GAO Says Critical Space C2 Effort At Risk

WASHINGTON: Ellen Lord, the head of Pentagon acquisition, will meet with Air Force officials later this month to decide if service is on the right path with its Space Command and Control program, which will enable Space Command’s critical command and control system known as ESBMC2.

Col. Jennifer Krolikowski, Space C2 program chief at Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center (SMC), told Breaking D that her office has finished drafting the acquisition strategy recommended by the Governmental Accountability Office (GAO) in its Oct. 30 report. The document is in coordination with senior Air Force officials, including acquisition czar Will Roper; and with the Office of Secretary of Defense.

The congressional watchdog GAO is raising a host of technological, managerial and workforce challenges to the Space C2 effort. GAO finds that the Space C2 program’s “requirements are complex, difficult to address, and some have yet to be defined (emphasis added)”. They also are worried the Air Force can’t find or train enough qualified personnel. Another problem, they note, is that different pieces of the effort are being done by different Air Force organizations, including the Rapid Capabilities Office and the Air Force Research Laboratory.

Christina Chaplain, GAO’s acquisition expert, told Breaking D yesterday “the two biggest challenges are getting the right expertise and bringing together the efforts underway by multiple organizations. The first is a key issue for all of DOD’s software intensive projects and the second was a significant problem the last go around.”

According to the GAO report, the software-centric Space C2 program is supposed to deliver on the requirements never met by its ill-fated predecessor, the Joint Space Operations Center Mission System (JMS) for providing commanders with information about what is happening in space, as well as command and control capabilities for satellites. But Space C2 has a broader scope than the old JMS. It’s not only supposed to integrate traditional space situational awareness (SSA) data tracking satellites and debris, but add in threat assessment capabilities that can tell a commander the function of an adversary spacecraft and whether it is targeting a US satellite. On top of that, Space C2 is using”Agile software development” to field increment after increment of improved capability.

“Color me skeptical,” said Secure World Foundation’s Brian Weeden, a former Air Force officer who worked at the former Joint Space Operations Center (JSpOC), for which the JMS originally was being developed.

“On the positive side,” he added, “I’m glad they’re finally embracing an agile software development approach. That’s a step in the right direction. However, what they are trying to do with Space C2 is much more difficult than JMS Increment 2. At least that was a known, solved problem. Here, they’re trying to create these space C2 linkages and threat assessment applications that no one that I know of has ever really done before. They’re breaking new ground and trying to find a way to tie lots of different data from different systems together. That’s very difficult.”

Acronym A-Go-Go: Some Necessary Explanation

The Space C2 program, called Kobayashi Maru after the “Star Trek” exercise with no solution, is developing two different products: Space Domain Awareness (SDA) and ESBMC2,” Krolikowski explained. It “is the overarching effort within which the Space Domain Awareness and ESBMC2 efforts fall under.”

SDA, as newly defined by Air Force Space Command, refers to real-time awareness not just about where satellites are and where they are going (i.e. SSA) but also about what they are doing and if they are a threat. ESBMC2, in turn, integrates SDA data and information into the C2 network so that commanders can avoid (if possible) a threat to a US space asset, or find another way to disable that threat.

Both of those capabilities, she said, “are dependent on the software being developed — via Agile software development — in the Space C2 program.”

ESBMC2 stands for Enterprise Battle Management Command and Control. It is the follow-on what was planned as JMS Increment III that was killed before it ever really took off by Air Force Space Command head (and now also head of Space Command) Gen. Jay Raymond back in August 2018, according to the Air Force.

ESBMC2 is aimed at better integrating data from National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) satellites with SDA data collected by DoD, allied and commercial sensors. That will provide Space Command and Intelligence Community operators on the ground the best possible space operating picture. It is also the core space element of the Air Force’s ambitious, high-priority Multi-Domain Command and Control (MDC2) effort to link air, space and cyber sensor systems together and rapidly funnel that combined information to those who need it.

Krolikowski said that both the SDA and battle management command control capabilities being developed by Space C2 will be provided to Space Command’s National Space Defense Center (NSDC) and the Combined Space Operations Center (CSpOC).

The NSDC, which sits under Space Command’s new Joint Task Force Space Defense (JTF-SD), commanded by Army Brig. Gen. Tom James, is where military commanders and Intelligence Community officials will work together to “deter aggression, defend space capability, and when directed, defeat adversaries throughout the continuum of conflict,” according to Space Command.

The CSpOC, which is now under Space Command’s Combined Space Force Component Command led by Maj. Gen. Stephen Whiting, brings in allied commanders.

The Air Force expects to spend between $72 million and $108 million per year on the Space C2 program, which is managed by the Air Force’s Space and Missile Systems Center (SMC), through fiscal year 2024.

Technical Requirements Problematic

One of the key GAO worries is that, just as proved true for JMS, the Space C2 may be both too complex and built on vague or non-existent requirements — even while the program is making haste to develop new software increments. The report says:  “For example, the program is planning to meet previously deferred requirements that proved too complex for prior programs to achieve. It also plans to address new and emerging threats to space assets, for which requirements are not yet defined (emphasis ours).”

“Please do not think I don’t have any requirements,” Krolikowski said. She explained that not only is the program office working from the old JMS requirements that were revalidated in October, she also has weekly meetings with a users group to talk about requirements. In addition, she holds a meeting with operators every 90 days to review the software features being produced “to make to make sure we’re actually addressing what we need to do to accomplish to provide them the tools they need for space domain awareness and battle management command and control.”

GAO, however, points out that one of the reasons JMS failed is that its technical requirements were both byzantine and not well defined. (GAO has nothing good to say in its three-paragraph review of JMS, noting that after 10 years and more than $1 billion the program could barely provide baseline capabilities.)

As of August, GAO found that Space C2 had delivered three related capabilities: “expanding the commercial data available in the data repository; tasking various sensors; and providing a tool for visualization and analytics.” (As Breaking D readers know, the Unified Data Library is the “data repository” being developed to manage SSA data from a wide variety of sources.)

Krolikowski is proud that the Space C2 program can rapidly produce applications and capabilities “with a lot of velocity,” noting that one application was kicked out within 57 days and another within 55 days. Air Force. Roper also has waxed eloquent in his praise of Kobayashi Maru and Krolikowski personally, whose nickname is Col. K. 

But, GAO points out, “most capabilities delivered so far are considered to be available for use ‘at your own risk,’ since they have not yet been fully approved for use in operations.” Further, the Air Force has no time frame settled for actually certifying those capabilities; nor has the service put forward a plan to complete the baseline infrastructure and software platform to use them or any other applications being developed.

Doug Loverro, former Defense undersecretary for space policy, said a critical problem is that the Air Force is not clear on exactly what it wants the Space C2 system to do or “how they want Space C2 to occur” because there are “two different concepts of operations – one for space defense and one for space support” that have to be supported. “They have gotten this confused over the years and have failed to adequately differentiate the two,” he said.

Loverro noted that the recent changes put into place by Gen. Jay Raymond, Air Force Space Command head, “to clearly articulate these differences will help.”

This includes separating the NSDC from the CSpOC — a move that stemmed from Raymond’s overarching Space Warfighting Construct revealed at the 2017 Space Symposium. That construct had a central goal of: “Evolving the space enterprise to to a more robust and resilient architecture underpinned by better space situational awareness and responsive command and control will provide space leaders with tools, decision aids and response options necessary to prevail if conflict extends into space.”

More Oversight Needed For Agile Software Acquisition

As noted above, GAO is seriously worried about what it sees as a lack of a clear acquisition strategy for the “Agile software development” approach being used by Space C2. This, GAO fears, could result in the various pieces of the development program failing to gel.

At the same time, GAO actually praises SMC for trying something new with Space C2, given that one of the many flaws in the JMS program was its traditional acquisition approach that meant what software delivered was always years behind the need.

The core problem, GAO says, is the lack of overarching DoD acquisition guidelines for ‘Agile’ software programs. “According to DOD officials, new software guidance is in development, and this guidance is expected to offer pathways for developing Agile programs. DOD has also developed a draft template to assist Agile programs with developing their acquisition strategies, though the template and associated software guidance are in the early stages of development,” the GAO report says.

But, in the meantime, “Space C2 program officials confirmed that they are currently operating without specific software acquisition guidance.” It is that acquisition plan the Air Force hopes to deliver to Lord in November. DoD also told GAO that the Air Force created a position of Chief Software Officer (currently Nicolas Chaillan, appointed last May) under Roper, who is working with Lord’s special assistant for software acquisition, Jeff Boleng, to help with oversight. Raymond also is personally receiving regular briefings on the program.

In addition, Lord has designated Space C2 as one of the “pathfinder” programs under the “Development Security Operations (DevSecOps) pathfinder program for software, which helps programs define and develop a technical digital roadmap and leverages industry and Office of the Secretary of Defense expertise in developing appropriate infrastructure for software programs,” the GAO report states.

The DevSecOps concept emphasizes rapid prototyping, security and continuous integration and delivery of software products.

For its part, DoD agrees wholeheartedly with GAO’s two big recommendations, and in an Oct. 10 letter from Kevin Fahey, assistant Defense Secretary for acquisition, says it is on a path to implementing them.

First, GAO says that Lord’s office needs to ensure that the strategy for Space C2 includes specific actions that can be monitored by OSD. These range from creating a program management structure with clearly defined roles and authorities, to establishing a plan and timeline for infrastructure/platform development, to creating specific metrics for judging the quality of each software iteration.

The second recommendation is that DoD conduct periodic independent reviews. Fahey says Lord also is assessing that need.

That said, there remains one big problem. For now, as Breaking D readers know, the Air Force is relying on the 1980s Space Defense Operations Center (SPADOC) system for both SSA data crunching and C2. GAO finds:

“While work is underway to move SPADOC onto a more modernized platform and infrastructure, the Air Force has not established a schedule for that effort. In the meantime, Air Force officials told us that large amounts of data are going unprocessed as the volume of available sensor data today is greater than ever before—and is expected to increase exponentially in the next year as new DOD sensors come online.”

The Air Force expects its newest SSA sensor, Space Fence, to become operational in November 2019. Space Fence will track some 200,000 space objects (debris and satellites) objects in Low Earth Orbit, many of which have not been tracked before. Air Force officials for a number of years have been warning that the Space Fence data may well overwhelm the current system with false collision warnings.

So there you have the crux of the issue, JMS didn’t work. They need to hammer out clear requirements and quickly develop Space C2 software and related systems to ensure the program doesn’t get bogged down in the problems that killed all preceding efforts dating back to the 1990s. Cross your fingers.