Shawn Barnes

WASHINGTON: The Air Force has reorganized its space acquisition office into three new directorates, but the critical (and controversial) question of whether a new, independent Space Force assistant secretary post will be established remains unanswered, says Shawn Barnes, who currently serves as the Air Force’s de facto space acquisition lead.

Barnes told reporters this morning the reorganization of his current office — which was set in motion under the Trump administration — was given a green light earlier this month.

“Just recently, in early January, I was provided direction by our leadership to go ahead and execute the initial plans that I had put in place to reorganize the office,” he said. “So we have gone from an organization that was largely focused on policy and providing advice and counsel to the secretary, to one that is now focused on, or will be focused on, acquisition, architecture, and policy and integration.”

Barnes — who, as a member of the Senior Executive Service formally is “performing the duties of assistant secretary of the Air Force for space acquisition and integration rather than as the political appointment of ‘acting ASD’ — said a new directorate headed by an Air Force colonel has been created for each of those focus areas.

“And then, underlying those three key directorates of architecture, acquisition and policy and integration, I have a number of subject matter experts that effectively work for all three of those directorates,” he elaborated. “They’re set up into different teams based on mission areas, and so we have a mission area related to precision, navigation, and timing; we have a, a team that is focused on space control, [and] a team that is focused on launch and space logistics.”

The reorganization reflects the mission priorities for DoD space acquisition, at least for the moment. But those priorities could change with the new administration. It may help get ducks in a row to support whoever the new Air Force secretary will be.

“We’re prepared, the moment that a secretary is nominated, to begin to to support his or her confirmation process, and then once that is complete to then give them the next level of detail on the sorts of things they would need to know in their position,” Barnes explained.

“First of all, I will certainly leave it up to that individual to be able to determine their priorities. But I think it’s going to be largely focused initially on ensuring that the organization is postured to accept, and be able to execute, the service acquisition executive responsibilities. We see that as a no-fail mission. I can’t have that transfer from SAF AQ to SAF SP and drop the ball. And so, that, I think, will be probably one of the top priorities of the incoming assistant secretary.”

But the question about who ultimately will be in charge of making decisions about what the Space Force buys, via what acquisition organizations — i.e., the Space and Missile Systems Center (SMC), the traditional organization for big space acquisitions; the Space Rapid Capabilities Office (SpRCO) or the Space Development Agency — will now fall to new the incoming Air Force secretary, DoD Secretary Lloyd Austin and the Biden White House.

Indeed, Barnes demurred from saying when the Air Force’s long-overdue report to Congress about a new Space Force ASD for space acquisition and integration equivalent to Roper’s old post would finally emerge. That report, drafted last May and including a number of proposed reforms to increase flexibility for space acquisitions, remains stuck at the Office of Management and Budget where it has been languishing for almost a year.

The requirement to create the new position, included in the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), doesn’t actually kick in until October 2022, Barnes stressed. Therefore the legal acquisition executive authority remains with the office of the Air Force assistant secretary for acquisition and integration, just vacated by Will Roper.

“We do not currently have authority or responsibility to oversee the acquisition programs,” Barnes said. “That remains with SAF AQ, and so we’re working very closely with SAF AQ to determine what sorts of capability and capacity that this office will need in terms of people, in terms of facilities and networks and clearances, and all those kinds of things, so that we can do that service acquisition executive job.”

Instead, Barnes said the current focus is on the space contribution to DoD’s overarching  Adaptive Acquisition Framework. That effort, announced by former DoD acquisition czar Ellen Lord in December 2019, essentially rewrote the notoriously cumbersome Pentagon regulations known as DoD 5000, in order to open alternate legal paths for DoD acquisition programs depending on their needs.

“I think at this point we’re focused on working on the Adaptive Acquisition Framework and and ensuring that the kinds of priorities that we had before, will continue to feed into that,” he said. The idea is to integrate into the framework some of the reforms laid out in the May draft report to the Hill, which posited nine separate changes in how space programs are developed and bought. Barnes explained that while not all the changes in the May report are pertinent — for example, the proposal to streamline the requirements process — but that those touching on acquisition will be fed into the Adaptive Acquisition Framework.