand it, give orders, and then have capabilities that can respond with requisite speed to be able to mitigate those threats. We have known how to do this as a nation and been prepared to do it in very specific scenarios. But now those scenarios are so diverse and growing in terms of the threat and the speed of the threat.  

It really does demand a command and control structure that is always on, always available, and integrated with the right data sources to have situational awareness that can provide the right data to the decision-maker, and then the ability to execute command and control in a way that can be executed very quickly from decision-maker to shooter, and to be able to assure that not only can you track and have custody of of every one of those threats, but you also understand your effectiveness in real-time to mitigate those threats.

So I think speed is one of the clear tenants that comes from the demand signal. The other is, of course, it’s got to be secure. These will be foundational capabilities in defense of the homeland. It must be built on a bedrock foundation and then it’s going to also require just incredibly resilient communications to ensure its availability.  

The digital infrastructure is what ties it all together: every sensor, every base, every shooter, every command and control node in a way that gives that situational awareness and gives that power to be able to make decisions, create outcomes, and understand the results of those operations. And the resilience and the capability that are provided through that infrastructure can be an accelerant to the command and control for Gold Dome. 

30:13 – 30:25 

Thank you Sir, and what opportunities exist for commercial and industry partners to contribute solutions to anything we’ve discussed today: whether that be digital infrastructure, zero trust, AI, or command and control in Golden Dome? 

30:26 – 31:25 

There’s a menu. A large part of this is thinking through resilient communications in many different ways. That’s leveraging different parts of the spectrum. It’s leveraging different technologies. 

It’s about being innovative at every vendor to implement quantum resistance. It’s about how we think about the applications that are required to knit it together. And then what’s the underlying compute that allows it all to operate at speed?  

Those are all opportunities that allow for ensured resilient communications in ways that we can continue to evaluate, whether that’s in the space segment, whether that’s within traditional RF bands or if it’s leveraging a diversity of our managed service providers in terrestrial networks. All of those have to be meshed together in a way that assures command and control and assures availability for the leaders that are going to be empowered to make those decisions. 

31:26 – 31:37 

Now, in addition to serving as a Senior Principal Advisory at Elara Nova, you’ll also have a guiding hand in the firm’s new Cyber, Data & Communications sector. 

What should our listeners know about its new CDC sector? 

31:38 – 32:35 

Yeah. I think everything we’re thinking about now is how do you integrate capabilities faster? How do our domains interoperate and how do we ensure within the defense industrial base and with broader industry, how do those capabilities be brought to bear in a way that they can be effective from the outset and meet the demand signal that’s coming from the Department and from each of the services? 

Elara Nova brings a really deep portfolio of cyber experts that have served across all elements of our intelligence community and the military services and when combined with all the other expertise that exists in air and space that both have served in the Department and are current in state of the art of what’s happening in industry is invaluable to be able to accelerate that work in a way that will produce an outcome that really brings back the best capability for the nation. 

32:36 – 33:10 

This has been an episode of The Elara Edge. As a strategic advisory firm, Elara Nova is the trusted guiding partner that builds tailored teams to illuminate unseen opportunities and deliver impact across every domain.   

With the trusted insight to deliver your decisive edge, Elara Nova is your source for expertise and guidance in national security. 

If you liked what you heard today, please subscribe to our channel and leave us a rating. Music for this podcast was created by Patrick Watkins of PW Audio. I’m your host, Scott King, and join us next time at the Elara Edge. 

Digital Infrastructure Modernization to Lay Foundation for Zero Trust, AI

An Upgraded Network to Better Integrate Emerging Technologies, Counter Evolving Threats

The Department of War (DOW) kick-started the year with a series of steps to enhance the resiliency and reliability of the digital infrastructure underpinning military operations. In early January, the United States Space Force announced it will be overhauling computer networks at all 14 of its bases under the Base Infrastructure Modernization program. Then the National Security Agency released the first two products of its Zero Trust Implementation Guidelines, while the DOW launched its Artificial Intelligence Acceleration Strategy. Altogether, these actions demonstrate the growing imperative to prepare the DOW’s digital infrastructure to take advantage of emerging technologies and counter evolving threats. 

“Space and cyberspace are inextricably linked: the foundation of warfighting in space is dependent on having a secure digital infrastructure on the ground,” said Gen (Ret) Tim Haugh, a Senior Principal Advisor at Elara Nova and the former Commander of United States Cyber Command. “Digital infrastructure is the computing infrastructure that every Guardian and Airman leverages when they connect to the Department of War networks. If the Department doesn’t upgrade these systems, they can become vulnerable where a vendor can no longer support them, which adds risk through technology debt, less functionality and an inability to integrate weapon systems into national security architectures.” 

According to the National Institute of Standards and Technology, “digital infrastructure” is defined as ​​”the ability to store and exchange data through a centralized communication system.” As such, the Base Infrastructure Modernization program aims to create a unified and secure network and communication system across all Air Force and Space Force bases worldwide.  

“Whether it’s to conduct space operations or air operations on the flight line, those capabilities require a digital infrastructure that is powerful enough to win the fight and provide a user experience that enables success,” Gen (Ret) Haugh said. “This investment is critical because it sets a clear set of standards for the defense industrial base to build and field new capabilities as the threat environment changes. Modernizing the digital infrastructure will also lay the foundation for integrating future capabilities like artificial intelligence and establishing the compute power required at the network edge.” 

The Vulnerabilities of an Aging Digital Infrastructure 

Space Force leaders recognize that threats in cyberspace are constantly emerging and evolving, heightening the imperative for resilient and reliable systems. General Stephen Whiting, Commander of United States Space Command, once referred to cybersecurity as the “soft underbelly” of space operations. 

“One of the key elements adversaries would exploit are vulnerable and aging systems, and that’s why upgrading them is critically important,” Gen (Ret) Haugh said. “China has shown that if vulnerabilities exist, they will take advantage of them. We would likely see similar attacks on our military bases that we’ve seen China take against critical infrastructure in the United States: going after infrastructure like water treatment, energy generation and critical functions inside of telecommunications or networks.” 

The task order for the Space Force’s modernization efforts, to the tune of $12.5 billion, follows a similar task order for Air Force bases to receive advanced wired and wireless technology upgrades that will enhance connectivity, cybersecurity, interoperability and data readiness at bases across the Pacific theater. It will be processed as an Enterprise-IT-as-a-Service solution through an Indefinite Delivery-Indefinite Quantity contract designed to streamline modernization to adapt to a quickly and constantly evolving threat. 

“The idea behind Enterprise-IT-as-a-Service is to leverage industry expertise to bring in current technology to build and maintain our digital infrastructure, allowing Airmen and Guardians to focus on other critical warfighting operations and missions,” Gen (Ret) Haugh said. “The first component to these upgrades is to provide the foundation to meet the mission needs of the Space Force and the Air Force and ensure the network can support their operations. Then the second component is to ensure the architecture is defendable and in compliance with Department of War policies for cybersecurity.” 

An aging digital infrastructure also increases the vulnerability of a “zero-day” attack that can be difficult to detect and often lead to data breaches and compromises, much like the recent disclosure by Ivanti that affected several government agencies and Allied partners.  

“Increasingly enabled by artificial intelligence, adversaries are going to be looking for vulnerabilities at every one of these networks and they will take advantage of them if they see them,” Gen (Ret) Haugh said. “Once inside a network, adversaries will look to compromise the identity of key system administrators that have privileged accounts to move laterally and ensure that they would retain deep access to our networks for future targeting. This is the reality of today’s operating environment, so it’s critical to upgrade our digital infrastructure and implement zero trust to defeat or complicate their ability to take on different identities within DOW networks.” 

A Foundation for Zero Trust and AI 

The modernization effort will also lay the foundation for implementing a new zero trust framework to enhance the resiliency and reliability of the Department of War’s network.  

“Zero trust is an approach that is founded on the assumption that your perimeter is going to be breached,” Gen (Ret) Haugh said. “Zero trust creates an operating environment with the least privileged access, which means only giving access to data, applications, tools and infrastructure to an authorized individual only during the period of time in which they’re authorized to operate.  

This approach makes sure that not only are you secure and resilient at the network edge, because you still won’t lose security of the entire network if one of your team members is compromised.” 

Toward this end, the National Security Agency (NSA) recently unveiled its Zero Trust Implementation Guidelines, beginning with its two initial phases: Primer and Discovery Phase. 

“NSA has coordinated all the necessary activities to implement a zero trust architecture into five parts,” Haugh said, who previously served as the Director of the National Security Agency. “The first phase, Primer, helps organizations understand which modules to begin with for laying out zero trust implementation to meet the Department’s expectations. The Discovery Phase is about creating visibility and understanding the data, applications and the assets that are within your architecture.” 

A fully implemented zero trust architecture can then create pathways for integrating emerging technologies like artificial intelligence in a way that will be reliable and secure. That’s in part why the DOW simultaneously released its Artificial Intelligence Acceleration Strategy that laid out seven “Pace-Setting Projects” across three mission areas: Warfighting, Intelligence, and Enterprise. 

“The Department’s strategy requires a secure and capable digital infrastructure to grow the compute capacity needed for greater implementation of artificial intelligence,” Gen (Ret) Haugh said. Gen (Ret) Haugh said. “Everything AI does – from running algorithms or using agents and autonomous capabilities – requires the power to compute. You can get that compute through on-base servers and data centers or cloud providers that are part of the overall architecture. This strategy intends to make that compute available to every Guardian and every Airman, regardless of the type of contested environment they’re in.”  

Digital Infrastructure and Golden Dome 

Artificial intelligence and the autonomous processing of trusted, effective and secure data will also be instrumental to future military operations, particularly for homeland defense initiatives like Golden Dome.   

“The biggest challenge for Golden Dome is the diversity of threats: the Department is prepared for specific scenarios of certain threats, but the nature and speed of those threats are diversifying,” Gen (Ret) Haugh said. “But Golden Dome demands a command and control structure that is always on, always available and integrated with the right data sources to have situational awareness that can provide the right data to the decision-maker, enabling the ability to execute command and control in real-time to mitigate and defeat those threats. The digital infrastructure is what will tie every sensor, base and shooter to deliver the command and control structure necessary for Golden Dome.” 

General Mike Guetlein, the Director of Golden Dome, has expressed that command and control is his first priority. Like all space and military operations, command and control requires a trusted and secure digital infrastructure at its foundation. That’s why Elara Nova has now established its Cyber, Data & Communications business sector to support industry in delivering the secure and trusted solutions that will empower the warfighter to deliver on mission requirements across domains.  

“Elara Nova offers a deep portfolio of cyber experts that have served across all elements of our intelligence community and military services,” Gen (Ret) Haugh said. “When combined with all of the air and space experts in our portfolio, Elara Nova brings a unique set of talents to bear on hard, cross-domain problems like Golden Dome. Our experts have served in both the Department and industry, which makes them an invaluable resource to accelerating integration of data and emerging technologies in a way that will produce a successful outcome for our nation.” 

Elara Nova is a trusted guiding partner that builds tailored teams to illuminate unseen opportunities and deliver impact across every domain. Learn more at https://elaranova.com/.