Space Force Expects SDA, MDA Decisions Next Year

WASHINGTON: Whether to Integrate the acquisition functions of the Space Development Agency and the Missile Defense Agency with those of the Space Force could be decided as soon as next year, says Space Force Vice Commander Lt. Gen. David Thompson.

“This isn’t just a matter of acquisition process,” he told a Space News webinar yesterday, noting the upcoming recommendations to Congress in the Air Force’s (now almost a month overdue) report on space acquisition “that will help to streamline that make the lines of authority clear and make sure we can be more effective across all of those organizations.” He explained that there is also an organizational question regarding current acquisition entities as the Space Force stands up.

“It is our responsibility through Secretary [Barbara] Barrett, and through Gen. [Jay] Raymond, chief of Space Operations, to bring forward to the Secretary of Defense and others our proposal for how the acquisition functions and organizations that perform space related acquisition in the Department of Defense should be aligned and organized, under what authorities and how they should operate,” he said.

As Breaking D readers know, DoD officials are internally discussing  whether MDA’s space acquisition authorities — or MDA as a whole — should move to the Space Force once the congressionally-mandated  space acquisition secretary is created in 2022.

And while Thompson did not directly address the future of the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), which designs, builds and operates US spy satellites, the long-running “black-white space” battle has also been re-inflamed. 

“[W]e are definitely engaged in the process of developing that structure, that proposal for what the organization should look like, how it should work together, where the organizations need to be integrated, where they need to work independently — I’ll call it the lanes in the road — among all of them as part of the design work we’re doing for the next phase of implementation,” he added.

Current efforts, which will be reflected in the Air Force’s overdue report to Congress on the organization of acquisition authorities for space, Thompson stressed, are focused only on integrating those entities that already fall under the Space Force — Space and Missile Systems Center (SMC) at Los Angeles AFB, and the Space Rapid Capabilities Office (SRCO), headquartered at Kirtland AFB.

Those recommendations, along with proposals for what Thompson called “a bold and groundbreaking approach” to streamlining the often-glacial process of acquiring new satellite systems, will be included in the Air Force report to Congress, which was mandated in the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

That report will punt on the central question of how to organize the new space acquisition executive — as required by the 2020 NDAA to be a Senate-confirmed, independent post — within the Air Force’s acquisition chain, currently led by Will Roper (who has opposed a complete separation of space and air acquisition). Instead, it will contain 10 recommendations for changes in how DoD buys space systems.

Decisions about how to integrate space acquisition entities outside the Space Force will come in a next phase of deliberations, Thompson said.

“[W]ith respect to Space Development Agency, Missile Defense Agency and some of those others, you might anticipate things happening as soon as next year in that regard,” he explained. “That requires a little more time and effort for coordination and approval through, in some cases, the Department of Defense and others. Some may require congressional support.”