Guetlein AFA

Space Force Lt. Gen. Michael A. Guetlein, Space Systems Command commander. (U.S. Space Force/Luke Kitterman)

WASHINGTON: There is an aphorism among political pros that process often equals policy. If true, it goes some way toward explaining the inherent Defense Department difficulties in space acquisition reform, given not just the legal and regulatory complexities, but also the byzantine and often opaque Pentagon bureaucracy involved.

At the heart of all things military space acquisition is the Space Force’s Space Systems Command (SSC), led by Lt. Gen. Michael Guetlein. In March, Guetlein signed off on a reorganization of the command. It was the third revamp of that longstanding organization, headquartered in Los Angeles, since 2019.

“The purpose of standing up SSC as a Field Command was to refocus the command on delivering integrated and networked space capabilities to our National Decision Makers and to the Combatant Commands that can be guaranteed to be there during a time of crisis or conflict,” Guetlein told Breaking Defense in an email recently.

His team, he added, is “laser focused at getting after the threat” and “committed to providing space capabilities … on-time and within budget.”

It’s a task that may be more difficult than it sounds. In recent weeks, senior command officials have begun to publicly discuss the details of how SSC functions — including providing a brief on the official organization chart. The devil is in those details, which reveal the complexity of a system that straddles two chains of command, gives budgetary authority over nearly $72 billion to colonels but not to their commanding general, and involves several different organizations responsible for coordinating the various moving parts.

Further, space acquisition remains a congressional chew toy and a source of frustration to military commanders who want new, improved systems yesterday.

The Senate Armed Services Committee, in its draft of the fiscal 2023 National Defense Authorization Act released July 18, is the latest group of lawmakers to raise concerns about space acquisition — fretting that the recent Pentagon shuffles haven’t sufficiently consolidated bureaucratic fiefdoms, and asking for a review by the Defense Business Board and the Defense Innovation Board.

But as much as lawmakers have complained, former Defense Department space policy czar Doug Loverro said much of the headache is of their own making.

“A lot of this mess was created by Congress as they built the Space Force Organizational and Acquisition Structure one stone at a time from 2016 to 2021, without a blueprint, and not all the pieces fit,” Loverro told Breaking Defense in an email Monday.

To get a grip on how Space Force acquisition works, it is important right off the bat to understand that SSC and Guetlein himself essentially have two different chains of command and two different functionalities. And in neither of them does he have control of spending — that is the job of newly appointed, and first ever, Air Force Assistant Secretary for Acquisition and Integration (SAF/SQ) Frank Calvelli. From there, it gets much, much more complicated. Don’t worry, there are charts to help.

Military Service Chain: Power Without Money

First, the Space Force as a military service is responsible for organizing, training and equipping forces for Space Command (SPACECOM), which as a combatant command is charged with actual military operations in peace and war. SPACECOM, not the Space Force, thus holds the legal authority for setting military requirements based on the capability needs of space operators. (How those requirements get to the Space Force for implementation is another complex topic altogether.)

Under this military chain of command, SSC’s Guetlein reports to Chief of Space Operations Gen. Jay Raymond (see right side of chart below, in black). Guetlein manages five offices responsible for translating SPACECOM’s requirements into plans for developing and buying space systems. The offices are organized around mission areas: space sensing; communications and positioning, navigation and timing (Comm &PNT); space domain awareness and combat power; battle management, command, control and communications (BMC3); and assured access to space, i.e. launch.

Another five offices provide functional support. Among these are the Commercial Services Office, formerly of the Defense Information Systems Agency and, later, the Air Force’s Space Command. Also included are the international affairs office that manages force planning with allies and the new Warfighter Integration Office that links back to SPACECOM.

SSC Org Chart

Space Systems Command organization chart (Space Force)

Guetlein also has an indirect coordination line to Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), which is charged with space-related science and technology and has spending power of its own.

But as a military service the Space Force by law actually has no direct access to the cash register, and therefore neither does Guetlein.

On The ‘Civilian’ Side, Follow The Money… To The Air Force

The money, and thus the authority to say yes or no to billions of dollars in spending — some $24.5 billion in the fiscal 2023 budget request that is likely to be approved in full by Congress — actually lies with the Department of the Air Force, which manages the Space Force. According to SSC’s website, the total space spending portfolio including investment and operations and maintenance is currently $71.81 billion.

Under that reporting chain (see left side of chart above, in blue), Guetlein wears another hat — that of Space System of Systems Integrator — and advises Calvelli, the first civilian acquisition executive focused solely on space. Calvelli took up his position, created under a congressional mandate, in May and reports directly to Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall, who himself is known as a hands-on acquisition manager.

In an email to Breaking Defense this week, Calvelli defined his role simply: “Now that I am confirmed and in position, there is a single leader in charge of space acquisition with a clear focus on delivering programs on cost and schedule, and improving our execution speed.”

Calvelli, who has his own staff separate from SSC, has the authority to approve spending plans for individual Space Force programs. He delegates that authority to five “Program Executive Officers (PEOs)” who each manage a basket of programs, pay contractors and keep the accounting books.

While Guetlein has no acquisition authority under this chain either, his job is to ensure that all the PEOs are working together seamlessly, according to Joy White, SSC executive director, who described the organization in a July 7 webinar sponsored by the National Security Space Association.

Guetlein “has the role of advising Mr. Calvelli on integration of the entire space enterprise,” she said.

In practice, this means Guetlein is herding the five PEOs reporting to Calvelli that do have spending power. The really confusing part is that those five offices mirror the five mission areas of responsibility under the military command chain, and the PEOs themselves are the same people — with the difference being that when they are wearing their PEO hats, they can pay the bills.

For example, Col. Brian Denaro, head of space sensing, is subordinate to Guetlein in the military chain. In the civilian chain, as PEO for space sensing, he technically is lateral in the organizational chart to Guetlein and subordinate to Calvelli. (Amusingly, this structure also results in an org chart, see above, showing Guetlein reporting under his military-side hat back to himself on the acquisition side.)

The March revamp of SSC was aimed at creating an “efficient and effective space acquisition organization,” Guetlein said. “The traditional PEO and Center construct was focused on delivering systems and not on end-to-end capabilities.”

White explained that PEOs now have more flexibility to determine what acquisition pathway a program uses.

“The key difference there is that those PEOs are responsible for delivering that capability in whatever manner is most effective and efficient,” she said. “So, it doesn’t necessarily mean purpose-built, custom capabilities. If the commercial market can deliver it, then they can go tap into the commercial market. If our allied partners can do it, they can tap into them.”

Besides the five PEOs, the semi-independent Space Rapid Capabilities Office also has acquisition authority and reports to Calvelli; as will the Space Development Agency come October. Further, floating apart in the space acquisition universe is SpaceWERX, the space innovation arm under AFRL, that has a tiny budget but can give monetary awards to startups pioneering exciting new tech.

The Key To Success: Integration

SSC universe chart

The SSC universe. (Chart: Space Force)

At the middle of the new SSC organization is a new office, called the Space Systems Integration Office (SSIO) directed by Claire Leon. That office is critical, White said, because it also functions as the S8, charged with developing the Space Force’s five-year budget plan known as the Program Objective Memorandum, or POM. This is the office that helps to sync the money side with the planning side, and to try to align program plans with future funding needs.

Leon is “tasked with ensuring that we’re building an architecture that is integrated across all of the different program elements, all of the different different mission capabilities,” White said. This includes helping to set budget priorities because there’s “not enough dollars to do it all now.”

Leon, in a July 14 NSSA webinar, explained that SSIO “serves as a support function” to Guetlein and Calvelli. “My office is really the office that is doing the background work,” she said.

space acquisition circle chart

The Space Force space acquisitions decision circle.

But Leon’s shop also serves officials beyond Space Force as the secretariat for the Program Integration Council (PIC, see above chart) that Guetlein currently chairs. The PIC was created to coordinate DoD space agency budgeting at the senior level — that is, including not only Space Force organizations but also those such as the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) that report to DoD’s acquisition czar Bill LaPlante — to avoid overlaps and duplication. It includes representatives from an alphabet soup of organizations: SSC, SDA, Space RCO, MDA, the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), and the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office (RCO, which reports to the Air Force acquisition head Andrew Hunter).

The PIC meets every month, and, completing the space acquisition circle, feeds into another group, the congressionally mandated Space Acquisition Council, this one chaired by Calvelli. By law, that council is to “oversee, direct, and manage acquisition and integration space systems and programs of the armed forces in order to ensure integration across the national security space enterprise.” Its members are Air Force Undersecretary Gina Ortiz Jones, DoD Assistant Secretary for Space Policy John Plumb, NRO Director Chris Scolese, SPACECOM Commander Gen. Jim Dickinson, Raymond and Calvelli.

In an email to Breaking Defense, an SSC spokesperson laid out how this all works, from identifying a need to establishing a Program of Record:

“Through force design, the [SWAC] leads the analysis in determining the ‘what we need’, while the U.S. Space Force Strategy and Resourcing Office (USSF/SRO) oversees the translation of ‘what we need’ into actual warfighting requirements that need to be met. After the requirements have been established, the SSC Space Systems Integration Office, as the Program Integration Council (PIC) Secretariat, brings the PIC together to make a recommendation to the Acquisition Authorities (SAE, RCO Board of Directors, Directors of the NRO and MDA, etc.) that best achieves the requirements to include making recommendations to pursue Allied or Commercial capabilities. In the end, the Acquisition Authorities have the final decision making authority to determine ‘how’ best to acquire ‘what we need’.”

Holding Steady, But Seeking Efficiency

For his part, Calvelli has made it clear he is not planning yet another SSC reorganization — although insiders say he has been polling his own staff and SSC leaders for suggestions about how to improve current processes.

“I am extremely impressed with the portfolio of acquisition programs that Space Systems Command (SSC), the Space Development Agency (SDA), and the Space Rapid Capabilities Office (SpRCO) are developing,” Calvelli told Breaking Defense in an email Monday.

Neither is he planning to fully merge SSC with the other acquisition shops under his purview.

“My goal as the Space Acquisition Executive is to deliver these new capabilities on cost and on schedule in order to get them into the hands of our warfighters, add resiliency to our architecture, and define the next set of program activities to execute,” Cavelli explained. “SSC, Space RCO, and SDA each have unique strengths and in some cases unique authorities from Congress,” he said. “I intend to manage them as an integrated portfolio leveraging their strengths and authorities, and I do not intend any additional reorganizations at this time.”

Note that he mentioned previous congressional decisions, which created both Space RCO and SDA as independent bodies in the first place. This makes his wiggle room for change somewhat constrained. It also sheds a wee bit of light on the fact that Congress itself holds some of the responsibility (some would say blame) for the tangled space acquisition web of today.

And the job of untangling is all the more pressing as America’s adversaries venture all the more into the largest operational domain.

“We still have not cracked the code on how to move fast in acquisition,” John Hyten, who recently retired as Joint Chiefs of Staff vice chair, said July 11 at the America’s Future Space Innovation Summit, despite the fact that threats from adversaries are “here” and “real.”