2024 Election Presents Promise and Peril for PPBE Reform to Deliver Space Superiority
Incoming Administration Must Implement Commission’s Recommendations, or Risk Losing Great Power Competition
China’s rapid rise in adopting and deploying innovative technologies has sparked a new “Great Power Competition,” particularly in the space domain. Meanwhile, the budgetary process the Department of Defense (DOD) uses to acquire military capabilities – Planning, Programming, Budgeting, and Execution (PPBE) – is increasingly unable to keep up with the rapid innovations of modern technology. But now, after a Commission on Planning, Programming, Budget and Execution (PPBE) Reform delivered guidance for modernizing the budgetary process, the 2024 election presents both promise and peril for PPBE reform in acquiring the military capabilities necessary to deliver space superiority for the warfighter.
“The doctrinal definition of space superiority is mission-oriented: to provide space capability at a time and place of your choosing,” said Shawn Barnes, partner at Elara Nova: The Space Consultancy. “But in the context of budgeting and strategy, space superiority is about having the space capabilities that provide superior capability to support the warfighter across domains to deter or defeat an adversary.”
According to DOD officials, China is having a “strategic breakout” in space that directly coincides with their adoption of innovative space technologies. Major General Gregory J. Gagnon, the United States Space Force’s chief intelligence officer, recently acknowledged China has over 1,000 satellites on-orbit and has demonstrated a capacity for launching 200 satellites a year.
For added context, Maj Gen Gagnon noted that just 10 years ago China was capable of putting only 24 satellites on-orbit in a single year.
“China has gone from being a potential near-peer competitor to an out-pacing challenge in areas like quantum computing, air and missile systems and space capabilities,” Barnes said. “Meanwhile, one of our nation’s greatest attributes is innovation in the private sector, but the PPBE process no longer serves us as well as it should.”
PPBE From the Cold War to Today
The PPBE process evolved from the Planning, Programming, and Budgeting System (PPBS) originally introduced by Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara in the 1960s. By developing the DOD budget sequentially through four phases, PPBE brought discipline to the DOD’s budgetary process and enabled the United States to acquire the military capabilites it needed to project deterrence through the Cold War and maintain decades of military hegemony after the Soviet Union’s collapse.
But in today’s Information Age, the PPBE process that once enabled military success is increasingly constricting the DOD’s capacity for keeping pace with technological innovation, most notably in space.
“The cost of launch has been reduced dramatically, which enables cheaper and more frequent access to space,” Barnes said. “More capability can also be put into smaller satellites, which can be effectively networked to outperform larger satellites. These changes are accelerating innovation across the space ecosystem.”
In response to this emerging Great Power Competition and the exponential rate of technological innovation, the Fiscal Year 2022 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) mandated a Commission on Planning, Programming, Budgeting, and Execution (PPBE) Reform to evaluate PPBE and recommend policy changes to modernize the process.
Then last spring, the Commission published its Final Report with 28 recommendations across five critical areas to overhaul the budgeting process across the DOD’s military services. But given the inherent interconnection of space and technology, along with the growing reliance on space for Joint Force operations, the Commission’s recommendations can have an outsized influence in delivering space superiority.
The Imperative for Strategy-Driven Budgets
The first critical area the Commission provided recommendations for is to: “Improve the Alignment of Budgets to Strategy.” To do this, the Commission recommends creating a Defense Resourcing System (DRS) to replace the PPBE process and consolidate the PPBE’s four phases into three: strategy development, resource allocation and execution.
“It is absolutely critical that we have strategy-driven budgets, and not budget-driven strategies,” Barnes said. “The Commission proposed an ongoing discussion within the DOD to provide timely updates to strategy that would come before each service’s budget submission to the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD).”
Key documents such as the National Security Strategy, National Defense Strategy, and National Military Strategy will continue to drive the strategy development phase. But significant changes exist in the resource allocation phase, where senior leadership forums informed by strategic wargaming and analytics would produce a Defense Resourcing Guidance (DRG) that would replace the Defense Planning Guidance (DPG) document used today.
“The Defense Planning Guidance is used as a grading mechanism after the services provide their budget recommendations to OSD, but the DPG doesn’t present difficult decisions for the OSD budget,” Barnes said. “So the new DRG would facilitate a more rigorous discussion upfront, where senior leaders across the DOD can evaluate budgetary risk in a more substantive manner.”
The Commission also recommends replacing the Program Objective Memorandum (POM) and Budget Estimate Submission (BES) documents with a single, Resource Allocation Submission (RAS) proposal. This step would streamline what OSD submits as the DOD portion of the President’s Budget that will ultimately go to Congress.
Balancing Discipline with Flexibility
The second critical area identified by the Commission is to: “Foster Innovation and Adaptability.” To this end, the Commission aims to increase the availability of Operating and Maintenance (O&M) funds, which expire at the end of the fiscal year regardless of when those dollars are appropriated.
In other words, if Congress does not pass a budget on October 1st – the first day of the fiscal year – but rather passes a Continuing Resolution (CR) until a budget is passed at a later date, the O&M funds still expire on September 30th of that fiscal year.
“The DOD only has so much time to expend O&M funds,” Barnes said. “Sometimes at the end of the fiscal year, there is a mad rush to spend money as quickly as possible. So the Commission proposes that about five percent of O&M funding be eligible to roll-over as two-year or three-year money to make better use of taxpayer dollars.”
The Commission also recommends the DOD be able to fund new programs and capabilities, known as “new-starts,” which is currently prohibited under a CR. The Final Report also suggests eliminating Below Threshold Reprogramming, or the amount of funds the DOD can transfer between programs without Congressional approval, to facilitate flexibility in responding to evolving military requirements.
A Collaborative Relationship to Streamline Budget Development
Each of these efforts, however, will still require a level of transparency with the Hill. That’s why the Commission emphasizes a need for transparency in its third critical area: “Strengthen Relationships Between DOD and Congress.”
It’s for this purpose that the Commission recommends establishing enclaves for both classified and unclassified information exchanges between the DOD and Congress, which in turn may also promote greater cohesion between the authorizers and appropriators in Congress.
“The Senate Armed Services Committee and the House Armed Services Committee are the ‘Authorizers’ that write the NDAA, a policy bill that describes what money is available for certain requirements,” Barnes said. “But the four Appropriations Committees are more data-driven and focused on their oversight role. Sometimes, different views between the Authorizers and the Appropriators can create tension in the DOD when they receive authorization for a program, but aren’t appropriated the money to implement it.”
The Commission concludes its report by recommending a single, common data system from which each service can build its budget under the fourth critical area: “Modernize Business Systems and Data Analytics,” and providing more education and training related to the budgeting process in its fifth critical area: “Strengthen the Capability of the Resourcing Workforce.”
2024 Election Implications for PPBE Reform
Since its release, Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hick pledged to evaluate the Commission’s Final Report in collaboration with executive and legislative partners. At the same time, the DOD also published an Implementation Plan for the Commission on PPBE Reform’s Interim Report, which was previously released in August 2023.
But the 2024 election creates both promise and peril for the Commission’s recommendations to reform the PPBE process. While a change in executive and legislative branches can facilitate an opportunity to implement these necessary changes, the Commission’s Final Report is also at risk of being neglected during the transition – thus, perpetuating the status quo.
“The Implementation Plan signals that DOD is taking the Commission’s recommendations seriously, and they are willing to work with the Hill to implement it,” Barnes said. “A new Congress also creates an opportunity to adjust the budgetary process and the Commission’s recommendations add flexibility without removing the discipline. We live in perilous times, and space is not unique in suffering the budgeting challenges that the PPBE process has today, so it’s especially important to apply these changes to acquire the innovative commercial space technologies of the future.”
Elara Nova: The Space Consultancy recognizes the significant role government policy serves in the acquisition process, and its’ experts are prepared to support not only the commercial space companies developing innovative technologies, but also the government partners seeking to leverage policy to exploit these technologies to deliver space superiority to the warfighter.
“The breadth and depth of experience at Elara Nova is unparalleled,” Barnes said. “There are Elara Nova experts who understand the resource allocation process, and its relationship between the executive and legislative branches. But there’s also experts who have been program managers and program executive officers leading large acquisition organizations within the DOD. So when a company wants to work with Elara Nova, they get the benefit of all of that experience across the space security spectrum.”
Elara Nova is a global consultancy and professional services firm focused on helping businesses and government agencies maximize the strategic advantages of the space domain. Learn more at https://elaranova.com/.
Episode 4: Transforming National Security Space Acquisition Starts with Congress
The Elara Edge: Expert Insights on Space Security
00:02 – 01:13
As the legislative branch with the “power of the purse,” Congress has a constitutional duty to shape the policy and provide the funding required for the United States Space Force to accomplish its mission.
Space, however, is an emerging domain for the warfighter – and as the Department of Defense’s newest military service – the Space Force must scale its capability at the need of speed.
To this end, the Space Force has started employing a new strategy to leverage one of the greatest historical strengths of the United States: commercial innovation.
But that – must start with Congress.
Joining me today at The Elara Edge: Expert Insights on Space Security, is Elara Nova Senior Partner Sarah Mineiro. Sarah previously served as the staff lead for the Strategic Forces Subcommittee for the House Armed Service Committee. As a senior legislative adviser, Sarah was the primary drafter and negotiator of the Space Force and Space Command legislation. Now, she’s here to talk about how Congress – through its policy and funding – can jumpstart Space Force capability.
Ma’am, what are some of the ways that Congress – through legislative vehicles like the National Defense Authorization Act and the Appropriations Act – support the Space Force?
01:14 – 02:24
Yeah, it’s a really great question, and it’s a question that both policy wonks and budget wonks have both looked at in their respective legislative vehicles. And so for the past few years, you’ve seen a lot of talk from the authorizing committees, both on the House side and on the Senate side and reflected in the final bills – talk about the need for commercial integration into specifically space architectures and space programs.
This is a uniquely innovative ecosystem where the United States derives an asymmetric advantage over the commercial capabilities and innovation that are coming out of the private sector, that are being leveraged for the benefit of our national security missions and intelligence missions.
And so the question then becomes both from a policy prerogative and priority standpoint, but also from a programming and funding perspective: how do we make sure that those kinds of capabilities are presented to the warfighter and the Joint Warfighter in a way that makes sense and that leverages all instruments of national power in this newfound and recognized strategic competition?
02:25 – 02:37
Space is seen as a quickly developing domain for the warfighter – one that requires rapidly evolving technologies – so how can Congress keep up to ensure that the Space Force has the capability it needs to accomplish its mission?
02:38 – 03:45
Space is one of those really interesting ecosystems within the national security system that has really outpaced the policy and regulatory framework in which it exists now. And that’s exactly actually what should be happening in an American free society.
Private industry should be incentivized and supported in investing in capabilities that can contribute to national security missions. And the clear signaling in both the policy realm and the programmatic realm and the funding realm send strong signals to investment communities, to the private sector, to other civil space organizations and agencies that this is an area that asymmetrically can contribute to the betterment of our nation and our security by the integration and embrace of commercial technology, even if it is stretching the policy and regulatory framework that most people are used to operating within.
03:46 – 04:19
So it seems this idea of integrating commercial technology – upfront – in the DOD’s requirements is something that’s been gaining momentum recently – particularly for space-based missions.
Two recent examples come to mind – the Victus Nox tactical response launch mission and the Space Development Agency’s Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture.
Let’s start with responsive launch – where the Space Force launched and fielded a space domain awareness payload within 58 hours – far ahead of the previous record of 21 days: How was the Space Force – and its industry partners – able to pull this off?
04:20 – 05:32
Yeah. So this is a great demonstration of what can happen when you align policy, programmatic funding and commercial incentives. It was clear that from a policy perspective, the authorizers were very supportive and have been for years about operationally responsive space, tactically responsive launch. Discussions were happening in the policy realm for years.
All right. You had policy authority. You had funding and funding profiles that were sustainable and were supported. And then you had industry being able to pick up on all of those signals and being able to produce a capability. And those signals were aligned across kind of all of the major components that you need to be able to present commercial capabilities to the military in an operationally relevant timeline.
And that’s exactly the kind of thing that we should continue to see in the future, hopefully for the betterment not only of launch, which is kind of a very visceral and observable aspect of space, but also all of the rest of the kinds of components that you need for successful space systems in the future.
05:33 – 05:58
Now let’s turn to the second example – the Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture program for the missile warning mission. The Space Development Agency has now launched two series of its Tranche 0 satellites, with a third launch to come later this year.
These launches demonstrate a thirty-month “order to orbit” timeline – a notably fast procurement process for the DOD. How is the SDA’s approach to fielding the PWSA program innovating the space acquisition process?
05:59 – 06:52
Yeah, I think SDA has been tremendously successful in being a disruptive acquisition agent. Quite frankly, they have used relatively traditional and well-known acquisition methodologies, but have coupled that with a drive for shorter program timelines and for deep and consistent interaction with commercial partners. As the Space Force continues to look at acquisition reform and how they do things and procure systems at the speed of need.
SDA is one of those models that will be looked at for its success, not in completely changing all of DOD acquisition, but in using the flexible acquisition authorities that DOD already has to be able to achieve mission faster with the help of commercial industry.
06:53 – 07:05
I’d like to take a step back and kind of look at these two examples together – what should the Space Force and the DOD take away from these demonstrations? Are there any lessons learned from these approaches that they can apply to other space-based programs?
07:06 – 08:01
Sure. I think one of the big common lessons there is that you need to have the alignment of your policy, your programming and commercial engagement to be able to pull all of this off and that’s really, really difficult.
The question in the future for the Space Force will be – can they take those successes and scale that across the rest of their programs, the rest of the budgeting process, that they exist within the rest of their acquisition and contracts?
Frank Calvelli released these nine acquisition tenants going forward.
And some of those tenants are really great and some of those tenants are taken from the examples of both responsive space and SDA and we will see in the next couple of budget cycles how successful he will be at being able to proliferate that through the system.
08:02 – 08:12
So why is it important to take this innovative approach to space acquisition – particularly as the DOD sets out to establish its Joint All Domain Command and Control – or JADC2 mission?
08:13 – 09:47
Space should be the backbone of JADC2 and the ground and the terminals and the networks and the cybersecurity are absolutely necessary for the interoperability and for the actual operational imperative of all of that JADC2 programmatic movement that we’re seeing.
The flow of data, a significant amount of that being enabled by space-based platforms, whether it’s for intelligence, whether it’s for command and control, whether it’s comms, they flow through space networks. And so the Space Force should be the service that has an outsized voice in architecting the distribution and the security of that data.
All of our space systems, all of the literally yottabytes of data that come down from these space-based platforms. They come down to Earth to support policy-makers, acquisition professionals and operators that are on terra firma. Ground and software have been perennially challenged programs in the Space Force.
So getting ground right is going to be vitally important especially because I also think that ground and the entry points and the networks and the terminals that are associated with ground – end up being the foundation for any of the service instantiations of Joint All Domain Command and Control and JADC2.
09:48 – 09:55
Can you provide an example of how the “space backbone” of JADC2 – as you put it – can enhance the strengths of the other services?
09:56 – 10:49
Now, what I think the rest of the services do, and they do it just exceptionally well, the Army does this exceptionally well. They understand how to get that last distribution out to that very edge node, out to that deployed soldier.
And they do a tremendous job taking space-derived data and understanding how to get it out to soldiers at need. But it’s enabled by an architectural concept that should be driven by the operational imperatives of the United States Air Force and the United States Space Force.
This is an architectural gap that the Space Force and I will say, specifically this Chief of Space Operations, is very well-placed. General Saltzman, is one of the nation’s best thinkers about Joint All Domain Command and Control and about what that means.
10:50 – 11:01
What are some of the more inherently important mission areas for the Space Force to develop as it continues to scale its capability? And, ultimately, what role can commercial technology requirements play in that development?
11:02 – 12:16
The Space Force has very unique requirements for space domain awareness for the missions that they want to be able to execute now and into the future. And so space situational awareness to me always ranks high because you have to know what’s going on in and around you to be able to have space operations, but also to be able to perform the missions that the Space Force believes that they’ll be doing now and executing into the future.
That is an area ripe for commercial investment and commercial partners, not only, quite frankly, on the analytics, but also on the innovative data sets that are being brought forward by innovative U.S.-based companies. It is an area where previously everybody had assumed that there was no commercial marketplace for a space situational awareness service provider.
That has proven to not be true. There is a commercial marketplace for that. The DOD has recognized that. Both Space Command and Space Force have recognized that. The question is: how do they ingest that? How do they use that data? And what kinds of different and new data will be presented that they can leverage for the fulfillment of specific military requirements in the future.
12:17 – 12:25
In order to integrate commercial technology effectively and deliver that capability to the joint warfighter – what role does research and development play in this process?
12:26 – 13:39
The investment in RDT&E is an investment, not just in our future, but in our current state. Research and development is literally the lifeblood of the missions and the operational imperatives that the Space Force has to be able to not just compete, but to win that competition in the future.
We cannot afford to not be innovating constantly. We cannot afford to not be leveraging all instruments of national power in the strategic competition. We can’t afford baseline technology to just be extended into the future and one of the great things about space is that people still are tremendously excited about the potential of space, not only in the national security field, but also in the civil space field.
The lines between those kinds of technologies are blurring more every day, and that may not be a terrible thing. Those lines don’t exist at all in communist China. But for the United States, leveraging American exceptionalism, ingenuity and innovation is what’s going to help us secure our freedoms in the future.
13:40 – 13:53
Now what about Congress? How can legislators come together – with this idea of commercial integration in mind – to continue supporting the Space Force and the DOD at this intersection of policy, funding and mission requirements?
13:54 – 14:48
It is no doubt the case that there are a lot of members there are on both sides of the aisle who want to see the Space Force succeed and want to see our nation positioned to win the strategic competition.
And that is all predicated on members, industry leaders and executive branch personnel, being able to trust each other, respect each other’s roles, and move out in a way that supports people that are on the front lines.
And I think that we need to look at innovation not only in the technological perspective, but I think we also need to look at investing in researching, developing and bringing forward new operational concepts. The glory of the Space Force is that it was given a tremendous opportunity and a blank page to do something that had never been done before.
14:50 – 15:36
If you’re interested in learning more about Congressional support for the United States Space Force – and the role Congress has in integrating commercial technology upfront in DOD requirements, visit our Insights page at www.elaranova.com.
This has been an episode of The Elara Edge: Expert Insights on Space Security. As a global consultancy and professional services firm focused on helping businesses and government agencies maximize the strategic advantages of the space domain, Elara Nova is your source for expertise and guidance in space security.
If you liked what you heard today, please subscribe to our channel and leave us a rating. This episode was edited and produced by Regia Multimedia Services. I’m your host, Scott King, and join us next time on the Elara Edge.
Transforming National Security Space Acquisition Starts with Congress
Recent Demonstrations Show Value in Aligning Policy and Funding with Commercial Integration
As the legislative branch with the “power of the purse,” it is Congress’ constitutional duty to shape policy and provide funding for the Space Force to accomplish its mission. Space, however, is an emerging domain that requires the Department of Defense’s (DOD) newest service to streamline requirements and acquisition at the speed of need. To do this effectively, policy and funding set forth by Congress can leverage the innovative strengths of the private sector by integrating commercial technology upfront in DOD requirements.
“This is a uniquely innovative ecosystem where the United States derives an asymmetric advantage by leveraging the commercial capabilities and innovation coming out of the private sector for national security missions,” said Sarah Mineiro, senior partner at Elara Nova: The Space Consultancy. “So the question from a policy standpoint, but also from a funding perspective is: ‘How do we make sure those capabilities are presented to the Joint Warfighter in this newfound strategic competition?’”
Momentum in National Security Space Acquisition
Two recent achievements illustrate the strengths of leveraging commercial technology in national security space acquisition: the Victus Nox responsive launch mission and the Tranche 0 launches of the Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture (PWSA). These demonstrations prove that acquisition cycles can not only be accelerated, but transformed.
“Responsive launch is a great demonstration of what can happen when you align policy, program funding and commercial incentives,” said Mineiro, who previously served as the staff lead for the Strategic Forces Subcommittee for the House Armed Service Committee (HASC). “This alignment made sure industry understood all of the major components needed to present commercial capabilities to the military in an operationally relevant timeline.”
In the Victus Nox mission, preparations for the tactically responsive launch were completed in just 58 hours, a process that typically takes weeks to months. Firefly Aerospace then launched its national security payload, a Millennium Space Systems satellite, just 27-hours after receiving launch orders. The satellite for space domain awareness purposes became operational just 37-hours after its launch, thus exhibiting a rapid-response capability far faster than the previous record of 21 days, set back in 2021.
“Victus Nox had policy authority, sustainable funding profiles and capability produced by industry – that’s a great thing,” said Mineiro, who as a senior legislative adviser was the primary drafter and negotiator of the Space Force and Space Command legislation. “That’s exactly what we should continue to see in the future, hopefully for the betterment not only of launch, but also the rest of the components needed for successful space systems in the future.”
A second example of successful alignment is the Space Development Agency’s (SDA) Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture (PWSA). With its two initial launches of its Tranche 0 Tracking and Data Transport satellites, SDA brought capability to bear “from order to orbit” in less than 30 months. By fielding its missile warning architecture in “tranches” every two years, the Space Force ensures it has the latest commercial technology available for the missile warning mission.
“The SDA has been tremendously successful in disrupting acquisition,” Mineiro said, who served in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy (OSDP) and the Office of the Under Secretary of the Air Force for International Affairs (SAF/IA). “The SDA has coupled traditional and well-known acquisition methodologies, with a drive for shorter program timelines and consistent interaction with commercial partners. As the Space Force continues to look at acquisition reform, the SDA’s model shows the potential of using flexible acquisition authorities that DOD already has to achieve the mission faster with the help of commercial industry.”
Each of these initiatives exhibit what the Honorable Frank Calvelli, Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Space Acquisition and Integration, sought to establish when he released the nine space acquisition tenets to reform the procurement process.
“The nine tenants are great and some of them, quite frankly, have proven examples in both responsive launch and PWSA,” Mineiro said. “We will see in the next couple of budget cycles how successful the Hon. Calvelli will be in proliferating that process throughout the acquisition system.”
Space Acquisition as the Backbone for JADC2
The Space Force must balance developing capabilities quickly for an increasingly strategic warfighting domain, while at the same time creating new and innovative procurement processes, despite being a service that is still less than four years old. The importance of the Space Force scaling capability at speed cannot be understated, particularly as the DOD seeks to establish its initiative of Joint All Domain Command and Control, or JADC2.
“Space should be the backbone of JADC2,” Mineiro said. “The flow of data is enabled by space-based platforms, whether it’s for intelligence, command and control or communications, so the Space Force should be the service that has an outsized voice in architecting the distribution and security of that data.”
A foundational requirement for JADC2 is establishing the ground-based capability for the processing and distribution of space-based data. This requirement is reflected in what Mineiro states is one of the more significant of Calvelli’s nine tenets: Deliver Ground Before Launch.
“All of our space systems literally have yottabytess of data that come down to Earth from these space-based platforms to support policy-makers, acquisition professionals and operators that are on terra firma,” Mineiro said. “Ground and software have been perennially challenged programs in the Space Force. The entry points, the networks and the terminals that are associated with ground will be the foundation for Joint All Domain Command and Control – JADC2.”
Space networks and their transmission of data enables other services to more effectively accomplish their respective missions, a core premise of JADC2. As an example, Mineiro points to a particular strength the U.S. Army leverages from space-based data.
“The Army does a tremendous job of taking space-derived data and distributing it to the soldiers that need it,” Mineiro said. “But it’s enabled by an architectural concept that should be driven by the operational imperatives of the Air Force and the Space Force. I look forward to the Space Force working with the other services to develop JADC2 and bringing that capability to our Sailors, Soldiers, Marines, Guardians and Airmen.”
Funding Research and Development in Commercial Technology
Before national security space capabilities can be acquired, funding must support the research, development, testing and evaluation of emerging technologies for the space-based mission.
“Research and development is literally the lifeblood of the operational imperatives that the Space Force has not just to compete, but to win the strategic competition of the future,” Mineiro said. “The Space Force was established because people understood the asymmetric advantages that we derive from space, and quite frankly, our strategic competitors also understand that, too. That is why they target those capabilities as much as they do.”
Russia and China have made significant investments in emerging technologies for space-based capabilities, in some ways far and beyond what the United States is investing. This emphasizes the strategic significance of matching and overcoming the pacing threats through research and development.
“Investment in RDT&E is an investment not just in our future, but in our current state,” Mineiro said. “We cannot afford to not be innovating constantly or leveraging instruments of national power in the strategic competition. We cannot be extending baseline technology into the future. For the United States, leveraging American exceptionalism, ingenuity and innovation is what’s going to help us secure our freedoms in the future.”
Research and development in space-based capability, however, starts with funding from Congress. Therefore, Congress’ policy and funding must be aligned in recognizing the importance of commercial technology integration in DOD requirements. The recent demonstrations of responsive launch and PWSA show the potential of this approach, which requires Congress, Space Force and industry to be aligned in the national security space mission.
“There are members on both sides of the aisle who want to see the Space Force succeed and want to see our nation positioned to win the strategic competition,” Mineiro said. “All of that is predicated on trust between legislators, military personnel and industry leaders. We need to look at innovation not only from the technological perspective, but also at investing in research and development and in bringing new operational concepts forward.”
Elara Nova is a global consultancy and professional services firm focused on helping businesses and government agencies maximize the strategic advantages of the space domain. Learn more at https://elaranova.com/.